Composition “The Silver Age as a cultural and historical era. Coexistence of different ideological and aesthetic concepts
Russian culture of the late XIX - early XX centuries. received the name of the Silver Age (term N. A. Berdyaev). During this period, two different cultural streams met: on the one hand, traditions dating back to the 19th century prevailed, on the other hand, a tendency to search for non-traditional forms appeared.
Characteristic of this era was the fact that schools that departed from socio-political themes in art were often considered as representatives of the opposition (A. Blok and A. Bely, M. Vrubel, V. Meyerhold). Those who consciously continued the classical traditions were seen as spokesmen for general democratic ideas.
At the turn of the century, many art associations arose in Russia: the World of Art, the Union of Russian Artists, etc. The so-called artistic colonies appeared - Abramtsevo and Talashkino, which gathered painters, architects, and musicians under one roof. In architecture, the Art Nouveau style is being promoted. A characteristic feature of the culture of the early 20th century was the emergence and rapid spread of urban mass culture. The most striking example of this phenomenon was the unprecedented success of a new kind of spectacle - cinema.
2. Education and science
The growth of the industry created a demand for educated people. However, the level of education has changed slightly: the 1897 census recorded 21 literate people per 100 inhabitants of the empire, and in the Baltic and Central Asia, among women and in the village, this level was lower. Government appropriations for the school increased from 1902 to 1912. more than 2 times. Since the beginning of the century, the question of compulsory primary education has been raised (it was adopted at the legislative level in 1908). After the revolution of 1905–1907 there was a certain democratization of higher education: the elections of deans and rectors were allowed, student organizations began to form.
The number of secondary and higher educational institutions grew rapidly: by 1914 there were more than 200 of them. Saratov University was founded (1909). In total, by 1914 there were about 100 universities in the country with 130 thousand students.
In general, the education system did not meet the needs of the country. There was no continuity between the various levels of education.
in the humanities at the beginning of the 20th century. an important turning point occurs. Scientific societies began to unite not only the scientific elite, but also amateurs, everyone who wants to engage in research activities. The most famous were:
1) geographical;
2) historical;
3) archaeological and other societies.
The development of natural science took place in close contact with world science.
The most striking phenomenon is the emergence of Russian religious and philosophical thought, an attribute of Russian philosophy.
Russian historical school at the beginning of the 20th century. won worldwide recognition. The studies of A. A. Shakhmatov on the history of Russian chronicle writing, V. Klyuchevsky (pre-Petrine period of Russian history) have become widely known in the world. Achievements in historical science are also associated with names:
1) P. N. Milyukov;
2) N. P. Pavlov-Silvansky;
3) A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky and others.
The modernization of the country also required a fresh influx of forces into the sphere of natural sciences. New technical institutes were opened in Russia. World-class scientists were physicist P. N. Lebedev, mathematicians and mechanics N. E. Zhukovsky and S. A. Chaplygin, chemists N. D. Zelinsky and I. A. Kablukov. Moscow and St. Petersburg have become recognized scientific capitals of the world.
At the beginning of the century, the geographical "discovery" of Russia was still going on. Huge unexplored expanses encouraged scientists and travelers to make risky expeditions. The travels of V. A. Obruchev, G. Ya. Sedov, A. V. Kolchak gained wide popularity.
Among the famous scientists of this time is V. I. Vernadsky(1863-1945) - encyclopedist, one of the founders of geochemistry, the doctrine of the biosphere, which later formed the basis of his idea of the noosphere, or the sphere of the planetary mind. In 1903, the work of the creator of the theory of rocket propulsion was published K. E. Tsiolkovsky(1875–1935). The work was significant N. E. Zhukovsky(1847–1921) and I. I. Sikorsky(1889–1972) in aircraft construction, I. P. Pavlova, I. M. Sechenova and etc.
3. Literature. Theater. Cinema
The development of literature went in line with the traditions of Russian classical literature of the 19th century, the living personification of which was L. N. Tolstoy. Russian literature of the beginning of the 20th century. represented by the names of A. P. Chekhov, M. Gorky, V. G. Korolenko, A. N. Kuprin, I. A. Bunin, etc.
Early 20th century was the heyday of Russian poetry. New trends were born: acmeism (A. A. Akhmatova, N. S. Gumilyov), symbolism (A. A. Blok, K. D. Balmont, A. Bely, V. Ya. Bryusov), futurism (V. V. Khlebnikov, V. V. Mayakovsky) and others.
This period was characterized by such features as:
1) modernist thinking of the creators of culture;
2) strong influence of abstractionism;
3) patronage.
The periodical press has acquired great importance in the life of Russian society. The release (1905) of the press from preliminary censorship contributed to an increase in the number of newspapers (at the end of the 19th century - 105 daily newspapers, in 1912 - 1131 newspapers in 24 languages), and an increase in their circulation. The largest publishing houses - I. D. Sytin, A. S. Suvorin, "Knowledge" - produced cheap editions. Each political movement had its own press organs.
The theatrical life was also rich, where the Bolshoi (Moscow) and Mariinsky (Petersburg) theaters occupied the leading positions. In 1898, K. S. Stanislavsky and V. N. Nemirovich-Danchenko founded the Moscow Art Theater (originally the Moscow Art Theater), on the stage of which plays by Chekhov, Gorky and others were staged.
At the beginning of the XX century. the attention of the musical community was drawn to the work of such talented Russian composers as:
1) A. N. Skryabin;
2) N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov;
3) S.V. Rachmaninov;
4) I. F. Stravinsky.
Particularly popular among various segments of the urban population was the one that appeared at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. cinema; in 1908 the first Russian feature film "Stenka Razin" was released. By 1914 over 300 paintings had been produced in the country.
4. Painting
In the visual arts, there was a realistic trend - I. E. Repin, the Association of Traveling Exhibitions - and avant-garde trends. One of the trends was an appeal to the search for national original beauty - the works of M. V. Nesterov, N. K. Roerich and others. Russian impressionism is represented by the works of V. A. Serov, I. E. Grabar (Union of Russian Artists), K. A Korovina, P. V. Kuznetsova (“Golubayaroza”) and others.
In the first decades of the XX century. artists united to arrange joint exhibitions: 1910 - the exhibition "Jack of Diamonds" - P. P. Konchalovsky, I. I. Mashkov, R. R. Falk, A. V. Lentulov, D. D. Burliuk and others. famous artists of this period - K. S. Malevich, M. 3. Chagall, V. E. Tatlin. A major role in the development of artists had contacts with Western art, a kind of "pilgrimage to Paris".
A significant role in the development of Russian art was played by the artistic direction "World of Art", which arose at the end of the 19th century. In Petersburg. In 1897–1898 S. Diaghilev organized and held three exhibitions in Moscow and, having provided financial support, created in December 1899 the magazine "World of Art", which gave the name to the movement.
The World of Art opened Finnish and Scandinavian paintings and English artists to the Russian public. As an integral literary and artistic association, the World of Art existed until 1904. The resumption of the group in 1910 could no longer return its former role. The artists A. N. Benois, K. A. Somov, E. E. Lansere, M. V. Dobuzhinsky, L. S. Bakst and others united around the magazine. , theater directors and decorators, writers.
Early works M. V. Nesterova(1862–1942), who considered himself a student of V. G. Perov and V. E. Makovsky, are made on historical subjects in a realistic manner. Nesterov's central work is The Vision of the Young Bartholomew (1889–1890).
K. A. Korovina(1861–1939) is often referred to as a "Russian Impressionist". Indeed, of all Russian artists of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. he most fully mastered some of the principles of this direction - a joyful perception of life, the desire to convey fleeting sensations, a subtle play of light and color. A large place in the work of Korovin was occupied by the landscape. The artist also painted Parisian boulevards (“Paris. Capuchin Boulevard”, 1906), spectacular sea views, and Central Russian nature. Korovin worked a lot for the theater, designed performances.
Art V. A. Serova(1865–1911) is difficult to attribute to a specific direction. In his work there is a place for both realism and impressionism. Most of all, Serov became famous as a portrait painter, but he was also an excellent landscape painter. Since 1899, Serov took part in exhibitions of the association "World of Art". Under their influence, Serov became interested in the historical theme (the era of Peter I). In 1907, he went on a trip to Greece (paintings "Odysseus and Nausicaa", "The Abduction of Europe", both 1910).
The great Russian artist is widely known M. A. Vrubel(1856–1910). The originality of his pictorial manner consisted in the endless crushing of the form on the verge. M. A. Vrubel is the author of tiled fireplaces with Russian heroes, benches with mermaids, sculptures (“Sadko”, “Snow Maiden”, “Berendey”, etc.).
A native of Saratov V. E. Borisov-Musatov(1870–1905) worked a lot in the open air (in nature). In his sketches, he tried to capture the play of air and color. In 1897, he painted the Agave sketch, and a year later, Self-Portrait with Sister appeared. His characters are not specific people, the author himself invented them and dressed them in camisoles, white wigs, dresses with crinolines. The paintings reveal a poetic, idealized world of old quiet "noble nests", far from the general confusion of the modern critical era.
5. Architecture and sculpture
In architecture, a new style has spread - modern with its characteristic desire to emphasize the purpose of residential and public buildings. He made extensive use of:
1) frescoes;
2) mosaic;
3) stained-glass windows;
4) ceramics;
5) sculpture;
6) new designs and materials.
Architect F. O. Shekhtel(1859–1926) became a singer of the Art Nouveau style, the flourishing of the architecture of this style in Russia is associated with his name. During his creative life, he built an extraordinary amount: city mansions and summer cottages, multi-storey residential buildings, commercial and industrial buildings, banks, printing houses and even baths. In addition, the master designed theatrical performances, illustrated books, painted icons, designed furniture, and created church utensils. In 1902–1904 F. O. Shekhtel rebuilt the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow. The facade was decorated with ceramic panels made in the Bramtsevo workshop, the interior - with paintings by Konstantin Korovin.
In the 1st decade of the 20th century, during the heyday of Art Nouveau, interest in the classics began to revive in architecture. Many craftsmen used elements of the classical order and decor. So there was a special stylistic direction - neoclassicism.
At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. a new generation of sculptors was formed who opposed the realistic direction. Now preference was given not to careful detailing of the form, but to artistic generalization. Even the attitude towards the surface of the sculpture, on which fingerprints or stacks of the master were preserved, has changed. Interested in the characteristics of the material, they often preferred wood, natural stone, clay and even plasticine. Particularly prominent here A. S. Golubkina(1864–1927) and S. T. Konenkov, who became world famous sculptors.
Chelyabinsk State Academy of Culture and Arts
Department of History
SILVER AGE OF RUSSIAN CULTURE
Chelyabinsk 2011
Introduction
1 The concept of "Silver Age"
2 Russian culture at the turn of the century
Chapter 3 Science
2 Humanities
Chapter 4. Philosophy
Chapter 5. Literature
1 Realistic direction
2 Russian modernism
3 Symbolism
4 Acmeism
5 Futurism
Chapter 6
2 Other theaters in Russia
Chapter 7. Ballet
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11 Architecture
Chapter 12. Sculpture
Chapter 13
Conclusion
Introduction
The work of the poets of the Silver Age has always attracted my attention. Getting acquainted with the works of brilliant creators of this era, I became interested in how art developed in addition to literature at such a difficult, critical moment in history. In order to study this issue in as much detail as possible, a research work was carried out on the topic “The Silver Age of Russian Culture”.
To better understand the art created during the Silver Age, it is necessary to know the historical background for the creation of great works. This is the significance of studying this topic. Based on the analysis of historical literature, one can determine the aspirations of artists of that time. Their work is still relevant. The poetry of the Silver Age touched on eternal themes that excite modern readers. Elements of the architectural style "modern" find their echoes in modern design. The cinema that is so beloved now was born precisely at the beginning of the 20th century. The discoveries made during that period served as the basis for the development of modern sciences. All this suggests that interest in the art of the Silver Age has not yet been lost.
The "Join of the Ages" turned out to be a favorable basis for the period called the "Silver Age" of Russian culture. The "century" did not last long - about twenty years, but it gave the world wonderful examples of philosophical thought, demonstrated the life and melody of poetry, resurrected the ancient Russian icon, gave impetus to new areas of painting, music, and theatrical art. The Silver Age became the time of the formation of the Russian avant-garde.
The period of "transitional" cultures is always dramatic, and the relationship between the traditional, classical culture of the past is always complex and contradictory - familiar, familiar, but no longer arousing much interest, and the emerging culture of a new type, so new that its manifestations are incomprehensible and sometimes cause a negative reaction. . This is natural: in the minds, the change of types of cultures occurs quite painfully. The complexity of the situation is largely determined by the change in value orientations, ideals of the norms of spiritual culture. The old values have fulfilled their function, played their roles, there are no new values yet. They just add up and the stage remains empty.
In Russia, the difficulty lay in the fact that public consciousness took shape under conditions that made the situation even more dramatic. Post-reform Russia was moving to new forms of economic relations. Traditional ties are torn, the process of marginalization captures more and more people. The Russian intelligentsia turned out to be almost helpless in the face of the new demands of political development: a multi-party system inevitably developed, and real practice was far ahead of the theoretical understanding of the principles of the new political culture. Russian culture as a whole is losing one of the fundamental principles of its existence - the feeling of unity of a person with another person and a social group.
In 1894, Emperor Nicholas II ascended the throne, who announced his intention to follow the conservative course of his father, Alexander III, and called on the public to abandon meaningless dreams on the expansion of the rights of local governments and the introduction of any forms of popular representation. Early 20th century was marked by the rise of the mass workers' and peasants' movement. The aggravation of socio-political contradictions in Russia was aggravated by the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. By the end of 1904, the country was on the verge of revolution.
Old noble Russia was hopelessly dilapidated. The ancient building was about to collapse. Those who are not lucky will die under the rubble, those who are lucky will remain homeless. Many have felt this. And this feeling penetrated into all aspects of the spiritual life of Russia - from science to religion.
People who retained a simple and clear worldview of the 19th century (primarily socialists, as well as extreme conservatives) did not understand this mood, they branded it as “decadent” (decadent). But, strangely enough, it was this mood that prompted a new rise in Russian culture at the beginning of the century. And another paradox: in the achievements of the culture of the early XX century. the smallest contribution was made by those “optimists” who exposed the “decadents”.
The Silver Age occupies a very special place in Russian culture. This contradictory time of spiritual searches and wanderings significantly enriched all kinds of arts and philosophy and gave rise to a whole galaxy of outstanding creative personalities. On the threshold of a new century, the deep foundations of life began to change, giving rise to the collapse of the old picture of the world. The traditional regulators of existence - religion, morality, law - could not cope with their functions, and the age of modernity was born.
However, it is sometimes said that the Silver Age is a Westernizing phenomenon. Indeed, he chose as his guidelines the aestheticism of Oscar Wilde, the individualistic spiritualism of Alfred de Vigny, the pessimism of Schopenhauer, the superman of Nietzsche. The Silver Age found its ancestors and allies in various countries of Europe and in different centuries: Villon, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Novalis, Shelley, Calderon, Ibsen, Maeterlinck, d'Annuzio, Gauthier, Baudelaire, Verharne.
In other words, at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries there was a reassessment of values from the standpoint of Europeanism. But in the light of the new era, which was the exact opposite of the one that it replaced, the national, literary and folklore treasures appeared in a different, brighter than ever light. Truly, it was the most creative era in Russian history, a canvas of greatness and impending troubles of holy Russia.
This period in the development of Russian culture is associated with an upsurge in all spheres of the spiritual life of Russian society: hence the term "spiritual renaissance". The revival of the best traditions of Russian culture in the widest range: from science, philosophical thought, literature, painting, music and ending with the art of theater, architecture, arts and crafts.
How did culture reach such heights in its development at the most critical, most critical and most terrible moment in the history of Russia? The answer to this question is the aim of the work. Based on the goal, the research objectives were defined:
.Study the historical literature on the topic
2.Analyze the information received in terms of the question posed
.Having critically comprehended the material, develop your own view of the problem
.Draw appropriate conclusions based on the study.
.Answer the question posed at the beginning of the study
Chapter 1. The Silver Age of Russian Culture
1 The concept of "Silver Age"
Early 20th century - a turning point not only in the political and socio-economic life of Russia, but also in the spiritual state of society. The industrial era dictated its own conditions and norms of life, destroying the traditional values and ideas of people. The aggressive onslaught of production led to a violation of the harmony between nature and man, to the smoothing of human individuality, to the triumph of standardization of all aspects of life. This gave rise to confusion, a disturbing sense of impending disaster. All the ideas of good and evil, truth and falsehood, beauty and ugliness that previous generations had suffered through, now seemed untenable and required an urgent and radical revision.
The processes of rethinking the fundamental problems of mankind have affected, to one degree or another, philosophy, science, literature, and art. And although such a situation was typical not only for our country, in Russia spiritual quests were more painful, more piercing than in the countries of Western civilization. The flowering of culture during this period was unprecedented. It covered all types of creative activity, gave rise to outstanding works of art and scientific discoveries, new areas of creative research, opened a galaxy of brilliant names that have become the pride of not only Russian, but also world culture, science and technology. This socio-cultural phenomenon went down in history under the name of the Silver Age of Russian culture. For the first time this name was proposed by the philosopher N. Berdyaev, who saw in the highest achievements of the culture of his contemporaries a reflection of the Russian glory of the previous "golden" eras, but this phrase finally entered the literary circulation in the 60s of the last century.
1.2 Russian culture at the turn of the century
russian culture silver age
Russian culture of the late XIX - early XX centuries is a complex and controversial period in the development of Russian society. The culture of the turn of the century always contains elements of a transitional era, which includes the traditions of the culture of the past and the innovative tendencies of a new emerging culture. There is a transfer of traditions and not just a transfer, but the emergence of new ones. All this is connected with the turbulent process of searching for new ways of developing culture, and is being corrected by the social development of the given time. The turn of the century in Russia is a period of major changes brewing: a change in the state system, a change from the classical culture of the 19th century to the new culture of the 20th century. The search for new ways of developing Russian culture is associated with the assimilation of progressive trends in Western culture. The diversity of directions and schools is a feature of Russian culture at the turn of the century. Western trends are intertwined and complemented by modern ones, filled with specifically Russian content. A feature of the culture of this period is its orientation towards the philosophical understanding of life, the need to build a holistic picture of the world, where art, along with science, plays a huge role. The focus of Russian culture of the late 19th - early 20th centuries was a person who becomes a kind of connecting link in the motley variety of schools and areas of science and art, on the one hand, and a kind of starting point for analyzing all the most diverse cultural artifacts, on the other. Hence the powerful philosophical foundation that underlies Russian culture at the turn of the century.
Chapter 2. Education and enlightenment
In 1897 the All-Russian population census was carried out. According to the census, in Russia the average literacy rate was 21.1%: for men - 29.3%, for women - 13.1%, about 1% of the population had higher and secondary education. In secondary school, in relation to the entire literate population, only 4% studied. At the turn of the century, the education system still included three levels: primary (parochial schools, public schools), secondary (classical gymnasiums, real and commercial schools) and higher education (universities, institutes).
In 1905, the Ministry of Public Education submitted a draft law "On the introduction of universal primary education in the Russian Empire" for consideration by the II State Duma, but this draft never received the force of law. But the growing need for specialists contributed to the development of higher, especially technical, education. In 1912, there were 16 higher technical educational institutions in Russia, in addition to private higher educational institutions. The university admitted persons of both sexes, regardless of nationality and political views. Therefore, the number of students increased markedly - from 14 thousand in the mid-90s to 35.3 thousand in 1907. Higher education for women also received further development, and in 1911 the right of women to higher education was legally recognized.
Simultaneously with Sunday schools, new types of cultural and educational institutions for adults began to operate - work courses, educational workers' societies and people's houses - original clubs with a library, an assembly hall, a tea shop and a trading shop.
The development of periodicals and book publishing had a great influence on education. In the 1860s, 7 daily newspapers were published and about 300 printing houses were operating. In the 1890s - 100 newspapers and about 1000 printing houses. And in 1913, 1263 newspapers and magazines were already published, and in the cities there were approximately 2 thousand bookstores.
In terms of the number of published books, Russia ranked third in the world after Germany and Japan. In 1913, 106.8 million copies of books were published in Russian alone. The largest book publishers A.S. Suvorin in St. Petersburg and I.D. Sytin in Moscow contributed to the familiarization of the people with literature, releasing books at affordable prices: Suvorin’s “cheap library” and Sytin’s “self-education library”.
The educational process was intense and successful, and the number of the reading public increased rapidly. This is evidenced by the fact that at the end of the XIX century. there were about 500 public libraries and about 3 thousand zemstvo folk reading rooms, and already in 1914 in Russia there were about 76 thousand different public libraries.
Chapter 3 Science
1 World contribution of Russian science
the century brings significant success in the development of domestic science: it claims to be equal to Western European, and sometimes even superior. It is impossible not to mention a number of works by Russian scientists that led to world-class achievements. DI. Mendeleev in 1869 discovered the periodic table of chemical elements. A.G. Stoletov in 1888-1889. establishes the laws of the photoelectric effect. In 1863, the work of I.M. Sechenov "Reflexes of the brain". K.A. Timiryazev founded the Russian school of plant physiology. P.N. Yablochkov creates an arc light bulb, A.N. Lodygin - an incandescent light bulb. A.S. Popov invents the radiotelegraph. A.F. Mozhaisky and N.E. Zhukovsky laid the foundations of aviation with his research in the field of aerodynamics, and K.E. Tsiolkovsky is known as the founder of astronautics. P.N. Lebedev is the founder of research in the field of ultrasound. I.I. Mechnikov explores the field of comparative pathology, microbiology and immunology. The foundations of the new sciences - biochemistry, biogeochemistry, radiogeology - were laid by V.I. Vernadsky. And this is not a complete list of people who have made an invaluable contribution to the development of science and technology. The significance of scientific foresight and a number of fundamental scientific problems posed by scientists at the beginning of the century is only now becoming clear.
2 Humanities
The humanities were greatly influenced by the processes taking place in the natural sciences. Scientists in the humanities, like V.O. Klyuchevsky, S.F. Platonov, S.A. Vengerov and others, fruitfully worked in the field of economics, history, and literary criticism. Idealism has become widespread in philosophy. Russian religious philosophy, with its search for ways to combine the material and the spiritual, the assertion of a "new" religious consciousness, was perhaps the most important area not only of science, ideological struggle, but of the whole culture.
The foundations of the religious and philosophical Renaissance, which marked the Silver Age of Russian culture, were laid by V.S. Solovyov. His system is an experience of the synthesis of religion, philosophy and science, and it is not the Christian doctrine that is enriched by him at the expense of philosophy, but vice versa: he introduces Christian ideas into philosophy and enriches and fertilizes philosophical thought with them. Possessing a brilliant literary talent, he made philosophical problems accessible to wide circles of Russian society, moreover, he brought Russian thought to the universal spaces.
Chapter 4. Philosophy
1 In search of a social ideal
Russia's entry into the new era was accompanied by a search for an ideology capable of not only explaining the changes that were taking place, but also outlining the prospects for the country's development. The most popular philosophical theory in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was Marxism. He bribed with his logic, apparent simplicity, and most importantly - versatility. In addition, Marxism had fertile ground in Russia in the face of the revolutionary tradition of the Russian intelligentsia and the originality of the Russian national character with its thirst for justice and equality, a penchant for messianism (belief in the coming of a savior, messiah).
However, part of the Russian intelligentsia very soon became disillusioned with Marxism, in its unconditional recognition of the primacy of material life over spiritual life. And after the revolution of 1905, the revolutionary principle of the reorganization of society was also revised.
2 Russian religious renaissance
The Russian religious revival of the early 20th century is represented by such philosophers and thinkers as N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, P.B. Struve, S.L. Frank, P.A. Florensky, S.N. and E.N. Trubetskoy. The first four, who are the central figures of God-seeking, went through a difficult path of spiritual evolution. They started out as Marxists, materialists and social democrats. By the beginning of the 20th century, they made a turn from Marxism and materialism to idealism, significantly limited the possibilities of a scientific explanation of the world and switched to liberalism. This was evidenced by their articles published in the collection Problems of Idealism (1902).
After the revolution of 1905-1907. their evolution was completed and they finally established themselves as religious thinkers. They expressed their new views in the collection Milestones (1909). S. Bulgakov became a priest.
The authors of the collection presented a cruel account of the Russian intelligentsia, accusing it of dogmatism, adherence to outdated philosophical teachings of the 19th century, ignorance of modern philosophy, nihilism, low legal awareness, isolation from the people, atheism, forgetting and slandering Russian history, etc. All these negative qualities, in their opinion, led to the fact that it was the Russian intelligentsia that was the main instigator of the revolution, which brought the country to the brink of a national catastrophe. The Vekhi people concluded that the ideas of revolutionary transformation in Russia had no prospects, that social progress in the country was possible only through gradual, evolutionary changes, which must begin with the development of new religious and moral ideals based on Christian teaching. Russian religious philosophers believed that the official Orthodox Church, which had become too tied to the autocratic state, could not assume the role of the savior of Russian souls.
The concept of the Russian religious revival was the fruit of understanding the centuries-old history of Russia and the West. In many ways, it became a continuation and development of Slavophilism. Therefore, it can be defined as a new Slavophilism. It was also the development of the ideas and views of N.V. Gogol, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy and V.S. Solovyov.
N.V. Gogol influenced the representatives of God-seeking primarily with his book "Selected passages from correspondence with friends", where he reflects on the historical fate of Russia and calls for Christian self-deepening and self-improvement. As for F. M. Dostoevsky, his very life was an instructive example for the supporters of religious revival. The passion for the revolution had tragic consequences for the writer, so he devoted his work to the search for Christian ways to human unity and brotherhood. In this he saw the peculiarity of the Russian way.
Many ideas, and especially the doctrine of non-violence by Leo Tolstoy, were also consonant with the views of representatives of the religious renaissance. The teaching of Vl. Solovyov about unity, about Sophia - the World Soul and Eternal Femininity, about the final victory of unity and goodness over enmity and disintegration form the common spiritual basis of Russian religious revival and Russian modernism - especially symbolism. It is Vl. Solovyov developed the concept of the revival of Russia on Christian foundations. He devoted his life to the tireless struggle against the hostile attitude of the intelligentsia towards the Church, for overcoming the gap between them, called for mutual reconciliation.
Developing the ideas of their predecessors, representatives of the religious revival are very critical of the Western path of development. In their opinion, the West gives a clear preference for civilization to the detriment of culture. He concentrated his efforts on the external arrangement of being, on the creation of railways and communications, comfort and conveniences of life. At the same time, the inner world, the human soul, fell into oblivion and desolation. Hence the triumph of atheism, rationalism and utilitarianism. It is these aspects, as the representatives of God-seeking note, that were adopted by the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia. In its struggle for the welfare and happiness of the people, its liberation, she chose radical means: revolution, violence, destruction and terror.
Supporters of the religious renaissance saw in the revolution of 1905-1907. a serious threat to the future of Russia, they perceived it as the beginning of a national catastrophe. Therefore, they turned to the radical intelligentsia with a call to renounce revolution and violence as a means of fighting for social justice, to abandon Western atheistic socialism and non-religious anarchism, to recognize the need to establish the religious and philosophical foundations of the worldview, to agree to reconciliation with the renewed Orthodox Church.
They saw the salvation of Russia in the restoration of Christianity as the foundation of all culture, in the revival and affirmation of the ideals and values of religious humanism. The path to solving the problems of social life for them lay through personal self-improvement and personal responsibility. Therefore, they considered the development of a doctrine of personality to be the main task. As the eternal ideals and values of man, representatives of God-seeking considered holiness, beauty, truth and goodness, understanding them in a religious and philosophical sense. God was the highest and absolute value.
For all its attractiveness, the concept of religious revival was not flawless and invulnerable. While rightly reproaching the revolutionary intelligentsia for its tilt towards the external, material conditions of life, the representatives of God-seeking went to the other extreme, proclaiming the unconditional primacy of the spiritual principle.
Forgetfulness of material interests made a person's path to his happiness no less problematic and utopian. As applied to Russia, the question of the socio-economic conditions of life was of exceptional acuteness. Meanwhile, the locomotive of the history of the Western type has long been on the territory of Russia. Picking up speed, he rushed through its vast expanses. To stop it or change its direction, huge efforts and significant changes in the structure of society were required.
The call for the rejection of revolution and violence needed support, in the counter movement from the official authorities and the ruling elite. Unfortunately, all the steps taken in this regard did not fully meet historical requirements. The authorities did not feel the urgent need for change, they showed unshakable conservatism, they wanted to preserve the Middle Ages at any cost.
In particular, Tsar Nicholas II, being a highly educated person who knew five foreign languages and had a delicate aesthetic taste, was at the same time a completely medieval person in his views. He was deeply and sincerely convinced that the social structure existing in Russia was the best and did not need any serious renovation. Hence the half-heartedness and inconsistency in the implementation of reforms. Hence the distrust of such reformers as S.Yu. Witte and P.A. Stolypin. The royal family focused its main attention on the problem of the health of the heir, for the solution of which they surrounded themselves with very dubious personalities like G. Rasputin. The outbreak of the First World War further aggravated the situation.
On the whole, it can be said that extreme radicalism was to a certain extent generated by extreme conservatism. At the same time, the social base of opposition to the existing state of affairs was very broad. The revolutionary version of resolving urgent problems and contradictions was shared not only by radical movements, but also by more moderate ones. Therefore, the appeal of the supporters of religious revival to embark on the Christian path of solving acute life issues did not find the desired support.
The release of the collection "Milestones" aroused great interest. It went through five editions in just one year. During the same time, more than 200 responses appeared in the press, five collections devoted to the discussion of the problems of "Vekhi" were published. However, the vast majority of reviews were negative. The new God-seekers were opposed not only by revolutionaries and the left opposition, but also by many right-wingers, including liberals. In particular, the leader of the Kadet party, P.N.
It should be noted that even in the Church-Orthodox circles there was no real and sufficiently wide counter movement. The Holy Synod at first supported the events held in 1901-1903. religious and philosophical meetings, and then banned them. The church was rather wary of many of the new ideas of the participants in the religious revival, doubted their sincerity, and considered criticism undeserved and painful.
In the course of meetings, a complete difference in the views of representatives of the secular and ecclesiastical worlds was often revealed, and some participants in the meetings only assured themselves of their mutual negative assessments. Thus, the reaction of contemporaries showed that the spokesmen for the religious and philosophical revival were far ahead of their time. However, their initiatives and appeals were not in vain. They contributed to the revival of spiritual life, increased the interest of the intelligentsia in the Church and Christianity.
Chapter 5. Literature
1 Realistic direction
Realistic trend in Russian literature at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. continued L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, who created his best works, the theme of which was the ideological search of the intelligentsia and the "little" man with his daily worries, and young writers I.A. Bunin and A.I. Kuprin.
In connection with the spread of neo-romanticism, new artistic qualities appeared in realism, reflecting reality. The best realistic works of A.M. Gorky reflected a broad picture of Russian life at the turn of the 20th century with its inherent peculiarity of economic development and ideological and social struggle.
The beginning of the revolutionary upsurge was marked by the desire to institutionalize the unity of realist writers. Created in 1899 in Moscow by N. Teleshov, the literary community Sreda became one of the centers of such rallying. Bunin, Serafimovich, Veresaev, Gorky, Andreev became members of the community. Meetings of Sreda were attended by Chekhov, Korolenko, Mamin-Sibiryak, Chaliapin, Levitan, Vasnetsov.
It is very important that in the culture of the beginning of the century the philosophical and ethical problem is extremely acute: what does a person need - a sweet lie or a harsh truth? It has long excited various thinkers and artists, and has been actively discussed in the last century. This theme sounds in the Gorky drama "At the Bottom" and forms a certain moral ideal of the time. The meaning of such an ideal is to find God in oneself, the inner self-improvement of the individual. The search for a new value orientation in the system of behavior, the priority of the personal principle, runs like a red thread through L. Tolstoy's "Resurrection" and A. Kuprin's "Duel".
At the beginning of the century, L. Andreev occupied a special place in the system of artistic culture. His philosophical criticism, turning from a criticism of the social situation into a criticism of being in general, is saturated with a kind of "cosmic pessimism". The growing notes of unbelief, despair and the related emergence in his work of elements of expressionism (fr. expression - expression, expressiveness) make L. Andreev related to the writers of Russian modernism (fr. modern - modern).
2 Russian modernism
Russian modernism became an important spiritual phenomenon of the Silver Age. It is part of the spiritual renaissance and embodies the Russian artistic revival. Like the religious renaissance, modernism set itself the task of reviving the self-worth and self-sufficiency of art, freeing it from a social, political or any other service role. He spoke out both against utilitarianism in the approach to art and against academicism, believing that in the first case, art dissolves into some non-artistic and non-aesthetic useful function: it must enlighten, educate, educate, inspire great deeds and deeds, and thereby justify their existence; in the second case, it ceases to be alive, loses its inner meaning.
From the point of view of modernism, art must move away from these two indicated extremes. It must be art for art's sake, "pure" art! Its purpose is to solve its internal problems, to search for new forms, new techniques and means of expression. His competence includes the inner spiritual world of a person, the sphere of feelings and passions, intimate experiences, etc.
Russian modernism has noticeable differences from the religious renaissance. If the latter gravitated toward Slavophilism, was preoccupied with the search for and preservation of Russian identity, then the former embraced the Europeanized part of the Russian intelligentsia. This is especially true of Russian symbolism, which arose under the direct influence of Western symbolism! Like Western, Russian modernism is marked by decadence and decadence. Many of its representatives were fond of mysticism, magic, the occult, fashionable religious sects. In general, Russian modernism is a complex, heterogeneous and contradictory phenomenon.
Russian modernism is a natural phenomenon, caused by the deep processes of Russian culture. Questions of the further development of Russian literature were ripening, fundamentally concentrated on three problems: the attitude towards the traditions of Russian literature, the definition of the novelty of content and form, the definition of a general aesthetic worldview. There was a need to find guidelines for the development of literature.
3 Symbolism
Russian literature of the beginning of the 20th century. gave rise to remarkable poetry and the most significant direction was symbolism. Russian symbolism arose at the turn of the 80s - 90s. XIX century and realized itself as a leading ideological - artistic and religious - philosophical trend. It absorbed all the achievements of the culture of the turn of the century, and therefore largely determined the largest philosophical, artistic and also indirectly scientific and socio-political achievements of the Silver Age, including the artistic avant-garde, Russian religious philosophy, for example, Russian cosmism. Symbolism in Russia claimed to perform universal, ideological functions in the social and cultural life of Russia (unlike French, German or Scandinavian symbolism, which remained literary and artistic phenomena).
The idea of synthesis of art, philosophy, the creation of a holistic style - became the apotheosis of Russian symbolism. It was this quality that distinguished him from other national types of symbolism. Unlike Western European symbolism, which evolved in the 1920s into expressionism, surrealism, etc., Russian symbolism formed the basis for post-symbolist phenomena of Russian culture, such as avant-garde, acmeism, turned into neoclassicism and futurism, which became one of the most important trends in revolutionary culture in together with typologically close phenomena - Imagism and constructivism.
For symbolists who believed in the existence of another world, the symbol was his sign, and represented the connection between the two worlds. One of the ideologists of symbolism D.S. Merezhkovsky, whose novels are permeated with religious and mystical ideas, considered the predominance of realism to be the main reason for the decline of literature, and proclaimed symbols, mystical content, as the basis of a new art. Russian symbolism asserted itself persistently and, according to many critics, suddenly. In 1892, an article by Dmitry Merezhkovsky “On the Causes of the Decline and the Newest Trend in Modern Russian Literature” was published in the Severny Vestnik magazine, and for a long time it was considered the manifesto of Russian symbolists. In realism, this artistic materialism, Merezhkovsky sees the cause of the decline of modern literature.
The features of the originality of Russian symbolism manifested themselves most of all in the work of the so-called "junior symbolists" of the early 20th century - A. Blok, A. Bely, Vyach. Ivanova. It is in their work that the artistic method of the Symbolists receives an objective-idealistic interpretation. The material world is only a mask through which another world of the spirit shines through. Images of a mask, a masquerade constantly flash in the poetry and prose of the Symbolists. The material world is depicted as something chaotic, illusory, as an inferior reality in comparison with the world of ideas and entities.
Russian symbolism adopted from the Western a number of aesthetic and philosophical attitudes, refracting them through the teachings of Vl. Solovyov "on the soul of the world" (13, p. 245). Russian poets experienced with painful tension the problem of personality and history in their "mysterious connection" with eternity, with the essence of the universal "world process". The inner world of the individual for them is an indicator of the general tragic state of the world, including the “terrible world” of Russian reality, doomed to death, a resonator of natural historical elements, a receptacle for prophetic forebodings of imminent renewal.
Symbolism is a kind of magic key with which you can open the world and transform it. The whole history of symbolism, as V. Khodasevich wrote, represented: “a series of attempts to find a fusion of life and creativity, a kind of philosophical stone of art” (14, p. 132). Hence the syncretism of the culture of the Silver Age as a certain dominant principle on which all the cultural figures of the Silver Age based their activities: philosophers, artists, poets, writers, musicians, architects, theater workers.
The Silver Age strives for a new organicity - hence its unlimited desire for magical art, a kind of sacredness that purifies and transforms reality. These maxims about art in a very peculiar way merged into judgments about politics: “Only then will political freedom be realized,” Vyach believes. Ivanov, - when the choral voice of such communities will be a true referendum of the people's will" (9, p. 39).
The symbolic beginning was the main defining content of the world and even more real than its concrete manifestation in social reality. In certain specific artistic, moral, political, religious and other forms. Hence the confession of the motto of Vyacheslav Ivanov: movement, striving, breakthrough - “from the real to the more real” (9, p. 9).
For Russian symbolism, the phenomenon of theurgy was characteristic - the creative realization of the divine principle by a person, or the assimilation of oneself to God the Creator. Therefore, the creative orientation and realization of the personality come to the fore (in any field of activity - philosophy, art, science, etc.), hence the most important feature of Russian symbolism is not the knowledge of the world, but its transformation, not contemplation, but "life building" .
The idea of art expands to human activity in general, including everything: non-canonical religion, revolution, love, the “smart fun” of the people, etc. Symbolism, at the same time, largely relied on Dostoevsky’s position “beauty will save the world”, which was taken by Vl. Solovyov as a metaphysical basis for his concept of unity. It is the philosophy of the unity of Vl. Solovyov and his poetic work became the foundation of Russian symbolism.
The Symbolists offered the reader a colorful myth about a world created according to the laws of eternal Beauty. If we add to this exquisite imagery, musicality and lightness of style, the steady popularity of poetry in this direction becomes understandable. The influence of symbolism with its intense spiritual quest, captivating artistry of a creative manner was experienced not only by the acmeists and futurists who replaced the symbolists, but also by the realist writer A.P. Chekhov.
4 Acmeism
"Symbolism has completed its circle of development" it was replaced by acmeism (5, p. 153). Acmeism (from the Greek akme - the highest degree of something, blooming power). It arose as a poetic association "Workshop of Poets" (1911), opposing itself to symbolism, the center of which was the "Academy of Verse". Supporters of acmeism rejected ambiguity and hints, ambiguity and immensity, abstractness and abstractness of symbolism. They rehabilitated a simple and clear perception of life, restored the value of harmony, form and composition in poetry. We can say that the acmeists brought poetry down from heaven to earth, returned it to the natural, earthly world. At the same time, they retained the high spirituality of poetry, the desire for true artistry, deep meaning and aesthetic perfection. N. Gumilyov made the greatest contribution to the development of the theory of acmeism. He defines it as a new poetry that replaces symbolism, which does not aim to penetrate into the beyond worlds and comprehend the unknowable. She prefers to do things that are more accessible to understanding. However, this does not mean reducing it to any practical purposes. Gumilev brings together poetry and religion, believing that both of them require spiritual work from a person. They play a major role in the spiritual transformation of man into a higher type.
Acmeism is characterized by a rejection of moral and spiritual quests, a penchant for aestheticism. A. Blok, with his inherent heightened sense of citizenship, noted the main drawback of acmeism: “... they do not have and do not want to have a shadow of an idea about Russian life and the life of the world in general” (3, p. 592). However, the acmeists did not put all their postulates into practice, this is evidenced by the psychologism of the first collections of A. Akhmatova, the lyricism of the early 0. Mandelstam. In essence, the acmeists were not so much an organized movement with a common theoretical platform, but a group of talented and very different poets who were united by personal friendship.
5 Futurism
At the same time, another modernist trend arose - futurism, which broke up into several groups: "Association of Ego-Futurists", "Mezzanine of Poetry", "Centrifuge", "Hilea", whose members called themselves Cubo-Futurists, Budutlyans, i.e. people from the future.
Of all the groups that at the beginning of the century proclaimed the thesis: “art is a game”, the Futurists most consistently embodied it in their work. In contrast to the symbolists with their idea of "life-building", i.e. transforming the world with art, the Futurists emphasized the destruction of the old world. Common to the futurists was the denial of traditions in culture, the passion for form creation. The demand of the Cubo-Futurists in 1912 to “throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy off the ship of modernity” (12, p. 347) became notorious.
The groupings of acmeists and futurists that arose in polemics with symbolism turned out to be very close to him in practice in that their theories were based on an individualistic idea, and the desire to create vivid myths, and predominant attention to form.
There were bright individualities in the poetry of that time that cannot be attributed to a certain trend - M. Voloshin, M. Tsvetaeva. No other era has given such an abundance of declarations of its own exclusivity.
A special place in the literature of the turn of the century was occupied by peasant poets, like N. Klyuev. Without putting forward a clear aesthetic program, they embodied their ideas (the combination of religious and mystical motives with the problem of protecting the traditions of peasant culture) in their work. S. Yesenin was close to peasant poets at the beginning of his journey, combining in his work the traditions of folklore and classical art.
Chapter 6
1 Moscow Art Theater
The Silver Age is not only the rise of poetry, it is also the era of artistic discoveries in theatrical art. At the end of the XIX century. Theatrical art was going through a crisis, which manifested itself in the fact that the theater repertoire was mostly entertaining in nature, it did not touch upon the pressing problems of life, the acting was not distinguished by a wealth of techniques. Deep changes were needed in the theater, and they became possible with the advent of the plays of A.P. Chekhov and M. Gorky. In 1898, the Moscow Public Art Theater (since 1903, the Moscow Art Theater) was opened, the founders of which were the manufacturer S.T. Morozov, K.S. Stanislavsky and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, innovators of theatrical art. To rebuild the whole life of the Russian theatre, to remove all the treasury, to captivate all the artistic forces with a community of interests - this is how the tasks of the new theater were defined.
The creators of the Moscow Art Theater set themselves three main goals. Firstly, to attract into the hall a spectator from the common people, who could not afford tickets to the imperial theaters. Secondly, to refresh the repertoire by banishing tabloid melodrama and empty comedy from it. Thirdly, to reform the theatrical business. At first, the new theater had a hard time. The income from the performances did not cover the expenses. Savva Morozov came to the rescue, having invested half a million rubles in the theater in five years. Thanks to him, a new building was built in Kamergersky Lane.
Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, using the domestic and world experience of the theater, asserted a new type of art that meets the spirit of the times. The plays by A.P. Chekhov ("The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya", "Three Sisters"), then M. Gorky ("Petty Bourgeois", "At the Bottom"). The best performances were the productions of "Woe from Wit" by A.S. Griboyedov, “A Month in the Village” by I.S. Turgenev, "The Blue Bird" by M. Maeterlinck, "Hamlet" by W. Shakespeare. This repertoire required talented performers. K. Stanislavsky developed a system of acting and directing, speaking out against amateurism, seeking to educate an actor-citizen, whose performance would lead to the creation of an organic process according to the well-thought-out logic of the character of the stage hero, the actor should become the leading figure in the theater. The Art Theater very soon became the leading, advanced theater in Russia, which was primarily due to its democratic essence.
2 Other theaters in Russia
In 1904, the theater of V.F. Komissarzhevskaya, whose repertoire reflected the aspirations of the democratic intelligentsia. Director's work of E.B. Vakhtangov is marked by the search for new forms, his productions of 1911-12. are joyful and entertaining. In 1915, Vakhtangov created the 3rd studio of the Moscow Art Theater, which later became the theater named after him (1926). One of the reformers of the Russian theater, the founder of the Moscow Chamber Theater A.Ya. Tairov strove to create a "synthetic theater" of a predominantly romantic and tragic repertoire, to form actors of virtuoso skill.
Chapter 7. Ballet
New trends also affected the ballet scene. They are associated with the name of the choreographer M.M. Fokina (1880-1942). One of the founders of the association "World of Art" S.L. Diaghilev organized the Russian Seasons in Paris - performances by Russian ballet dancers in 1909-1911. The troupe included M.M. Fokin, A.L. Pavlova, D.F. Nezhinsky, T.P. Karsavina, E.B. Geltser, M. Mordkin and others. Fokin was a choreographer and artistic director. The performances were designed by well-known artists: A. Benois, L. Bakst, A. Golovin, N. Roerich. Performances of "La Sylphides" (music by F. Chopin), Polovtsian dances from the opera "Prince Igor" by Borodin, "The Firebird" and "Petrushka" (music by I. Stravinsky), etc. were shown. The performances were a triumph of Russian choreographic art. The artists proved that classical ballet can be modern, excite the viewer, if the dance carries a semantic load with appropriate dance means, organically combines with music and painting. Fokine's best productions were "Petrushka", "Firebird", "Scheherazade", "The Dying Swan", in which music, painting and choreography were united.
Chapter 8
Early 20th century - this is the time of the creative take-off of the great Russian composers-innovators A. Scriabin, I. Stravinsky, S. Taneyev, S. Rachmaninov. In their work, they tried to go beyond traditional classical music, to create new musical forms and images. The musical performing culture also flourished significantly. The Russian vocal school was represented by the names of outstanding singers - F. Chaliapin, A. Nezhdanova, L. Sobinov, I. Ershov.
Chapter 9
Early 20th century - this is the time of the emergence of a new art form - cinema. From 1903, the first "electrotheatres" and "illusions" began to appear in Russia, and by 1914 about 4,000 cinemas had been built.
In 1908, the first Russian feature film "Stenka Razin and the Princess" was shot, and in 1911 - the first full-length film "The Defense of Sevastopol". Cinematography developed rapidly and became popular. In 1914, there were about 30 domestic film companies in Russia. And although the bulk of film production was made up of films with primitive melodramatic plots, world-famous cinema figures appear in Russia: director Y. Protazanov, actors I. Mozzhukhin, V. Kholodnaya, V. Maksimov, A. Koonen and others.
The undoubted merit of cinema was its accessibility to all segments of the population. Russian films, created mainly as adaptations of classical works, became the first signs in the formation of mass culture, an indispensable attribute of bourgeois society.
Chapter 10
1 Association "World of Art"
At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, significant changes took place in Russian painting. Genre scenes faded into the background. The landscape lost its photographic quality and linear perspective, becoming more democratic, based on the combination and play of color spots. The portraits often combined the ornamental conventionality of the background and the sculptural clarity of the face. The beginning of a new stage of Russian painting is associated with the creative association "World of Art". At the end of the 80s of the XIX century. in St. Petersburg, a circle of gymnasium students and students, art lovers, arose. They gathered at the apartment of one of the participants - Alexandre Benois. Its permanent members were Konstantin Somov and Lev Bakst. Later, they were joined by Yevgeny Lansere, and Sergei Diaghilev, who came from the provinces. The meetings of the circle were a bit of a clownish character. But the reports delivered by its members were prepared carefully and seriously. Friends were fascinated by the idea of uniting all kinds of art and bringing together the cultures of different peoples. They spoke with anxiety and bitterness about the fact that Russian art is little known in the West and that Russian masters are not sufficiently familiar with the achievements of contemporary European artists. Friends grew up, went into creativity, created their first serious work. Diaghilev becomes the head of the circle.
In 1898, Diaghilev organized an exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists in St. Petersburg. In essence, this was the first exhibition of artists of the new direction. This was followed by other exhibitions and, finally, in 1906 - an exhibition in Paris "Two centuries of Russian painting and sculpture." Russia's "cultural breakthrough" into Western Europe was due to the efforts and enthusiasm of Diaghilev and his friends. In 1898, the Benois-Dyagilev circle began to publish the journal "World of Art". Diaghilev's programmatic article stated that the purpose of art is the self-expression of the creator. Art, Diaghilev wrote, should not be used to illustrate any social doctrine. If it is genuine, it in itself is the truth of life, an artistic generalization, and sometimes a revelation.
The name "World of Art" from the magazine passed to the creative association of artists, the backbone of which was all the same circle. Such masters as V. A. Serov, M. A. Vrubel, M. V. Nesterov, I. I. Levitan, N. K. Roerich joined the association. They all had little resemblance to each other, worked in a different creative manner. And yet in their work, moods and views there was much in common.
The Miriskusniks were worried about the advent of the industrial era, when huge cities grew, built up with faceless factory buildings and inhabited by lonely people. They were worried that art, designed to bring harmony and peace to life, was increasingly being squeezed out of it and became the property of a small circle of "chosen ones". They hoped that art, returning to life, would gradually soften, spiritualize and unite people. "World of Art" believed that in pre-industrial times people came into closer contact with art and nature. The 18th century seemed especially attractive to them. But they still understood that the age of Voltaire and Catherine was not as harmonious as it seems to them, and therefore the unit of Versailles and Tsarskoye Selo landscapes with kings, empresses, cavaliers and ladies is shrouded in a light haze of sadness and self-irony.
The revival of book graphics, the art of the book, is connected with the work of the World of Art. Without limiting themselves to illustrations, the artists introduced cover sheets, intricate vignettes and endings in the Art Nouveau style into books. The understanding came that the design of the book should be closely related to its content. The graphic designer began to pay attention to such details as the size of the book, the color of the paper, the font, the edge. Many outstanding masters of that time were engaged in the design of books. Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman" is firmly connected with the drawings of Benois, and Tolstoy's "Hadji Murad" - with the illustrations of Lansere. Early 20th century deposited on library shelves with many high-quality examples of book art.
The artists of the "World of Art" paid a generous tribute to music. The scenery of the artists of that time - sometimes exquisitely refined, sometimes blazing like a fire - combined with music, dance, singing, created a dazzlingly luxurious spectacle. L. S. Bakst made a significant contribution to the success of the ballet Scheherazade (to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov). A. Ya. Golovin designed the ballet The Firebird (to music by I. F. Stravinsky) just as brightly and festively. Scenery N.K. Roerich for the opera "Prince Igor", on the contrary, are very restrained and severe. The ballet "Petrushka", which went around the theater stage in many countries, was a joint work of the composer Igor Stravinsky and the artist Alexander Benois. In the field of theatrical painting, the World of Art came closest to fulfilling their cherished dream - to combine different types of art into one work.
The fate of the association "World of Art" was not easy. The magazine stopped publishing after 1904. By this time, many artists had moved away from the association, and it was reduced to the size of the original circle. The creative and personal connections of its members continued for many years. The World of Art has become an artistic symbol of the border between two centuries. A whole stage in the development of Russian painting is associated with him. A special place in the association was occupied by M. A. Vrubel, M. V. Nesterov and N. K. Roerich.
2 Symbolism in Russian painting
In 1907, an exhibition entitled "Blue Rose" was opened in Moscow, in which A. Arapov, N. Krymov, P. Kuznetsov, N. Sapunov, M. Saryan and others, 16 artists in total, took part. It was a searching youth, dissatisfied with the state of art, familiar with the achievements of Western artists and striving to find their individuality in the synthesis of Western experience and national traditions.
Representatives of the "Blue Rose" were closely associated with symbolist poets, whose performance was an indispensable attribute of the vernissages. But symbolism in Russian painting has never been a single stylistic trend. It included, for example, such different artists in their pictorial systems as M. Vrubel, K. Petrov-Vodkin and others.
3 Avant-garde direction in art
At the same time, groupings appeared in Russian painting, representing the avant-garde trend in art. In 1910, an exhibition called "Jack of Diamonds" was organized in Moscow, and in 1911 its participants united in a society with the same name. It lasted until 1917. P. Konchalovsky, I. Mashkov, A. Lentulov, R. Falk, V. Rozhdestvensky and others were among the activists of the Jack of Diamonds. In their work, they sought to finally free painting from the influence of social and political life, literary and other subordination, to return to her the ability to use in full force the means inherent only to her - color, line, plasticity. They saw beauty in the very surface of the canvas, covered with a layer of paint, in a unique mixture of colors. The most popular genre of "jacks of diamonds" was still life.
A number of major Russian artists - V. Kandinsky, M. Chagall, P. Filonov and others - entered the history of world culture as representatives of unique styles that combined avant-garde trends with Russian national traditions.
Chapter 11 Architecture
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the modernist trend was born in the architecture of a number of European countries. The "crisis of science" at the beginning of the century, the rejection of mechanistic ideas about the world gave rise to artists' attraction to nature, the desire to be imbued with its spirit, to display its changeable element in art.
The architecture of the “modern” era was distinguished by asymmetry and mobility of forms, the free flow of the “continuous surface”, the flow of internal spaces. Floral motifs and flowing lines predominated in the ornament. The desire to convey growth, development, movement was characteristic of all types of art in the Art Nouveau style - in architecture, painting, graphics, painting houses, casting lattices, on book covers. "Modern" was very heterogeneous and contradictory. On the one hand, he sought to assimilate and creatively rework folk principles, to create an architecture that was not ostentatious, as in the period of eclecticism, but genuine.
Setting the task even wider, the masters of the "modern" era ensured that everyday items bore the imprint of folk traditions. In this regard, a lot was done by the circle of artists who worked in Abramtsevo, the estate of patron S. I. Mamontov. V. M. Vasnetsov, M. A. Vrubel, V. D. Polenov worked here. The work begun in Abramtsevo was continued in Talashkino near Smolensk, the estate of Princess M. A. Tenisheva. Both in Abramtsevo and Talashkino there were workshops that produced furniture and household utensils according to samples made by artists. The theorists of "modern" contrasted the living folk craft with faceless industrial production. But, on the other hand, the architecture of "modern" widely used the achievements of modern building technology. A careful study of the possibilities of such materials as reinforced concrete, glass, steel led to unexpected discoveries. Convex glass, curved window sashes, fluid forms of metal bars - all this came to architecture from "modern".
From the very beginning, two directions emerged in the domestic "modern" - pan-European and national-Russian. The latter was perhaps the predominant one. At the origins of it is the church in Abramtsevo - an original and poetic creation of two artists who acted as architects - Vasnetsov and Polenov. Taking as a model the ancient Novgorod-Pskov architecture, with its picturesque asymmetry, they did not copy individual details, but embodied the very spirit of Russian architecture in its modern material.
The early "modern" was characterized by a "Dionysian" beginning, i.e. striving for spontaneity, immersion in the stream of formation, development. In the late "modern" (on the eve of the World War), a calm and clear "Apollonian" beginning began to prevail. Elements of classicism returned to architecture. In Moscow, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Borodino Bridge were built according to the project of the architect R.I. Klein. At the same time, the buildings of the Azov-Don and Russian commercial and industrial banks appeared in St. Petersburg. Petersburg banks were built in a monumental style, using granite cladding and "torn" masonry surfaces. This, as it were, personified their conservatism, reliability, stability.
The age of "modern" was very short - from the end of the 19th century. before the start of the world war. But it was a very bright period in the history of architecture. At the beginning of the century, his appearance was met with a flurry of criticism. Some considered it a "decadent" style, others considered it philistine. But "modern" has proved its vitality and democracy. It had folk roots, relied on an advanced industrial base and absorbed the achievements of world architecture. "Modern" did not have the rigor of classicism. It was divided into many directions and schools, which formed a multi-colored palette of the last flowering of architecture on the eve of the great upheavals of the 20th century.
For a decade and a half, coinciding with the construction boom, "modern" has spread throughout Russia. It can still be found today in any old city. One has only to look at the rounded windows, exquisite stucco and curved balcony grilles of any mansion, hotel or shop.
Chapter 12. Sculpture
Sculpture also experienced a creative upsurge during this period. Her awakening was largely due to the trends of Impressionism. Significant progress on this path of renewal was achieved by P. P. Trubetskoy. Widely known were his sculptural portraits of L. N. Tolstoy, S. Yu. Witte, F. I. Chaliapin, and others. They most consistently reflected the main artistic rule of the master: to capture even if hardly noticeable instantaneous internal movement of a person. An important milestone in the history of Russian monumental sculpture was the monument to Alexander III, conceived as a kind of antipode to another great monument - the "Bronze Horseman" by E. Falcone.
The combination of impressionist and modern tendencies characterizes the work of A. S. Golubkina. At the same time, the main feature of her works is not the display of a specific image or life fact, but the creation of a generalized phenomenon: “Old Age” (1898), “Walking Man” (1903), “Soldier” (1907), “Sleepers” (1912), etc. .
A significant mark in the Russian art of the Silver Age was left by S.T. Konenkov. His work has become the embodiment of the continuity of the traditions of realism in new directions. He went through Michelangelo's fascination with "Samson Breaking the Chains", antiquity "Nika", Russian folk wooden sculpture "Lesovik", "The Beggar Brotherhood", itinerant traditions "Stone Fighter", the traditional realistic portrait "A.P. Chekhov". And with all this, he remained a master of a bright creative individuality.
On the whole, the Russian sculptural school was little affected by avant-garde tendencies, and did not develop such a complex range of innovative aspirations, characteristic of painting.
Chapter 13
Against the rich background of Russian patronage, the period of the late XIX-early XX centuries. can rightly be called its "golden age", sometimes its true heyday. And this time was connected mainly with the activities of eminent merchant dynasties, who gave hereditary benefactors. Only in Moscow they carried out such major undertakings in the field of culture, education, medicine, and the most diverse fields of science, which can be rightfully asserted: this was a qualitatively new stage in charity.
Merchant P.M. Tretyakov (1838-1898), a collector of works of Russian painting, in 1892 donated his collection to Moscow (Tretyakov Gallery), his brother S.M. Tretyakov also bequeathed his collection of Western European painting to Moscow. In the phenomenon of P.M. Tretyakov is impressed by the loyalty to the goal. Such an idea - to lay the foundation for a public, accessible repository of art - did not arise from any of his contemporaries, although private collectors existed before Tretyakov, but they acquired paintings, sculpture, dishes, crystal, etc. first of all, for themselves, for their private collections, and few could see the works of art that belonged to collectors. It is also striking that he did not have any special art education, however, he recognized talented artists earlier than others. Before many, he realized the invaluable artistic merits of the icon-painting masterpieces of Ancient Rus'.
S.D. Mamontov (1841-1918) founded the Private Russian Opera in Moscow, supported Russian painters; his estate Abramtsevo was an important center of artistic life; I.E. lived and worked here. Repin, M.A. Vrubel, K.A. Koroviy and others. The Mamontov art circle was a unique association. It can be said quite definitely that if all the achievements of the Mamontov Private Opera were limited only by the fact that it formed Chaliapin, the genius of the opera stage, then this would be quite enough for the highest appreciation of the activities of Mamontov and his theater.
The industrialist S.T.Morozov (1862-1905) was a patron of the Moscow Art Theater.
A. A. Bakhrushin (1865-1929), based on his collection, created a private literary and theater museum, now the Theater Museum. Bakhrushin.
M. Kl. Tenisheva (1867-1929) was an outstanding person, the owner of encyclopedic knowledge in art, an honorary member of the first Russian Union of Artists. The scale of her social activities, in which enlightenment was the leading principle, is striking: she created the School of Craft Students (near Bryansk), opened several elementary public schools, organized drawing schools together with Repin, opened courses for training teachers, and even created a real one in the Smolensk region. analogue of Abramtsev near Moscow - Talashkino. Roerich called Tenisheva “Creator and Collector” (11, p. 344).
In order to open your talent to the world, you need not only talent, but often money. Patrons provided invaluable assistance to Russian culture in this matter. All the wealth that our museums own, the very progressive movement of museum work in Russia, searches, discoveries, we owe to them - enthusiasts, collectors, patrons. Each collector was devoted to his circle of hobbies, collected the evidence of the past that he liked, the works of artists, as best he could, systematized them, sometimes researched and published them. But the consequences of this spontaneous activity turned out to be grandiose in the end: after all, all the funds of the museums of pre-revolutionary Russia were made up not so much of individual objects, but rather of collections, scrupulously selected. Having made a great contribution to the creation of the Russian cultural heritage, they immortalized their names.
Conclusion
Socio-political tension arises in Russia: a general conflict in which protracted feudalism intertwined, the inability of the nobility to fulfill the role of organizer of society and develop a national idea, the onslaught of the new bourgeoisie, the sluggishness of the monarchy, which did not want concessions, the age-old hatred of the peasant for the master - all this gave birth to the intelligentsia sense of impending upheaval. And at the same time a sharp surge, the flourishing of cultural life. After all, it is in critical, extreme situations that a person manifests extraordinary talents. Through their activities, creative people showed their own attitude to the surrounding reality. New magazines are being published, theaters are opening, artists, actors, and writers have unprecedented opportunities. Their impact on society is enormous. At the same time, a mass culture is being formed, designed for an unprepared consumer, and an elite culture, focusing on connoisseurs. Art is crumbling. At the same time, Russian culture is strengthening contacts with world culture. Unconditional authority in Europe of Tolstoy and Chekhov, Tchaikovsky and Glinka. "Russian Seasons" in Paris enjoyed worldwide fame. The names of Perov, Nesterov, Korovin, Chagall, Malevich shine in painting; in the theater: Meyerhold, Nezhdanova, Stanislavsky, Sobinov, Chaliapin; in ballet: Nezhinsky and Pavlova; in science: Mendeleev, Tsiolkovsky, Sechenov, Vernadsky. Marina Tsvetaeva argued that “after such an abundance of talents, nature should calm down” (4, p. 154).
The Silver Age was precisely the milestone that predicted future changes in the state and became a thing of the past with the advent of the blood-red 1917, which unrecognizably changed people's souls. There was no Silver Age after that. In the twenties, inertia (the heyday of imagism) continued, for such a wide and powerful wave as the Russian Silver Age was, could move for some time before collapsing and breaking. Many poets, writers, critics, philosophers, artists, directors, composers were still alive, whose individual creativity and common work created the Silver Age, but the era itself ended. Each of its active participants was aware that, although people remained, the characteristic atmosphere of the era in which talents grew had come to naught.
An attempt to "modernize" culture, associated with the reform of P.A. Stolypin, was unsuccessful. Its results were smaller than expected and gave rise to new controversy. Tensions in society grew faster than the answers to emerging conflicts were found. Contradictions between agrarian and industrial cultures were aggravated, which was also expressed in the contradictions of economic forms, interests and motives of people's creativity, in the political life of society.
Deep social transformations were required in order to provide scope for the cultural creativity of the people, significant investments in the development of the spiritual sphere of society, its technical base, for which the government did not have enough funds. Patronage, private support and financing of significant public and cultural events did not save either. Nothing could fundamentally change the cultural face of the country. The country fell into a period of unstable development and found no other way out than revolution.
The culture of the Silver Age turned out to be bright, complex, contradictory, but immortal and unique. She reflected the existing reality. And although we call this time the “silver” and not the “golden” age, perhaps it was the most creative era in the history of Russia.
List of used literature
Balakina, T.I. History of Russian culture.-M.:Az, 1996
2. Philanthropists and patrons of the past and present: Dictionary - reference book from A to Z / ed.
Blok, A. Poems, poems, theater / A. Blok. - M., 1968
Memories of Marina Tsvetaeva: collection / comp. L.A. Mukhin, L.M. Turchinsky // Notes. - M .: Soviet writer, 1992
Gumilev, N. Works in 3 volumes / N. Gumilev // vol. 3 .- M .: Fiction, 1991
Danilov, A.A. History of Russia, XX century: textbook for grade 9 / A.A. Danilov, L.G. Kosulina.-7th ed.-M.: Enlightenment, 2001
Dmitriev, S.S. Essays on the history of Russian culture at the beginning of the 20th century. - Moscow, Enlightenment, 1985
Zholkovsky, A.N. Wandering dreams. From the history of Russian modernism.-M.: Soviet Writer, 1992
Ivanov, Vyach. About a cheerful craft and smart fun // Decorative art. - 1993. - No. 3.
Rapatskaya, L.A. Artistic culture of Russia.-M.: Vlados, 1998
Roerich, N. In memory of Maria Klavdievna Tenisheva / N. Roerich // Literary Heritage.- M., 1974
Sokolov A.G., Mikhailova M.V. Russian literary criticism of the late 19th - early 20th centuries: an anthology // Kubofuturists.- M .: Higher school, 1982
Solovyov, Vl. Philosophical heritage: Op. in 2 volumes / Vl. Solovyov // vol. 2.-M .: Thought, 1998
Khodasevich, V. "Necropolis" and other memories / V. Khodasevich. - M .: World of Art, 1992
Shamurin, E. The main trends in pre-revolutionary Russian poetry. - Moscow, 1993
Etkind, A. Sodom and Psyche. Essays on the intellectual history of the Silver Age. - M .: Garant, 1996
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LECTURE #6
Silver age of Russian culture
The concept of the Silver Age.
The turning point in the life of Russia in the late 19th - early 20th century, associated with the transition to an industrial society, led to the destruction of many values and centuries-old foundations of people's lives. It seemed that not only the surrounding world was changing, but also ideas about good and evil, beautiful and ugly, etc.
Understanding these problems has affected the sphere of culture. The flowering of culture during this period was unprecedented. He embraced all kinds of creative activity, gave rise to a galaxy of brilliant names. This phenomenon was called the Silver Age of Russian culture (the first third of the 19th century is considered the Golden Age). The Silver Age is characterized by the greatest achievements in culture, but the culture itself has become more complex, and the results of creative activity - more controversial.
Science and technology.
At the beginning of the XX century. The main headquarters of national science remained the Academy of Sciences with a developed system of institutes. Universities with their scientific societies, as well as all-Russian congresses of scientists, played a significant role in the training of scientific personnel and the development of science.
Great advances were made in mechanics and mathematics, which made it possible to develop new areas of science - aeronautics and electrical engineering. Of great importance for this were the research, the creator of hydro - and aerodynamics, the author of works on the theory of aviation, which served as the basis for aviation science.
In 1913, in St. Petersburg, at the Russian-Baltic Plant, the first domestic aircraft "Russian Knight * to" Ilya Muromets * designs were built. In 1911 he created the world's first backpack parachute.
A teacher from Tsiolkovsky in 1903 published an article entitled "Investigation of the World Spaces with Reactive Devices", which outlined the theory of rocket motion. This laid the foundation for future space flights.
The works became an impetus for the development of biochemistry, biogeochemistry and radiogeology. The scientist was distinguished by the breadth of interests, he raised deep problems and foresaw discoveries in various fields.
The great Russian physiologist created the doctrine of conditioned reflexes, in which he gave a materialistic explanation of the higher nervous activity of man and animals.
In 1904, for research in the field of physiology of digestion, the first Russian scientist was awarded the Nobel Prize. Four years later (1908) he was awarded this prize for his work in the field of immunology and infectious diseases.
"Milestones".
Shortly after the revolution of 1905-1907. several well-known liberal philosophers and publicists (,) published the book Milestones. Collection of articles about the Russian intelligentsia" (1908).
The authors of Vekhi believed that the revolution should have ended after the adoption of the October 17 Manifesto, as a result of which the intelligentsia received those political freedoms that they had always dreamed of. The intelligentsia was accused of ignoring the national and religious interests of Russia, suppressing dissidents, disrespecting the law, inciting the darkest instincts among the masses. The Vekhi people claimed that the Russian intelligentsia was alien to their people, who hated it and would never understand it.
Many publicists, primarily supporters of the Cadets, came out against the Vekhi people. Their articles were published by the popular newspaper Novoye Vremya.
Vodkin gave the national traditions of painting a special form. His "Bathing of the Red Horse" resembles the image of St. George the Victorious, and in "Girls on the Volga" there is a clear connection with realistic painting.
XIX century.
Music.
The largest Russian composers of the early XX century. There were also those whose creative work, agitated and tense in character, was especially close to wide social circles during the period of anticipation of the revolution of 1919. Scriabin evolved from romanticism to symbolism, foreseeing many of the innovative trends of the revolutionary era. The structure of Rachmaninov's music was more traditional, it felt a connection with the musical heritage of the past century. In his works, the state of mind was usually combined with pictures of the outside world, the poetry of Russian nature, or images of the past.
QUESTIONS AND TASKS
1. What is the Silver Age of Russian culture?
2. Tell us about the development of science and technology at the beginning of the 20th century.
4. What trends in literature existed at the beginning of the 20th century?
5. What was new in painting and music at the beginning of the 20th century?
At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, an unprecedented rise in Russian culture took place. Usually, hearing the phrase "Silver Age", they recall literature, in particular the poetry of Blok, Bryusov, Gumilyov, and others. However, this period is famous not only for literature.
It is truly comparable to the "golden age" - the age of Pushkin.
Borders of the Silver Age
The boundaries of this period are also defined in different ways.
- Actually, with the beginning of the "Silver Age" there is practically no discrepancy - this is 1892 (manifestos of the modernists and D. Merezhkovsky's collection "Symbols").
- But some consider the coup of 1917 to be the end of this period, others - 1922 (the year after the death of Gumilyov, the death of Blok, a wave of emigration).
Distinctive features and achievements of the Silver Age
So what is so wonderful and interesting about this time?
This century in Russia was marked by a bright diversity in all areas of the cultural life of society.
Russian philosophy
Philosophy of the Silver Age
Silver Age Theater
The Silver Age of Russian culture was also reflected in the development of theatrical art. First of all, this is the system of K. Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, but also the Alexandrinsky and Chamber theaters, the theater of V. Komissarzhevskaya.
Painting
Painting and sculpture of the Silver Age
New trends are also characteristic of painting and sculpture (, "Union of Russian Artists", "Blue Rose", etc., works by P. Trubetskoy, A. Golubkina).
World famous opera singers (F. Chaliapin, L. Sobinov, A. Nezhdanova), dancers ( ).
Russian music
Music of the Silver Age
Symbolism features
The main features of this literary movement:
- dual world(the real world and the other world),
- the special role of the symbol as something that cannot be expressed in a specific way,
- the special meaning of sound writing,
- mystical and religious motives and etc.
The names of V. Bryusov, A. Blok, A. Bely and others are well known.
b) Russian acmeism
(from the Greek "acme" - peak, point, flowering) - rejection and continuation of Russian symbolism.
Features of acmeism
- philosophy of action
- acceptance of the world
- experiencing the objectivity and thingness of this world, the denial of mysticism,
- picturesque image,
- courageous perception of the world and life,
- the weight of a particular meaning of a word and etc.
The first among equals was undoubtedly N. Gumilyov. And also S. Gorodetsky, M. Zenkevich, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam.
c) Russian futurism
To some extent it was a continuation of European futurism. At its inception, it did not have a single center (it was represented by four hostile groups in Moscow and St. Petersburg)
Features of this direction:
- orientation towards the future,
- feeling of coming change
- denial of the classical heritage,
- urbanism,
- search for new words, inflections, new language and etc.
V. Khlebnikov, D. Burlyuk, I. Severyanin and others.
Our presentation:
The specificity of this century lies in the fact that the work of Russian artists of this period combined not only the features of realism, but also:
- romanticism (M. Gorky),
- naturalism (P. Boborykin),
- symbolism (L.Andreeva)
It was a glorious age! Silver age of great Russian culture!
Did you like it? Do not hide your joy from the world - shareThe first decade of the 20th century entered the history of Russian culture under the name "Silver Age". It was a time of unprecedented flourishing of all types of creative activity, the birth of new trends in art, the appearance of a galaxy of brilliant names that became the pride of not only Russian, but also world culture.
The artistic culture of the turn of the century is an important page in the cultural heritage of Russia. Ideological inconsistency and ambiguity were inherent not only in artistic trends and trends, but also in the work of individual writers, artists, and composers. It was a period of renewal of various types and genres of artistic creativity, rethinking, "general reassessment of values", in the words of M. V. Nesterov. The attitude towards the heritage of the revolutionary democrats became ambiguous even among progressively thinking cultural figures. The primacy of sociality in the Wanderers was seriously criticized by many realist artists.
In Russian artistic culture of the late XIX - early XX century. spread « decadence» , denoting such phenomena in art as the rejection of civic ideals and faith in reason, immersion in the sphere of individualistic experiences. These ideas were an expression of the social position of a part of the artistic intelligentsia, which tried to "get away" from the complexities of life into the world of dreams, irreality, and sometimes mysticism. But even in this way, she reflected in her work the crisis phenomena of the then social life.
Decadent moods captured the figures of various artistic movements, including the realistic one. However, more often these ideas were inherent in modernist movements.
concept "modernism"(French temerpe - modern) included many phenomena of literature and art of the twentieth century, born at the beginning of this century, new in comparison with the realism of the previous century. However, new artistic and aesthetic qualities also appeared in the realism of this time: the “framework” of a realistic vision of life was expanding, and the search for ways of self-expression of the individual in literature and art was underway. The characteristic features of art are synthesis, a mediated reflection of life, in contrast to the critical realism of the nineteenth century, with its inherent concrete reflection of reality. This feature of art is associated with the wide spread of neo-romanticism in literature, painting, music, the birth of a new stage realism.
At the beginning of the XX century. there were many literary movements. This is symbolism, and futurism, and even the ego-futurism of Igor Severyanin. All these directions are very different, have different ideals, pursue different goals, but they converge on one thing: to work on rhythm, in a word, to bring the game to perfection with sounds.
At the same time, the voice of a new generation of realists who presented their bill to the representatives of realism began to sound, protesting against the main principle of realistic art - the direct depiction of the surrounding world. According to the ideologists of this generation, art, being a synthesis of two opposite principles - matter and spirit, is capable of not only "displaying", but also "transforming" the existing world, creating a new reality.
Chapter 1.Education
The modernization process included not only fundamental changes in the socio-economic and political spheres, but also a significant increase in literacy and the educational level of the population. To the credit of the government, this need was taken into account. Government spending on public education since 1900 to 1915 increased by more than 5 times.
The focus was on elementary school. The government intended to introduce universal primary education in the country. However, school reform was carried out inconsistently. Several types of elementary school have survived, the most common being parochial schools (in 1905 there were about 43,000 of them). The number of zemstvo elementary schools increased (in 1904 there were 20.7 thousand, and in 1914 - 28.2 thousand). more than 2.5 million students studied in the elementary schools of the Ministry of Public Education, and in 1914. - about 6 million.
The restructuring of the secondary education system began. The number of gymnasiums and real schools grew. In gymnasiums, the number of hours devoted to the study of subjects of the natural and mathematical cycle increased. Graduates of real schools were given the right to enter higher technical educational institutions, and after passing the exam in Latin, to the physics and mathematics departments of universities.
On the initiative of entrepreneurs, commercial (7-8-year) schools were created, which provided general education and special training. In them, unlike gymnasiums and real schools, joint education of boys and girls was introduced. In 1913 in 250 commercial schools, which were under the patronage of commercial and industrial capital, 55 thousand people studied, including 10 thousand girls. The number of secondary specialized educational institutions has increased: industrial, technical, railway, mining, land surveying, agricultural, etc.
The network of higher educational institutions expanded: new technical universities appeared in St. Petersburg, Novocherkassk, and Tomsk. A university was opened in Saratov, new technical universities appeared in St. Petersburg, Novocherkassk, and Tomsk. To ensure the reform of the elementary school, pedagogical institutes were opened in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as more than 30 higher courses for women, which marked the beginning of mass access for women to higher education. By 1914 there were about 100 higher educational institutions, in which approximately 130 thousand people studied. At the same time, over 60% of students did not belong to the nobility. Higher State Officials were trained in privileged educational institutions-lyceums.
However, despite advances in education, 3/4 of the country's population remained illiterate. Due to high tuition fees, secondary and higher schools were inaccessible to a significant part of the population. 43 kopecks were spent on education. per capita, while in England and Germany - about 4 rubles, in the USA - 7 rubles. (in terms of our money).
Chapter 2The science
Russia's entry into the era of industrialization was marked by success in the development of science. At the beginning of the XX century. the country made a significant contribution to world scientific and technological progress, which was called the "revolution in natural science", since the discoveries made during this period led to a revision of established ideas about the world around.
The physicist P. N. Lebedev, for the first time in the world, established the general patterns inherent in wave processes of various nature (sound, electromagnetic, hydraulic, etc.), made other discoveries in the field of wave physics. He created the first physics school in Russia.
N. E. Zhukovsky made a number of outstanding discoveries in the theory and practice of aircraft construction. The outstanding mechanic and mathematician S. A. Chaplygin was Zhukovsky’s student and colleague.
At the origins of modern astronautics was a nugget, a teacher of the Kaluga gymnasium Tsiolkovsky K.E. In 1903. he published a number of brilliant works that substantiated the possibility of space flights and determined the ways to achieve this goal.
The outstanding scientist V. I. Vernadsky gained worldwide fame thanks to his encyclopedic works, which served as the basis for the emergence of new scientific directions in geochemistry, biochemistry, and radiology. His teachings on the biosphere and noosphere laid the foundation for modern ecology. The innovation of the ideas expressed by him is fully realized only now, when the world is on the verge of an ecological catastrophe.
An unprecedented surge was characterized by research in the field of biology, psychology, and human physiology. Pavlov IP created the doctrine of higher nervous activity, of conditioned reflexes. In 1904 He was awarded the Nobel Prize for research in the physiology of digestion. In 1908 The biologist II Mechnikov received the Nobel Prize for his work on immunology and infectious diseases.
The beginning of the 20th century is the heyday of Russian historical science. The largest specialists in the field of national history were Klyuchevsky V.O., Kornilov A.A., Pavlov-Silvansky N.P., Platonov S.F. Vinogradov P.G., Vipper R. Yu., Tarle E. V. The Russian school of oriental studies gained world fame.
The beginning of the century was marked by the appearance of the works of representatives of the original Russian religious and philosophical thought (N. A. Berdyaev, N. I. Bulgakov, V. S. Solovyov, P. A. Florensky, etc.). A large place in the works of philosophers was occupied by the so-called Russian idea - the problem of the originality of the historical path of Russia, the originality of its spiritual life, the special purpose of Russia in the world.
At the beginning of the 20th century, scientific and technical societies were popular. They united scientists, practitioners, amateur enthusiasts and existed on the contributions of their members, private donations. Some received small government subsidies. The most famous were: the Free Economic Society (it was founded back in 1765), the Society of History and Antiquities (1804), the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (1811), Geographical, Technical, Physical and Chemical, Botanical, Metallurgical, several medical, agricultural, etc. These societies were not only the centers of research work, but also widely promoted scientific and technical knowledge among the population. A characteristic feature of the scientific life of that time were the congresses of natural scientists, doctors, engineers, lawyers, archaeologists, etc.
Chapter 3Literature
The most revealing image "silver age" appeared in the literature. On the one hand, in the works of writers, stable traditions of critical realism were preserved. Tolstoy, in his latest literary works, raised the problem of the individual's resistance to the rigid norms of life ("The Living Corpse", "Father Sergius", "After the Ball"). His letters of appeal to Nicholas II, journalistic articles are imbued with pain and anxiety for the fate of the country, the desire to influence the authorities, block the path to evil and protect all the oppressed. The main idea of Tolstoy's journalism is the impossibility of eliminating evil by violence. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov during these years created the plays "Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard", in which he reflected the important changes taking place in society. Socially pointed plots were also in honor among young writers. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin explored not only the external side of the processes that took place in the countryside (the stratification of the peasantry, the gradual withering away of the nobility), but also the psychological consequences of these phenomena, how they influenced the souls of Russian people (“Village”, “Sukhodol”, cycle “ peasant stories). Kuprin A. I. showed the unsightly side of army life: the disenfranchisement of soldiers, the emptiness and lack of spirituality of the “gentlemen of the officers” (“Duel”). One of the new phenomena in literature was the reflection in it of the life and struggle of the proletariat. The initiator of this theme was Maxim Gorky ("Enemies", "Mother").
The lyrics of the "Silver Age" are diverse and musical. The epithet "silver" itself sounds like a bell. The Silver Age is a whole constellation of poets. Poets - musicians. Poems of the Silver Age are the music of words. In these verses there was not a single superfluous sound, not a single unnecessary comma, out of place put a full stop. Everything is thoughtfully, clearly and musically.
In the first decade of the 20th century, a whole galaxy of talented "peasant" poets came to Russian poetry - Sergei Yesenin, Nikolai Klyuev, Sergei Klychkov.
The initiators of a new trend in art were symbolist poets who declared war on the materialistic worldview, arguing that faith and religion are the cornerstone of human existence and art. They believed that poets were endowed with the ability to join the otherworldly world through artistic symbols. Symbolism initially took the form of decadence. This term implied a mood of decadence, melancholy and hopelessness, a pronounced individualism. These features were characteristic of the early poetry of Balmont K.D., Alexander Blok, Bryusov V. Ya.
After 1909 a new stage in the development of symbolism begins. It is painted in Slavophile tones, demonstrates contempt for the "rationalist" West, portends the death of Western civilization, represented, including by official Russia. At the same time, he turns to the elemental forces of the people, to Slavic paganism, tries to penetrate into the depths of the Russian soul and sees the roots of the “second birth” of the country in Russian folk life. These motifs sounded especially bright in the works of Blok (the poetic cycles "On the Kulikovo Field", "Motherland") and A. Bely ("Silver Dove", "Petersburg"). Russian symbolism has become a global phenomenon. It is with him that, first of all, the concept of the “Silver Age” is connected.
The opponents of the symbolists were the acmeists (from the Greek "acme" - the highest degree of something, blooming power). They denied the mystical aspirations of the Symbolists, proclaimed the inherent value of real life, called for the return of words to their original meaning, freeing them from symbolic interpretations. The main criterion for evaluating the work of acmeists (Gumilyov N. S., Anna Akhmatova, O. E. Mandelstam)
impeccable aesthetic taste, beauty and refinement of the artistic word.
Russian artistic culture at the beginning of the 20th century was influenced by the avant-gardism that originated in the West and embraced all types of art. This trend absorbed various artistic movements that announced their break with traditional cultural values and proclaimed the ideas of creating a “new art”. The prominent representatives of the Russian avant-garde were the futurists (from the Latin "futurum" - the future). Their poetry was distinguished by increased attention not to the content, but to the form of poetic construction. The Futurists' software installations were oriented towards defiant anti-aestheticism. In their works, they used vulgar vocabulary, professional jargon, the language of documents, posters and posters. Collections of poems by the Futurists had characteristic titles: "A Slap in the Face of Public Taste", "Dead Moon" and others. Russian Futurism was represented by several poetic groups. The brightest names were collected by the St. Petersburg group "Gilea" - V. Khlebnikov, D. D. Burliuk, Vladimir Mayakovsky, A. E. Kruchenykh, V. V. Kamensky. Collections of poems and public speeches by I. Severyanin were a stunning success
Especially, the futurists succeeded in this. Futurism completely abandoned the old literary traditions, the "old language", "old words", proclaimed a new form of words, independent of content, i.e. literally invented a new language. Work on the word, sounds became an end in itself, while the meaning of the verses was completely forgotten. Take, for example, V. Khlebnikov's poem "The Turnover":
Horses, trampling, monk.
But not speech, but he is black.
We go young, down with copper.
Chin is called the sword backwards.
Hunger than the sword is long?
Fell a temper thin and the spirit of a crow's paws ...
There is no meaning in this poem, but it is remarkable in that each line is read both from left to right and from right to left.
New words appeared, invented, composed. From the word "laughter" alone, a whole poem "The Spell of Laughter" was born:
Oh, laugh out loud!
Oh, laugh laughers!
That they laugh with laughter, that they laugh with laughter,
Oh, laugh wickedly!
Oh, mocking laughter - the laughter of clever laughers!
Oh, laugh with laughter at these mocking laughers!
Smeivo, smeivo,
Laugh, laugh, chuckle, chuckle,
Laughs, laughs.
Oh, laugh, laughers!
Oh, laugh, laughers.
Glava 4.Painting
Similar processes took place in Russian painting. Strong positions were held by representatives of the realistic school, the Society of Wanderers was active. Repin I.E. graduated in 1906. grandiose canvas "Meeting of the State Council". In revealing the events of the past, V. I. Surikov was primarily interested in the people as a historical force, a creative principle in man. The realistic foundations of creativity were also preserved by Nesterov M.V.
However, the trendsetter was the style, called "modern". Modernist searches affected the work of such major realist artists as Korovin K. A., Serov V. A.. Supporters of this trend united in the World of Art society. They took a critical stance against the Wanderers, believing that the latter, performing a function not inherent in art, harmed painting. Art, in their opinion, is an independent field of activity, and it should not depend on social influences. For a long period (from 1898 to 1924), the World of Art included almost all the major artists - Benois A.N., Bakst L.S., Kustodiev B.M., Lansere E.E., Malyavin F.A. ., N. K. Roerich, K. A. Somov. “The World of Art” left a deep mark on the development of not only painting, but also opera, ballet, decorative art, art criticism, and exhibition business. In 1907 in Moscow, an exhibition called "Blue Rose" was opened, in which 16 artists took part (Kuznetsov P.V., Sapunov N.N., Saryan M.S., etc.). It was a searching youth, striving to find their individuality in the synthesis of Western experience and national traditions. Representatives of the "Blue Rose" were associated with symbolist poets, whose performance was a modern attribute of the opening days. But symbolism in Russian painting has never been a single trend. It included, for example, such different artists as Vrubel M.A., Petrov-Vodkin K.S. and others.
A number of the largest masters - Kandinsky V.V., Lentulov A.V., Chagall M. 3., Filonov P.N. and others - entered the history of world culture as a representative of unique styles that combined avant-garde trends with Russian national traditions.
Chapter 5Sculpture
Sculpture also experienced a creative upsurge. Her awakening was largely due to the trends of Impressionism. P. P. Trubetskoy achieved significant success on the path of renewal. His sculptural portraits of Tolstoy, Witte, Chaliapin, and others were widely known. An important milestone in the history of Russian monumental sculpture was the monument to Alexander III, opened in St. Petersburg in October 1909. It was conceived as a kind of antipode to another great monument - "The Bronze Horseman" by E. Falcone.
The combination of the tendencies of impressionism and modernity characterizes the work of A. S. Golubkina. At the same time, the main feature of her works is not the display of a specific image, but the creation of a generalized phenomenon: "Old Age" (1898), "Walking Man" (1903), "Soldier" (1907 ) "Sleepers" (1912), etc.
Konenkov S.T. left a significant mark in Russian art. His sculpture became the embodiment of the continuity of the traditions of realism in new directions. He went through a passion for the work of Michelangelo ("Samson"), Russian folk wooden sculpture ("Lesovik"), itinerant traditions ("Stone Fighter"), traditional realistic portrait ("A.P. Chekhov"). And with all this, Konenkov remained a master of a bright creative individuality. On the whole, the Russian sculptural school was little affected by avant-garde tendencies, and did not develop such a complex range of innovative aspirations, characteristic of painting.
Chapter 6Architecture
In the second half of the 19th century, new opportunities opened up for architecture. This was due to technological progress. The rapid growth of cities, their industrial equipment, the development of transport, changes in public life required new architectural solutions. Stations, restaurants, shops, markets, theaters and bank buildings were built not only in the capitals, but also in provincial cities. At the same time, the traditional construction of palaces, mansions, and estates continued. The main problem of architecture was the search for a new style. And just like in painting, a new direction in architecture was called "modern". One of the features of this trend was the stylization of Russian architectural motifs - the so-called neo-Russian style.
The most famous architect, whose work largely determined the development of Russian, especially Moscow Art Nouveau, was F. O. Shekhtel. At the beginning of his work, he relied not on Russian, but on medieval Gothic models. The mansion of the manufacturer S.P. Ryabushinsky (1900-1902) was built in this style. In the future, Shekhtel repeatedly turned to the traditions of Russian wooden architecture. In this regard, the building of the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow (1902-1904) is very indicative. Subsequently, the architect is increasingly approaching the direction called "rationalist modern", which is characterized by a significant simplification of architectural forms and structures. The most significant buildings reflecting this trend were the Ryabushinsky Bank (1903), the printing house for the Morning of Russia newspaper (1907).
At the same time, along with the architects of the “new wave”, admirers of neoclassicism (I. V. Zholtovsky), as well as masters who use the technique of mixing different sculptural styles (eclecticism), held significant positions. The most indicative of this was the architectural design of the building of the Metropol Hotel in Moscow (1900), built according to the project of V. F. Valkot.
Chapter 7Music, ballet, theater, cinema
The beginning of the 20th century is the time of the creative rise of the great Russian innovative composers A. N. Scriabin. I. F. Stravinsky, S. I. Taneyev, S. V. Rachmaninov. In their work, they tried to go beyond traditional classical music, to create new musical forms and images. The musical performing culture also flourished significantly. The Russian vocal school was represented by the names of the outstanding opera singers F. I. Chaliapin, A. V. Nezhdanova, L. V. Sobinov,3. Ershov.
By the beginning of the XX century. Russian ballet has taken a leading position in the world of choreographic art. The Russian school of ballet relied on the academic traditions of the late 19th century, on stage productions by the outstanding choreographer M. I. Petipa that had become classics. At the same time, Russian ballet has not escaped new trends. The young directors A. A. Gorsky and M. I. Fokin, in opposition to the aesthetics of academism, put forward the principle of picturesqueness, according to which not only the choreographer, composer, but also the artist became full-fledged authors of the performance. The ballets by Gorsky and Fokine were staged in walkie-talkies by K. A. Korovin, A. N. Benois, L. S. Bakst, N. K. Roerich.
The Russian ballet school of the "Silver Age" gave the world a galaxy of brilliant dancers - Anna Pavlova, T. Karsavin, V. Nijinsky and others.
A notable feature of the culture of the early XX century. were the works of outstanding theater directors. K. S. Stanislavsky, the founder of the psychological acting school, believed that the future of the theater was in deep psychological realism, in solving the most important tasks of acting transformation. V. E. Meyerhold searched in the field of theatrical conventionality, generalization, the use of elements of a folk show and
mask theater.
© Museum. A. A. BakhrushinaA. Ya. Golovin. Terrible play. Sketch of scenery for the drama by M. Yu. Lermontov
E. B. Vakhtangov preferred expressive, spectacular, joyful performances.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the tendency to combine different types of creative activity became more and more pronounced. At the head of this process was the "World of Art", uniting in its ranks not only artists, but also poets, philosophers, musicians. In 1908-1913. S. P. Diaghilev organized in Paris, London, Rome and other capitals of Western Europe "Russian Seasons", presented by ballet and opera performances, theater painting, music, etc.
In the first decade of the 20th century in Russia, following France, a new art form appeared - cinematography. In 1903 the first "electrotheatres" and "illusions" arose, and by 1914 about 4,000 cinemas had already been built. In 1908 the first Russian feature film "Stenka Razin and the Princess" was shot, and in 1911 the first full-length film "The Defense of Sevastopol" was shot. Cinematography developed rapidly and became very popular. In 1914 In Russia, there were about 30 domestic film companies. And although the bulk of film production was made up of films with primitive melodramatic plots, world-famous cinema figures appeared: director Ya. A. Protazanov, actors I. I. Mozzhukhin, V. V. Kholodnaya, A. G. Koonen. The undoubted merit of cinema was its accessibility to all segments of the population. Russian films, created mainly as adaptations of classical works, became the first signs in the formation of "mass culture" - an indispensable attribute of bourgeois society.
Conclusion
How much new the "silver age" of poetry brought to the music of the word, what a huge amount of work has been done, how many new words and rhythms have been created, it seems that music and poetry have united. This is true, because many poems of the Silver Age poets have been set to music, and we listen and sing them, laugh and cry over them. . .
Much of the creative upsurge of that time entered into the further development of Russian culture and is now the property of all Russian cultured people. But then there was intoxication with creativity, novelty, tension, struggle, challenge.
In conclusion, with the words of N. Berdyaev, I would like to describe all the horror, all the tragedy of the situation in which the creators of spiritual culture, the color of the nation, the best minds not only in Russia, but also in the world, found themselves.
“The misfortune of the cultural renaissance of the beginning of the 20th century was that in it the cultural elite was isolated in a small circle and cut off from the broad social currents of that time. This had fatal consequences in the character that the Russian revolution assumed... The Russian people of that time lived on different floors and even in different centuries. The cultural renaissance did not have any wide social radiation .... Many supporters and spokesmen of the cultural renaissance remained leftist, sympathized with the revolution, but there was a cooling in social issues, there was an absorption in new problems of a philosophical, aesthetic, religious, mystical nature, which remained alien to people who actively participated in the social movement ... The intelligentsia committed an act of suicide. In Russia, before the revolution, two races were formed, as it were. And the fault was on both sides, that is, on the figures of the Renaissance, on their social and moral indifference ...
The schism characteristic of Russian history, the schism that grew throughout the 19th century, the abyss that unfolded between the upper refined cultural layer and wide circles, folk and intellectuals, led to the fact that the Russian cultural renaissance fell into this opened abyss. The revolution began to destroy this cultural renaissance and to persecute the creators of culture... Figures of Russian spiritual culture in large part were forced to move abroad. In part, this was a retribution for the social indifference of the creators of spiritual culture.
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