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Literary map of the Kursk region - Nikolai Alekseevich Polevoy. Polevoy Nikolai Alekseevich

Nikolai Alekseevich Polevoy, who struck his contemporaries with the versatility of his talent (novelist and playwright, translator of Shakespeare, journalist and critic, historian and publicist, it seemed that there was no area of ​​literature in which he would not be involved), was born in Irkutsk, in the family of a hereditary Kursk merchant . In 1811, the Polevoys returned to Kursk, where, in fact, the future writer. About how in the dark merchant environment he became attached to literature, legends were formed.

“He was about 20 years old when he decided to study and educate himself,” wrote V. G. Belinsky. trade, at night, instead of sleeping, he took up teaching. He could not always get a stub of a candle for this, because his father forbade him to sit at night. There was no candle - he used moonlight... He spent three years in such terrible, health-destroying labors. At this time, he wrote an article about the passage of Emperor Alexander through Kursk and sent it to Moskovskie Vedomosti. The article attracted the attention of the Kursk governor, who wanted to get acquainted with the young author. This vividly affected the vanity of the old father, and he allowed his son to study.

The share of truth that is in this story is hidden behind exaggerations. In the Polevoy family, books have always been treated with respect. "... Father constantly read all the Russian newspapers and magazines that came out at that time and enthusiastically indulged in disputes on political and religious-philosophical topics ..." And he studied Latin and French the future critic is not with a "drunk deacon", but with a well-known book lover, owner of a wonderful library - A.P. Baushev. Curiosity young man and his passion for literature received support and food for their development back in Kursk. N. Polevoy "soon became close to Prince Meshchersky and visited him almost every day ... The prince loved literature and could tell a lot of new things. He conveyed to him the view of the French theory of art ..."

By the time of moving to Moscow (1820) N.A. Polevoy was in many ways already prepared to become a professional writer: critic, writer, translator, publisher.

In 1825, Polevoy began to publish the first magazine in Russia, Moscow Telegraph, which was closed by the government in 1834, which saw it as a seditious publication.

Certainly, most of what is written by Polevoy now has a purely historical meaning. But for his time, his work both as a critic and as a writer was important and meaningful.

Entirely in the spirit of the new then artistic direction the work of N.A. Field. His works, in which dream and reality, the aspirations of the individual and the laws of society, were romantically opposed, were highly appreciated by readers at one time. The young Belinsky noted, not without enthusiasm, "that Polevoi's stories and novels, Simeon Kirdyap, The Painter, The Bliss of Madness, Emma, ​​The Fools, Abbadon, etc., are the purest poetry without any admixture of prose, though written in prose."

"Polevoi was the first to show that" ... literature is not a game of forfeits, not child's play, that the search for truth is its main subject and that truth is not such a trifle that could be sacrificed to conditional decency and friendly relations, "said VG Belinsky.

In "Tales of a Russian Soldier", largely based on Kursk material, the young merchant, on behalf of whom the story is being told, lovingly represents the city. “If you are in Kursk,” he says, “I advise you to go to the banks of the Tuskari to the former Trinity Monastery and admire from there the view of the Streletskaya Sloboda, its surroundings and the slope downhill to Tuskari. No less good is the view of the Yamskaya Sloboda, which has parted on the meadow side of the river..."

It is no coincidence that V.G. Belinsky said that in "Tales of a Russian Soldier" one senses folk spirit, there is everything "what is called nationality, from which our authors are so busy, what they least succeed in and what is easiest for true talent."

(According to I. Baskevich)






Bibliography:

  • Polevoy, N. A. Autobiography of N. A. Polevoy / N. A. Polevoy // Polevo N. A. Dreams and life. - M., 1988. - S. 285-300.
  • Polevoy, N. A. Selected prose. - M.: Pravda, 1990. - 752 p.
  • Field, N. A. History of the Prince of Italy, Count Suvorov-Rymniksky / N. A. Field. - M.: Edition of A. Petrovich, 1904. - 346 p.
  • Polevoy, N.A. History of the Russian people: [in 6 volumes] / N.A. Polevoy. - Ed. 2nd. - M., 1830-1833.
  • Polevoy, N. Essays on Russian Literature: [in 2 hours] / N. Polevoy. - St. Petersburg. : type. Sakharova, 1839
  • Zaporozhskaya, O. P. N. A. Polevoy - a striking phenomenon in cultural life Russia XIX century / O. P. Zaporozhskaya // From the history of culture of the Kursk region - Kursk, 1995. - Part 1. - S. 20-25.
  • Zaporizhskaya, O. P. A. S. Pushkin and N. A. Polevoy / O. P. Zaporozhskaya // Culture in the history of Russia: past and present. - Kursk, 2001. - S. 66-67.
  • Karpov, A. A. Nikolai Polevoy and his stories / A. A. Karpov // Selected works and letters / N. Polevoy. - L., 1986. - S. 3-26.
  • Kirilov, A. S. Polevoy N. A. / A. S. Kirilov // Russian Writers. - M., 1990. - T. 2. - S. 153-156
  • Polevoy Nikolai Alekseevich // History of Russia in faces from antiquity to the present day. - M., 1997. - S. 266-267.
  • Polevoy Nikolai Alekseevich // Literary encyclopedic Dictionary. - M., 1987. - S. 678.
  • Getman, N. "His name is in the memory of society" / N. Getman // Gor. news. - 2004. - S. 7. - (Culture).
  • Prokhorova, I. E. Field Merchants - Columbuses Russian education/ I. E. Prokhorova // The world of bibliography. - 2001. - No. 4. - S. 83-90.
  • Privalenko, M. Living features of the past / M. Privalenko // Kurskaya Pravda. - 1990. - 13 Jan. - (Famous smokers).

FIELD Nikolai Alekseevich was born into the family of a wealthy Kursk merchant - writer, journalist, literary critic, historian.

My father served in Irkutsk as the manager of the Russian-American Company, owned faience and vodka factories. But his affairs were shaken. Shortly before the invasion of Napoleon, the family moved to Moscow, then settled in their native Kursk.

In 1822, Nikolai Alekseevich inherited his father's business. He did not receive a formal education. He was attracted by literary activity. Self-taught mastered knowledge. I started reading at the age of 6, randomly. A barber from the Napoleonic army, an Italian, showed him the pronunciation of French in Kabul, music teacher, a Bohemian, taught him the German alphabet. New worlds opened up before Polevoy.

When he first arrived in Moscow, he became addicted to the theater. As a volunteer, he attended lectures at Moscow University: he listened to Merzlyakov, Kachenovsky, Geim.

Since 1817 he began to publish: in the "Russian Bulletin" by S. N. Glinka, his description of Alexander I's visit to the city of Kursk appeared.

In February 1820 he left Kursk for Moscow.

In the summer of 1821 he visited St. Petersburg. I saw in literary circles Griboedov, Zhukovsky, met Bulgarin, Grech. Nikolai Alekseevich was accepted as a "self-taught merchant", a "nugget". Field Svinin published in his "Notes of the Fatherland" his articles on literary and historical topics, poems, translations (of Ms. Montolier's stories).

In 1821 Nikolai Alekseevich composed « New way conjugations of Russian verbs", for which he received a silver medal from the Russian Academy. He became close to V. F. Odoevsky, got acquainted with the philosophy of Schelling and his interpreters. Published in "Mnemosyne", "Son of the Fatherland", "Northern Archive", "Proceedings of the Society Russian literature».

In 1825-34 Polevoy published the Moscow Telegraph, a journal of "literature, criticism and arts". This is the most important work of Polevoy's life, which is of great historical significance. He was the first to create a type of Russian encyclopedic journal; according to this model, the “Library for Reading”, “Domestic Notes”, “Contemporary” were later created. With the aim of "introducing everything interesting" in Russia and the West, he started four departments in the magazine:

1) science and art,

2) literature,

3) bibliography and criticism,

4) lime and mixture.

Nikolai Alekseevich drew materials from the liberal French magazines Le Globe, Revue framjaise, and the reputable Scottish The Edinburgh Rewiev. Maintained close contacts and mutual information with Julien de Paris' Revue encyclopedique. Polevoy attached fundamental importance to the department of criticism in the journal. Later, he himself wrote: "No one will dispute my honor that I was the first to make a permanent part of the Russian journal out of criticism, the first to turn criticism to all the most important modern subjects."

In 1825-28, writers-"aristocrats" from the Vyazemsky-Pushkin group collaborated in the journal: V. Odoevsky, S. D. Poltoratsky, E. Baratynsky, S. A. Sobolevsky, Ya. Tolstoy, A. Turgenev. Vyazemsky was a leading, sharp critic.

From 1829 there was a break with Vyazemsky, when the writer began to sharply criticize Karamzin's History of the Russian State; a controversy began with the "literary aristocracy". The direction of the magazine began to be determined entirely by the articles of the Polevoy brothers themselves. Xenophon Polevoy becomes the actual editor-in-chief. Nikolai Polevoy switched to other literary ideas: "History of the Russian people"(vol. I - VI, 1829-33), fiction. The role of Marlinsky as a novelist and critic has greatly increased. Nikolai Alekseevich was no less than Karamzin a "monarchist". But he reproached Karamzin for being more of a chronicler-narrator than a historian-researcher. He believed that the idea of ​​statehood did not extend to the ancient (before John III) period, that then there was not a Russian state, but many specific states. Karamzin did not see the historical necessity, justified expediency in the anti-boyar policy of Ivan the Terrible and Boris Godunov (the anti-noble, bourgeois-merchant orientation of Polevoy himself had an effect here).

In 1830-31 the magazine published a special satirical supplement "The New Painter of Society and Literature".

In 1832 she replaced him "Camera obscura of books and people"- sharp, meaningful satire. The magazine published works by Lazhechnikov, V. Dahl, Marlinsky, V. Ushakov, D. Begichev, A. Veltman, Polevoy himself, from foreign authors - V. Scott, Washington Irving, Hoffmann, Merimee, B. Constant, V. Hugo, Balzac and others.

Nikolai Alekseevich published more than 200 articles and notes in the Moscow Telegraph. He was a forerunner of the ideas of free bourgeois development. He justified the rights of the Russian "third estate" in speeches delivered at the Moscow Practical Academy of Commercial Sciences:

"On Intangible Capital" (1828),

"About the merchant rank" (1832),

and in the preface to his novel "Oath at the Holy Sepulcher"(1832). He glorified the “equality” of all before the law prevailing in France, sympathized with the revolution of 1830, which brought the big bourgeoisie to power (“The Present State of Dramatic Art in France”, 1830, part 34, nos. 15 and 16; reviews of the brochure “Woe from Wit” , 1831, part 36, no. 16; and others). Polevoy believed that the reasons french revolution 1789 "profound, varied, active and powerful." But Nikolai Alekseevich accepted only the results of the revolution, and not its violent methods. The position of the writer was affected by the compromise of the Russian bourgeoisie, which went for an alliance with the tsarist autocracy. This also predetermined his capitulation to the government, when it closed the Moscow Telegraph in April 1834 for a liberal direction, using as a reason Polevoy’s disapproving review of the puppeteer’s jingoistic drama The Hand of the Most High Fatherland Saved (in No. 3), from staging which Nicholas I was delighted with in Petersburg.

At the best time of his activity, Nikolai Alekseevich was the herald of romanticism, mainly French: the work of Hugo, A. de Vigny, Constant. He found the philosophical basis for his constructions in the eclectic system of V. Cousin. The writer began to introduce the principle of historicism into criticism. His articles are especially important:

"The Present State of the Dramatic Art in France"(1830, part 34, nos. 15 and 16),

"ABOUT new school and French poetry(1831, part 38, no. 6),

“About the novels of V. Hugo and in general about latest novels» (1832, part 43, nos. 1, 2 and 3),

"About Dramatic Fantasy" N. Kukolnika "Torquato Tasso"(1834, part 55, nos. 3 and 4).

From Russian literature, his articles on the writings of Derzhavin (1832), ballads and stories of Zhukovsky (1832), on Pushkin's "Boris Godunov" (1833), reviews of the works of Kantemir, Khemnitser and others, then combined in "Essays on Russian Literature" (part 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1839). Polevoy N.A. tried to rely on biographical facts, for the first time giving them a fundamental importance in the monographic study of the artist of the word. His articles about various writers are elements of the emerging N.A. Polevoy. holistic historical and literary concept, anticipating the concept of Belinsky.

The writer considered "romanticism in poetry as liberalism in politics" (Hugo's words), as a means of establishing a new, democratic, anti-noble art. The principles of freedom of creativity, uninhibited from restrictive rules and regulations, the crushing of normativism were preached by Polevoy. True, Nikolai Alekseevich, according to Belinsky, denied more than affirmed, disputed more than proved. But in the articles of the last years of the existence of the Moscow Telegraph, he more and more definitely developed the theses of an objective, historical aesthetics, speaking out against the subjectivist aesthetics of taste, arbitrary judgments. “Consider every subject,” he wrote, “not according to an unaccountable feeling: like it, dislike it, good, bad, but according to the historical age and the people and the philosophical essential truths and the human soul” (1831, part 37, no. 3, p. 381). In these arguments, the writer acted as a direct predecessor of Belinsky.

But, fighting for the "truth of the image", Nikolai Alekseevich still remained a romantic and understood his task in a limited way. He rebelled against the aesthetic dissertation of N. I. Nadezhdin, who proclaimed an important thesis: “Where there is life, there is poetry,” although, as the researchers note, perhaps under the influence of the same Nadezhdin, Polevoy himself increasingly began to recognize the primacy of reality in relation to art and the role of objective historical circumstances influencing the artist's work (see the review of "Torquato Tasso" by Kukolnik, 1834, part 55, nos. 3 and 4). Nevertheless, “naked truth” seemed to him anti-aesthetic: “Is the truth of the image the goal of an elegant work?” (1832, part 43, no. 4, p. 539). Polevoy proceeded from the thesis that there is supposedly an eternal contradiction between the poet and society. However, he did not know how to eliminate this contradiction, and capitulated to him. “Both the world and the poet are both right; society is mistaken if it wants to make its worker out of a poet ... along with others, the poet is equally mistaken if he thinks that his poetry gives him the same right to a place among people as his arshin gives a merchant, an official of his office, a courtier of his gold caftan” (1834, part 55, no. 3). Initially, Nikolai Alekseevich denied the ideas of Hugo's preface to the drama Cromwell. But later he accepted Hugo's theses regarding the "contrasting" image of life as corresponding to the "zeitgeist", realizing that romanticism is "diversity, destructive, wild impulse", "the struggle of the spirit" (1832, part 43, no. 3, p. 375). But he recognized the combination of opposite elements only on the basis of romanticism. In the work of Pushkin, and especially Gogol, the writer did not recognize this as legitimate and aesthetic.

Nikolai Alekseevich completely refused all Russian literature of the 18th century. in originality, making a concession only to Derzhavin. He severely condemned Karamzin for imitativeness. And he condemned Pushkin's "Boris Godunov" for allegedly slavishly following Karamzin the historian, having overlooked the problem of the people, important for Pushkin. More objective assessment the great poet Polevoy gave in the obituary article "Pushkin" in the "Library for Reading" (1837, vol. 21).

Even worse was the assessment of Gogol. He called the “Inspector General” a “farce”, in “ Dead souls I saw only the "ugliness", the "poverty" of the content. Nikolai Alekseevich did not understand Gogol's grotesqueness, his realistic contrasts, the combination of the lofty and the comic.

The writer is also known as a novelist and wrote a number of novels and short stories in a romantic spirit:

"Emma" (1829),

"Oath at the Holy Sepulcher" (1832),

"Painter" (1833),

"Bliss of Madness" (1833),

"Abbadon" (1834).

Some of the works were combined by him in a two-volume edition called Dreams and Life (1834). As the very title of the collection shows, the writer proceeds from the same thesis: “The dreams of poets are not suitable for the material world”, they are broken in life's struggles. Polevoy's favorite conflict is the collision of the poet-dreamer with the prose of life. He did not overcome the dualism of the romantic view of reality, he could not dialectically resolve the issue of the relationship of the individual with society. The most valuable of his prose experiments were "Tales of a Russian soldier" And "Bag of Gold"(1829), written in a manner approaching realism, in the form of an ingenuous tale.

Having survived the shock in connection with the closure of the Moscow Telegraph, Nikolai Alekseevich moved to St. Petersburg in 1837, and became close to Bulgarin and Grech. He collaborated in the "Northern Bee", but failed to "ennoble" it and left Bulgarin in 1838.

In 1840 he resigned as editor of Grech's Son of the Fatherland.

For the sake of the "official nationality" he writes reptilian dramas for the Alexandrinsky Theatre:

"Grandfather of the Russian Navy" (1838),

"Parsha-Siberian" (1840),

"Igolkin, merchant of Novgorod" (1839),

"Lomonosov, or Life and Poetry" (1843).

Only the prose translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet was valuable.

In 1842, Nikolai Alekseevich edited the Russian Messenger, but was not successful. Belinsky pursued him for renegade. Polevoy experienced a painful drama.

In 1846, he tried to break with the reactionary environment, under an agreement with Kraevsky, he began editing the Literary Gazette. But soon death came.

Belinsky wrote the pamphlet “N. A. Polevoy (1846), in which he highly appreciated the writer's activities as a publisher of the Moscow Telegraph.

Died -, Petersburg.

Russian writer, playwright, literary and theater critic, journalist, historian and translator; brother of critic and journalist K. A. Polevoy and writer E. A. Avdeeva, father of writer and critic P. N. Polevoy.
Born June 22 (July 3), 1796 in Irkutsk. My father served in Irkutsk as the manager of the Russian-American Company, owned faience and vodka factories, but shortly before Napoleon's invasion, he began to suffer losses, in connection with which the family moved to Moscow, then to Kursk. In 1822 Polevoy inherited his father's business.
Published since 1817. In the "Russian Bulletin" S.N. Glinka appeared his description of the visit to Kursk by Emperor Alexander I. In February 1820 he moved to Moscow, where he became addicted to the theater and as a volunteer attended lectures by A.F. .Kachenovsky and others. In the summer of 1821 he visited St. Petersburg, in whose literary circles he was accepted as a "nugget", "self-taught merchant"; met with A.S. Griboyedov, V.A. Zhukovsky, met with F.V. Bulgarin, N.I. Grech. P. Svinin in his "Notes of the Fatherland" published his articles on literary and historical topics, poems, translations of Mrs. Montolier's stories.
In 1821 he received a silver medal from the Russian Academy for his treatise A New Way of Conjugation of Russian Verbs. In those same years, he became close to VF Odoevsky, studied the philosophy of F. Schelling and the works of his interpreters. Published in the journals "Mnemosyne", "Son of the Fatherland", "Northern Archive", "Proceedings of the Society of Russian Literature". In 1825-1834 he published the Moscow Telegraph magazine of "literature, criticism and art", which became the main business of his life and a stage in the development of Russian culture. He was the first to create a type of Russian encyclopedic journal, on the model of which “Library for Reading”, “Domestic Notes” by A.A. Kraevsky, N.A. Nekrasov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin and others, “Sovremennik” were later published. In an effort to "acquaint with everything interesting" in Russia and in the West, Polevoy distributed the materials of the journal into sections: science and art, literature, bibliography and criticism, news and mixture.
At the Moscow Telegraph, satirical appendices " New painter Society and Literature" (1830-1831), "Camera Obscura of Books and People" (1832). The magazine published works by I.I. Lazhechnikov, V.I. Dal, A.A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky (especially active in the 1830s), A.F. Polevoy himself; from foreign authors - V. Scott, V. Irving, E.T.A. Hoffmann, P. Merime, B. Constant, V. Hugo, O. Balzac and others. (V.F. Odoevsky, E.A. Baratynsky, A.I. Turgenev, S.A. Sobolevsky and others) from the circle of A.S. Pushkin–P.A. Vyazemsky, leading magazine critic, whose break with Polevoy occurred in 1829 due to the sharp criticism of the last "History of the Russian State" by N.M. Karamzin. Since that time, a sharp controversy between the Moscow Telegraph and the "literary aristocracy" began, led mainly by Polev himself and his brother Xenophon, who actually became the editor-in-chief of the magazine.
In 1829–1833 Polevoy wrote The History of the Russian People. A convinced monarchist, like Karamzin, he reproaches the master of Russian historiography for being more of a chronicler-narrator than an analyst and researcher. Contrary to Karamzin, he argued that statehood in Russia did not exist in the ancient (before the reign of Ivan III) period, and therefore found justified the anti-boyar policy of the "centralizers" Ivan the Terrible and Boris Godunov. The same anti-aristocratic position, stated in the very title of the work, was reflected in the articles, notes and feuilletons (more than 200) published by Polev in the Moscow Telegraph, in the speeches he read at the Moscow Practical Academy of Commercial Sciences and in other works by Polevoi, where the idea was put forward free bourgeois development, the equality of all before the law adopted in France, achieved by the revolution of 1789, was glorified, the revolution of 1830 was welcomed.
Since 1837, having moved to St. Petersburg, Polevoy, under an agreement with the publisher A.F. Smirdin, took over the unspoken editorial staff of The Son of the Fatherland (headed by F.V. Bulgarin; he left the magazine in 1838) and The Northern Bee (headed by with N.I. Grech, left in 1840). In 1841–1842 he edited an organized by the enemy natural school Grech "Russian Messenger", but was not successful. In 1846, severely criticized by Belinsky for renegade, he began (under an agreement with Kraevsky) to edit the liberal Literaturnaya Gazeta.
Author of the novel "Abbadonna" (1837) and the stories "Emma" (1829), "The Oath at the Holy Sepulcher", "The Painter", "The Bliss of Madness" (both 1833; combined under the title Dreams and Life, books 1–2, 1934), painting in a romantic spirit tragic collision idealist-dreamer with the prose of life.
Polevoy also published an extensive reference and bibliographic publication "Russian Vivliofika, or Collection of Materials for national history, geography, statistics and ancient Russian literature" (1833).
Polevoy died in St. Petersburg on February 22 (March 6), 1846.

Nikolai Alekseevich Polevoy (1796-1846) - famous novelist, critic, theorist of romanticism, prose writer, historian, publisher of the Moscow Telegraph magazine (1825-1831). Having first reached great heights, and then ended up in a strip of almost complete oblivion, Polevoy became an example dramatic fate self-assertion of a commoner in the life of Russia in the 1820s-1840s; a man who ended his journey at the age of 50 with an amazing feeling of spiritual catastrophe and the hopelessness of existence.

Nikolai Polevoy came from an old family of Kursk merchants. Polevoy's parents stood out noticeably in the merchant environment - there was a good library in the Polevoy's house. The boy's father wanted his son to continue his business, but Polevoy Jr. early years attracted to literature and history. This hobby caused sharp dissatisfaction with Polevoy Sr., who even refused to give his son money for education. But this did not stop the boy: from childhood until the end of his days, he was engaged exclusively in self-education - he was self-taught. Everything that the writer managed to achieve in life was achieved by him at the expense of many-sided talents, multiplied by exhausting work. Without outside help, he mastered history, literature, languages ​​- Latin, Greek, French, German. Since childhood, he began to write poetry, dramas, published a home newspaper and magazine.

When old age falls so terribly,
What is youth left? Scary.
I'm scared for the man!

Polevoy Nikolai Alekseevich

Literary debut Field took place in 1817, in the magazines "Russian Bulletin" and "Bulletin of Europe". Other publications soon follow. The first literary successes reconcile him with his father. Having moved to Moscow in 1820, Polevoy completely surrenders literary activity, gets acquainted with writers, journalists, writers. Adaptation in the literary circles of the "self-taught merchant" was surprisingly fast and successful. He is engaged in criticism and translation, writes poetry, research - a study he wrote in 1822 on Russian verbs brought him a silver medal. Russian Academy and the title of an associate member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature at Moscow University.

The stellar period is coming literary career Field. From 1825 to 1834 he published the literary-critical magazine "Moscow Telegraph" - " best magazine in Russia from the beginning of journalism "according to V. G. Belinsky. The magazine quickly becomes the most popular magazine both in the capital and in the provinces; and the romantic orientation of the work of its publisher immediately turns it into an organ of romanticism. It publishes Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, Baratynsky, works by Western European authors - Goethe, Hoffmann, Hugo, Constant, Merimee, etc. are published. In his journal, Polevoy adhered to a program that was openly bourgeois-democratic in nature, and affirmed the historical significance and necessity of the middle classes of Russian society - merchants and industrialists.

Speaking on the pages of his journal as a critic, publicist, prose writer, historian and poet, Polevoy defended the democratic nature of Russian literature, criticizing the "literary aristocracy" common in the literature of that time, denying it originality. This pro-bourgeois position of Polevoy eventually led to a break with the writers of the "Pushkin circle", who, being "doubly aristocrats", openly did not accept the positions of the writer.

In the late 1820s and early 1830s, Polevoy tried his hand at creating his own description of Russian history. From 1829 to 1833, he publishes in his journal the study "History of the Russian people", in which he criticizes historical views N. M. Karamzin. This instantly turns the few aristocratic writers remaining in his journal (after the break with Pushkin) against him: Baratynsky and Vyazemsky leave the editorial office.

In the "telegraph period" Polevoy enters Russian literature not only as a critic and journalist, but also as a romantic prose writer. Polevoy's first stories dedicated to historical topics and closely related to the periods of interest to the author Russian history, appear on the wave of general enthusiasm for Russian antiquity and are very warmly received by the reading public. His novel "The Oath at the Holy Sepulcher" becomes one of the most popular historical novels that time. In the early 1830s Polevoi begins to write and romantic plots. His first work in this genre - the story "The Bliss of Madness" - turns out to be the most successful. "The Bliss of Madness" is a kind of an anthology of romantic motifs in poetry and prose of the 1820-1830s, dedicated to fatal love and associated with it (and going with it hand in hand) madness. This story, like all Polevoy's romantic stories, ends tragically - loyalty to the ideals of love, beauty and kindness, incompatible with happiness in earthly life, leads to the death of the heroes.


The son of a merchant, he did not receive a systematic education. Having learned to read and write early, he greedily pounced on the books that he found in in large numbers at his father. According to his own words, he read a thousand volumes of all sorts of things and remembered everything he read. Already from the age of ten, he published handwritten newspapers and magazines, wrote dramas and poems, history, devoting to these studies all the leisure that remained to him later from managing his father's affairs. In 1811 the Polevoys moved from Irkutsk to Kursk. Having been in Moscow, where he attended the university for some time, and in St. Petersburg, Polevoy realized the insufficiency of unsystematic education and seriously set about self-education. After a whole day of working behind the counter, he would spend the nights studying Russian grammar and foreign languages(Greek, Latin, French, German). Giving up easy reading, he learned "three hundred vocables a night, wrote out all the verbs from the Geim dictionary, reconjugated each one separately and compiled new tables of Russian conjugations." In 1820, Polevoy, on behalf of his father, left for Moscow to set up a distillery. Since then, and especially after the death of his father (1822), Polevoy devoted himself entirely to literature. In the same year he received a large silver medal from the Academy of Sciences for research on Russian verbs. On literary field Polevoy spoke even earlier, in 1817, by publishing an article in the Russian Bulletin about Alexander I's visit to Kursk. In 1818, he published in Vestnik Evropy a "Remark on an article about Volos" and a "Translation of Chateaubriand's description of Mackenziev's journey through North America"Since then, articles and poems signed with the name of Polevoy began to appear more and more often in periodicals. Grech and Bulgarin offered him to collaborate in their journal, but this offer was not accepted by him. In 1825, having met with support from Prince Vyazemsky, he began to publish the famous "Moscow Telegraph". After the prohibition of the "Moscow Telegraph", Polevoy was for some time a permanent employee of the "Library for Reading", then he edited "Picturesque Review", "Son of the Fatherland", "Russian Bulletin", " Literary Newspaper", published by Kraevsky. In all these publications, he placed a number of articles on a wide variety of issues, acting as a critic, essayist, historian, novelist, playwright. Separately published by him whole line novels ("Abadonna", "The Oath at the Holy Sepulcher", "Dreams and Reality", etc.), "Essays on Russian Literature", "Dramatic Works" (4 volumes), "History of the Russian People", "History of Peter the Great", "History of Suvorov", "History of Napoleon" and others. "Few Russian writers," Polevoy says, "have written so much and in such diverse genres as I have." Despite, however, the really striking "diversity" of topics, Polevoy everywhere, in all his articles, is a conductor of the same views and beliefs. Having begun his education at a mature age, without any guidance, having spent best years life in the Russian merchant environment, Polevoy escaped the school routine of that time; everything Russian and national remained dear to him forever. This did not prevent him, however, from appreciating Western European science and culture and reconciling his national sympathies with the consciousness of the need to learn from the West. At the beginning of his career, Polevoy was undoubtedly an advanced person. In terms of the influence that Polevoy had on Russian poetry and literature, Belinsky puts him on the same level with Lomonosov and Karamzin. For the significance of Polevoy as a journalist and critic, see Moscow Telegraph (XIX, 960) and Literary Criticism (XVI, 770 - 2). "Moscow Telegraph" translated the works of Byron, Schiller, Goethe, W. Scott, Hoffmann, Irving, Mickiewicz, etc. Each book contained detailed reviews all foreign literatures, not excluding Chinese and Arabic, as well as the characteristics individual works and writers. The department of history, geography and travel was also rich and varied. From the very beginning, Polevoy sided with Pushkin and proclaimed him a "great poet" and "a man of genius." In an extensive article devoted to Derzhavin, Polevoy for the first time

e gave excellent characterization this poet. In articles about Lomonosov, Kantemir and Khemnitser, Polevoy examines their works from the point of view of nationality, sincerity and integrity of inspiration. Possessing great artistic taste, he overthrew a number of idols created by the then literary circles or who were honored by virtue of outdated legends: "it is not possible," says Belinsky, "to count all the authorities that he has destroyed." One of the biggest authorities against whom Polevoy took up arms was Karamzin. Speaking enthusiastically about the significance of Karamzin, Polevoy recognized his "History" as unsatisfactory. In Karamzin's "rhetorical" definition of history, Polevoy saw an extremely limited understanding of its goals and noted in Karamzin's work the absence of a general guiding idea. Instead of history, Karamzin gives a gallery of portraits without any historical perspective. Very aptly, Polevoy pointed out that even the barbarians are ennobled, wise, artistically developed by a patriotic historian, only because Rurik, Svyatoslav are Russian princes. Read by Niebuhr and under strong influence Thierry and Guizot, Polevoy was not content with analyzing Karamzin: he decided to write The History of the Russian People himself. Armed with new views, he pursues step by step the old historical scheme, the basis of which was the idea of ​​Russia as a "state" from the very beginning of its history. "I believe," says Polevoy, "that in words" Russian state"consisted main mistake my predecessors. State Russian beginning to exist only from the time of the overthrow of the Mongol yoke, until the end of the 15th century there were several states in Russia. "Polevoi tried to eliminate everything personal, accidental from the explanation of Russian history. He indicated in it several periods that necessarily followed one after another, inevitably arising from this state society and from world-historical events. In general, however, with all the significance of the alteration, the basis of the scheme remained the same: Polevoy characterizes the history of society as before by the history of power and in the end falls into the very tone for which Karamzin was thoroughly reproached. main question- What is the world-historical role of the Russian people - Polevoy was powerless to answer; his attempt at a solution was expressed by simple synchronistic comparisons. The boldness with which Polevoy encroached on firmly established authorities, especially on the authority of Karamzin, did not go unpunished for him. Everyone rebelled against him, from the luminaries of literature to all sorts of writers, whose pride he somehow offended in his journal. Pushkin was openly indignant at Polevoy's attitude towards Karamzin. Prince Vyazemsky ceased cooperation with the Moscow Telegraph and broke off personal relations with the publisher, calling him "the overthrower of legitimate literary authorities." Polevoi has now become the target of indecent attacks, libels and even denunciations. to his sincere critical articles they answered with abuse, hinted at her origin, called her a dropout and a know-it-all. The most dangerous thing for Polevoy were those literary enemies who tried by all means to prove that the magazine was "ill-intentioned". A sincere patriot who attacked only " leavened patriotism", Polevoi gradually gained fame as the most dangerous liberal, revolutionary, enemy of Russia, who can excite the minds not only with his articles, but even with his silence. outrageous". The chief of gendarmes, Benckendorff, received three detailed notes in which Polevoy was accused of "the most obvious carbonarism." Only a reason was expected to bring Polevoy to justice. Polevoy's review of the Kukolnik's drama "The Hand of the Almighty Saved the Fatherland" served as such an occasion. Breathing patriotic feelings, she was judged ill-intentioned only because she literary work drama, awarded the highest approval. Emperor Nicholas I, long since restored against

"Moscow Telegraph" at first wanted to deal strictly with Polev, but then, admitting the government's guilt in long-suffering, limited itself to banning the publication. This event ended the brilliant half of Polevoy's activity. Subsequently, he himself said that he "should have kept quiet back in 1834." and that all further activities was "playing all-in for literary fame." Having lost the opportunity to keep a journal, Polevoy performed in a new way for him - a dramatic one. Over the course of 8 years, he gave about 40 dramas, which were successful on stage, but met with complete condemnation from the best part of Russian criticism. "Grandfather of the Russian Navy", "Parasha-Siberian", "Merchant Igolkin", "Russian Sailor", "Elena Glinskaya" and others, written on themes from Russian life and did not represent any special merit in artistically, brought P. fame" leavened patriot", who betrayed his convictions. This was not entirely fair, since Polevoy was distinguished by sympathy for everything Russian before; but it cannot be denied that he himself had previously called such dramas less than mediocre. Aware of the shortcomings of his works, he nevertheless continued to write, not Overwhelmed with work, almost ruined, oppressed by family misfortunes, persecuted by creditors, Polevoy compared himself to "a recorder that someone starts, and she writes anything: a drama, a story, criticism. "A fan of romanticism, the best part who devoted his life to the search for vague ideals, Polevoy and in his later works was a sincere supporter of positive, heroic types; that's why he was unsympathetic to the "Inspector General" and " Dead souls". Articles about Gogol aroused indignation against Polevoy the best representatives literature; closest he found himself to his old enemy, Bulgarin. If at the beginning of his literary activity Polevoy was subjected to all kinds of insults from the obscurantists, now he was attacked by progressive people, and attacked very cruelly. From advanced man, who gave the tone to literature, Polevoy turned into a literary pariah. Abandoned by everyone, not meeting with anyone's support, often in need of even a piece of bread, Field to the very last minute continued to work. His laconic diary, his letters paint a terrible picture of his life: it was a slow agony, from which, finally, on February 22, 1846, death was the desired outcome. She removed from Polevoi's memory the stigma that had tormented him in last years life. His most merciless critic, Belinsky, rehabilitated Polevoy in a warm article, calling him one of the most remarkable figures in Russian literature. Wed Belinsky "Works" ( Volume XII); FROM. Krylov "Essays on the life of N.A. Polevoy" (M., 1849); "Notes of K.A. Polevoy" (St. Petersburg, 1888); N. Chernyshevsky "Essays of the Gogol period"; S. Stavrina, "N.A. Polevoy and the Moscow Telegraph" ("Case", 1875, No. 5 and 7); A.K. Borozdin "Journalist of the twenties" ("Historical Bulletin", 1896, No. 3); P. Milyukov "The Main Currents of Russian Historical Thought" (vol. 1), Iv. Ivanov "The History of Russian Criticism" (St. Petersburg, 1898, issues I and II), V. Botsyanovsky "N.A. Field as a playwright" ("Yearbook Imperial theaters", season 1894 - 95, app., book 3rd); Sukhomlinov "Research" (vol. II). V. Botsyanovsky.