Realism in Russian literature of the early 20th century. Russian realism of the late XIX - early XX century and its development

First half. 20th century - an abundance of experiments in literature, new forms, new techniques, new religions are invented. Modernism of the 20th century is entering a new stage, which is called. "vanguardism". But Realism becomes the most striking direction. Along with tard. Classic Forms of realism, in the 20th century. fantastic absurdity, the poetics of sleep, and deformation are widely used in this direction. The realism of the 20th century is distinguished by the fact that it uses previously incompatible techniques. The concept of man is emerging in the literature. The scope of the concept has expanded throughout the century. There are discoveries in the field of psychology - Freud, existentialism, the teachings of Marxists. Paraliterature, that is, mass literature, appears. It is not art, it is popular commercial literature that brings instant income. mass art is a convenient means of manipulating consciousness. Mass culture must be controlled.

The main themes are the theme of war, socio-political catastrophes, the tragedy of the individual (the tragedy of the individual who seeks justice and loses spiritual harmony), the problem of faith and unbelief, the relationship between personal and collective, morality and politics, spiritual and ethical problems.

Features of realism of the 20th century - refused the priority of the principle of imitation. Realism began to use the methods of mediated knowledge of the world. In the 19th century, a descriptive form was used, in the 20th century - analytical studies (the effect of detachment, irony, subtext, grotesque, fantastic and conditional modeling. Realism of the 20th century began to actively use many modernist techniques - stream of consciousness, suggestiveness, absurdity. Realism becomes more philosophical, Philosophy enters literature as a technique deeply penetrating into the structure of the work, which means that the genre of the parable develops (Camus, Kafka).

The heroes of realism also change. The person is portrayed as more complex, unpredictable. The literature of realism poses more difficult tasks - to penetrate into the sphere of the irrational, into the sphere of the subconscious, exploring the sphere of instincts.

Of the genres, the novel remains, but its genre palette is changing. It becomes more diverse, uses other genre varieties. There is an interpenetration of genres. In the 20th century, the structure of the novel loses its normativity. There is a turn from the society to the individual, from the pitiful to the individual, the interest in the subject dominates. A subjective epic appears (Proust) - the individual consciousness is in the center and it is the object of research.

Along with new trends, the trend of classical realism continues to exist. Realism is a living and developing method, the discovery of the masters of the past and is constantly enriched with new techniques and images.

The realism of the 20th century is directly related to the realism of the previous century. And how did this artistic method V mid-nineteenth century, having received the legitimate name of "classical realism" and having experienced various kinds of modifications in the literary work of the last third of the 19th century, was influenced by such unrealistic trends as naturalism, aestheticism, impressionism.

The realism of the 20th century takes shape in its definite history and has a destiny. If we cover the 20th century collectively, then realistic creativity manifested itself in diversity of nature, multi-composition in the first half of the 20th century. At this time, it is obvious that realism is changing under the influence of modernism and mass literature. He connects with these artistic phenomena as with revolutionary socialist literature. In the second half there is a dissolution of realism, which has lost its clear aesthetic principles and poetics of creativity in modernism and postmodernism.

The realism of the 20th century continues the traditions of classical realism on different levels- from aesthetic principles to the techniques of poetics, the traditions of which were inherent in the realism of the 20th century. The realism of the last century acquires new properties that distinguish it from this type of creativity of the previous time.

The realism of the 20th century is characterized by an appeal to the social phenomena of reality and the social motivation of the human character, the psychology of the individual, and the fate of art. As obvious is the appeal to the social topical problems of the era, which are not separated from the problems of society and politics.

Realistic art of the 20th century, like the classical realism of Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, is distinguished by a high degree of generalization and typification of phenomena. Realistic art tries to show the characteristic and regular in their causality and determinism. Therefore, realism is characterized by a different creative embodiment of the image principle. typical character in typical circumstances, in the realism of the 20th century, which is keenly interested in the individual human person. Character as a living person - and in this character the universal and typical has an individual refraction, or is combined with individual properties personality. Along with these features of classical realism, new features are also obvious.

First of all, these are the features that manifested themselves in the realistic at the end of the 19th century. Literary creativity in this era takes on the character of philosophical and intellectual, when philosophical ideas underlay the modeling of artistic reality. At the same time, the manifestation of this philosophical principle is inseparable from the various properties of the intellectual. From the author's attitude to the intellectually active perception of the work in the process of reading, then the emotional perception. An intellectual novel, an intellectual drama, takes shape in its specific properties. classic pattern intellectual realistic novel given by Thomas Mann ("Magic Mountain", "Confession of the Adventurer Felix Krul"). This is also palpable in the dramaturgy of Bertolt Brecht.

The second feature of realism in the 20th century is the strengthening and deepening of the dramatic, more tragic beginning. This is evident in the work of F.S. Fitzgerald (“Tender is the Night”, “The Great Gatsby”).

As you know, the art of the 20th century lives by its special interest not just in a person, but in his inner world.

The term "intellectual novel" was first proposed by Thomas Mann. In 1924, the year the novel The Magic Mountain was published, the writer noted in the article “On Spengler’s Teachings” that the “historical and world turning point” of 1914-1923. with extraordinary force aggravated in the minds of contemporaries the need to comprehend the era, and this in a certain way was refracted into artistic creativity. To "intellectual novels" T. Mann also included the works of Fr. Nietzsche. It was the "intellectual novel" that became the genre that for the first time realized one of the characteristic new features of the realism of the 20th century - an acute need for the interpretation of life, its comprehension, interpretation, which exceeded the need for "telling", the embodiment of life in artistic images. In world literature, he is represented not only by the Germans - T. Mann, G. Hesse, A. Döblin, but also by the Austrians R. Musil and G. Broch, the Russian M. Bulgakov, the Czech K. Chapek, the Americans W. Faulkner and T. Wolf , and many others. But T. Mann stood at its origins.

Layering, multi-composition, the presence in a single artistic whole of layers of reality that are far from each other has become one of the most common principles in the construction of novels of the 20th century. Novelists divide reality. They divide it into life in the valley and on the Magic Mountain (T. Mann), the sea of life and the strict solitude of the Republic of Castalia (G. Hesse). They single out biological life, instinctive life and the life of the spirit (German "intellectual novel"). They create the province of Yoknapatofu (Faulkner), which becomes the second universe, representing modernity.

First half of the 20th century put forward a special understanding and functional use of myth. Myth has ceased to be, as is usual for the literature of the past, a conditional attire of the present. Like many other things, under the pen of writers of the XX century. myth found historical features, was perceived in its independence and separateness - as a product of distant prescription, illuminating the repeating patterns in common life humanity. The appeal to myth widened the temporal boundaries of the work. But besides this, the myth that filled the entire space of the work (“Joseph and his brothers” by T. Mann) or appeared in separate reminders, and sometimes only in the title (“Job” by the Austrian I. Roth), made it possible for endless artistic play, countless analogies and parallels, unexpected "encounters", correspondences that throw light on modernity and explain it.

The German "intellectual novel" could be called philosophical, meaning its obvious connection with the traditional for German literature, starting with its classics, philosophizing in artistic creativity. German literature always sought to understand the universe. Goethe's Faust was a solid support for this. Having risen to a height not reached by German prose throughout the second half of XIX century, the "intellectual novel" has become a unique phenomenon of world culture precisely because of its originality.

The very type of intellectualism or philosophizing was here of a special kind. In the German "intellectual novel", three of its largest representatives - Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Alfred Döblin - noticeably strive to proceed from a complete, closed concept of the universe, a well-thought-out concept of a cosmic device, to the laws of which human existence. This does not mean that the German "intellectual novel" hovered in transcendental distances and was not connected with the burning problems of the political situation in Germany and the world. On the contrary, the authors named above gave the most profound interpretation of modernity. Nevertheless, the German "intellectual novel" strove for an all-encompassing system. (Outside of the novel, this intention is evident in Brecht, who always sought to connect the sharpest social analysis with human nature, and in early poetry with the laws of nature.)

However, in fact, time was interpreted in the novel of the twentieth century. much more varied. In the German "intellectual novel" it is discrete not only in the sense of the absence of continuous development: time is also torn apart into qualitatively different "pieces". In no other literature is there such a tense relationship between the time of history, eternity and personal time, the time of human existence.

The image of the inner world of a person has a special character. Psychologism in T. Mann and Hesse differs significantly from psychologism, for example, in Döblin. However, the German "intellectual novel" as a whole is characterized by an enlarged, generalized image of a person. The image of a person has become a condenser and a receptacle for "circumstances" - some of their indicative properties and symptoms. The spiritual life of the characters received a powerful external regulator. It is not so much the environment as the events of world history and the general state of the world.

Most of the German "intellectual novels" continued the developments that took place on German soil in the 18th century. genre of the novel of education. But education was understood according to tradition (“Faust” by Goethe, “Heinrich von Ofterdingen” by Novalis) not only as moral perfection.

Thomas Mann (1875-1955) can be considered the creator of a new type of novel, not because he was ahead of other writers: published in 1924, the novel The Magic Mountain was not only one of the first, but also the most definite example of a new intellectual prose.

The work of Alfred Döblin (1878-1957). What is highly characteristic of Döblin is what is not characteristic of these writers - an interest in the "material" itself, in the material surface of life. It was this interest that made his novel related to many artistic phenomena of the 1920s in various countries. The 1920s saw the first wave of documentary art. Accurately recorded material (in particular, a document) seemed to guarantee the comprehension of reality. In literature, montage has become a common technique, pushing the plot ("fiction"). It was montage that was central to the writing technique of the American Dos Passos, whose novel Manhattan (1925) was translated in Germany in the same year and had a certain influence on Döblin. In Germany, Döblin's work was associated in the late 1920s with the style of "new efficiency".

As in the novels of Erich Kestner (1899-1974) and Hermann Kesten (born in 1900), two of the greatest prose writers of the "new efficiency", in Döblin's main novel "Berlin - Alexanderplatz" (1929) a person is filled to the limit with life. If the actions of people were not of any decisive importance, then, on the contrary, the pressure of reality upon them was of decisive importance.

The best examples of the social and historical novel in many cases developed a technique close to the "intellectual novel".

Among the early victories of realism of the XX century. include the novels of Heinrich Mann, written in the 1900-1910s. Heinrich Mann (1871-1950) continued the age-old tradition of German satire. At the same time, like Weert and Heine, the writer experienced a significant impact of French social thought and literature. Exactly French literature helped him master the genre of socially accusatory novel, which acquired unique features from G. Mann. Later G. Mann discovered Russian literature.

The name of G. Mann became widely known after the publication of the novel "The Land of Jelly Coasts" (1900). But this folklore name is ironic. G. Mann introduces the reader to the world of the German bourgeoisie. In this world, everyone hates each other, although they cannot do without each other, being bound not only by material interests, but also by character. domestic relations, views, confidence that everything in the world is sold and bought.

A special place belongs to the novels of Hans Fallada (1893-1947). His books were read in the late 1920s by those who had never heard of Döblin, Thomas Mann or Hess. They were bought with meager earnings during the years of the economic crisis. No different philosophical depth, no special political insight, they posed one question: how can a small person survive? "Little man, what's next?" - was the name of the novel published in 1932, which was very popular.

Realism is a trend in literature and art, truthfully and realistically reflecting the typical features of reality, in which there are no various distortions and exaggerations. This direction followed romanticism, and was the forerunner of symbolism.

This direction originated in the 30s of the 19th century and reached its peak by the middle of it. His followers strongly denied the use of literary works any sophisticated tricks, mystical trends and idealization of characters. Main feature this direction in literature, the artistic depiction of real life with the help of ordinary and well-known readers of images that for them are part of their daily lives (relatives, neighbors or acquaintances).

(Alexey Yakovlevich Voloskov "At the tea table")

The works of realist writers are distinguished by a life-affirming beginning, even if their plot is characterized by tragic conflict. One of the main features of this genre is the authors' attempt to consider surrounding reality in its development, to discover and describe new psychological, social and social relations.

Having replaced romanticism, realism has the characteristic features of art, seeking to find truth and justice, wishing to change the world in better side. The main characters in the works of realist authors make their discoveries and conclusions after much thought and deep introspection.

(Zhuravlev Firs Sergeevich "Before the wedding")

Critical realism is developing almost simultaneously in Russia and Europe (approximately 30-40s of the 19th century) and soon emerges as the leading trend in literature and art throughout the world.

In France, literary realism is primarily associated with the names of Balzac and Stendhal, in Russia with Pushkin and Gogol, in Germany with the names of Heine and Buchner. All of them experience the inevitable influence of romanticism in their literary work, but gradually move away from it, abandon the idealization of reality and move on to depicting a wider social background, where the life of the main characters takes place.

Realism in Russian literature of the 19th century

The main founder of Russian realism in the 19th century is Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. In his works "The Captain's Daughter", "Eugene Onegin", "Tales of Belkin", "Boris Godunov", " Bronze Horseman"He subtly captures and skillfully conveys the very essence of all important events in the life of Russian society, presented by his talented pen in all its diversity, colorfulness and inconsistency. Following Pushkin, many writers of that time came to the genre of realism, deepening the analysis of the emotional experiences of their heroes and depicting their complex inner world (“Hero of Our Time” by Lermontov, “Inspector General” and “ Dead Souls» Gogol).

(Pavel Fedotov "The Picky Bride")

The tense socio-political situation in Russia during the reign of Nicholas I aroused a keen interest in life and fate common people progressive public figures that time. This is noted in later works Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol, as well as in the poetic lines of Alexei Koltsov and the works of the authors of the so-called " natural school»: I.S. Turgenev (a cycle of stories "Notes of a Hunter", stories "Fathers and Sons", "Rudin", "Asya"), F.M. Dostoevsky ("Poor People", "Crime and Punishment"), A.I. Herzen (“The Thieving Magpie”, “Who is to blame?”), I.A. Goncharova ("Ordinary History", "Oblomov"), A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit", L.N. Tolstoy ("War and Peace", "Anna Karenina"), A.P. Chekhov (stories and plays " The Cherry Orchard”,“ Three sisters ”,“ Uncle Vanya ”).

Literary realism of the second half of the 19th century was called critical, the main task of his works was to highlight existing problems, to raise issues of interaction between a person and the society in which he lives.

Realism in Russian Literature of the 20th Century

(Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky "Evening")

The turning point in the fate of Russian realism was the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when this trend was in crisis and a new phenomenon in culture, symbolism, loudly declared itself. Then a new updated aesthetics of Russian realism arose, in which the main environment that forms the personality of a person was now considered History itself and its global processes. The realism of the early 20th century revealed the complexity of the formation of a person's personality, it was formed under the influence of not only social factors, history itself acted as the creator of typical circumstances, under the aggressive influence of which the main character fell.

(Boris Kustodiev "Portrait of D.F. Bogoslovsky")

There are four main currents in the realism of the early twentieth century:

Critical: continues the tradition of classical realism of the mid-19th century. The works focus on the social nature of phenomena (creativity of A.P. Chekhov and L.N. Tolstoy);
Socialist: displaying the historical and revolutionary development of real life, conducting an analysis of conflicts in the conditions of the class struggle, revealing the essence of the characters of the main characters and their actions committed for the benefit of others. (M. Gorky "Mother", "The Life of Klim Samgin", most of the works of Soviet authors).
Mythological: reflection and rethinking of real life events through the prism of the plots of famous myths and legends (L.N. Andreev "Judas Iscariot");
Naturalism: an extremely truthful, often unsightly, detailed depiction of reality (A.I. Kuprin "The Pit", V.V. Veresaev "Notes of a Doctor").

Realism in foreign literature of the 19th-20th centuries

Initial stage of formation critical realism in Europe in the middle of the 19th century, they are associated with the works of Balzac, Stendhal, Beranger, Flaubert, Maupassant. Merimee in France, Dickens, Thackeray, Brontë, Gaskell in England, the poetry of Heine and other revolutionary poets in Germany. In these countries, in the 30s of the 19th century, tension was growing between two irreconcilable class enemies: the bourgeoisie and the labor movement; various fields bourgeois culture, there are a number of discoveries in natural science and biology. In countries where a pre-revolutionary situation has developed (France, Germany, Hungary), the doctrine of scientific socialism of Marx and Engels arises and develops.

(Julien Dupre "Return from the fields")

As a result of a complex creative and theoretical debate with the followers of romanticism, critical realists took for themselves the best progressive ideas and traditions: interesting historical themes, democracy, trends folklore, progressive critical pathos and humanistic ideals.

Realism of the early 20th century that survived the struggle the best representatives"classics" of critical realism (Flaubert, Maupassant, France, Shaw, Rolland) with the trends of new unrealistic trends in literature and art (decadence, impressionism, naturalism, aestheticism, etc.) acquires new character traits. He refers to the social phenomena of real life, describes the social motivation of the human character, reveals the psychology of the individual, the fate of art. The modeling of artistic reality is based on philosophical ideas, the author's attitude is given, first of all, to the intellectually active perception of the work when reading it, and then to the emotional one. The classic example of an intellectual realistic novel is the works of the German writer Thomas Mann "The Magic Mountain" and "The Confession of the Adventurer Felix Krul", dramaturgy by Bertolt Brecht.

(Robert Kohler "Strike")

In the works of the author-realists of the twentieth century, the dramatic line intensifies and deepens, there is more tragedy (creativity American writer Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby", "Tender is the Night"), there is a special interest in the inner world of man. Attempts to depict the conscious and unconscious life moments of a person lead to the emergence of a new literary device, close to modernism called the "stream of consciousness" (works by Anna Zegers, W. Koeppen, Y. O'Neill). Naturalistic elements appear in the work of American realist writers such as Theodore Dreiser and John Steinbeck.

The realism of the twentieth century has a bright life-affirming color, faith in man and his strength, this is noticeable in the works of American realist writers William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Mark Twain. The works of Romain Rolland, John Galsworthy, Bernard Shaw, Erich Maria Remarque enjoyed great popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Realism continues to exist as a trend in modern literature and is one of the most important forms of democratic culture.

Although it is generally accepted that the art of the 20th century is ϶ᴛᴏ the art of modernism, but significant role V literary life of the last century has a realistic direction, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ on the one hand represents a realistic type of creativity. On the other hand, it comes into contact with that new direction, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ received a very conditional concept of ʼʼsocialist realismʼʼ, - more precisely, the literature of revolutionary and socialist ideology.

The realism of the 20th century is directly related to the realism of the previous century. And how did this artistic method develop in the middle of the 19th century, having received the legitimate name of ʼʼclassical realismʼʼ and having experienced various modifications in the literary work of the last third of the 19th century, it was influenced by such unrealistic trends as naturalism, aestheticism, impressionism.

The realism of the 20th century takes shape in its definite history and has a destiny. If we cover the 20th century collectively, then realistic creativity manifested itself in diversity, multi-composition in the first half of the 20th century. At this time, it is obvious that realism is changing under the influence of modernism and mass literature. He connects with these artistic phenomena as with revolutionary socialist literature. In the second half, there is a dissolution of realism, which has lost its clear aesthetic principles and poetics of creativity in modernism and postmodernism.

The realism of the 20th century continues the traditions of classical realism at different levels - from aesthetic principles to the techniques of poetics, the traditions of which were inherent in the realism of the 20th century. The realism of the last century acquires new properties that distinguish it from this type of creativity of the previous time.

Realistic art of the 20th century, like the classical realism of Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, is distinguished by a high degree of generalization and typification of phenomena. Realistic art tries to show the characteristic and regular in their causality and determinism. For this reason, realism is characterized by a different creative embodiment of the principle of depicting a typical character in typical circumstances, in the realism of the 20th century, which is keenly interested in the individual human person. Character as a living person - and in this character the universal and typical has an individual refraction, or is combined with the individual properties of the personality. Along with these features of classical realism, new features are also obvious.

First of all, these are the features that manifested themselves in the realistic at the end of the 19th century. Literary creativity in this era takes on the character of philosophical and intellectual, when philosophical ideas were the basis for modeling artistic reality. At the same time, the manifestation of this philosophical principle is inseparable from the various properties of the intellectual. From the author's attitude to the intellectually active perception of the work in the process of reading, then the emotional perception. An intellectual novel, an intellectual drama, takes shape in its specific properties. A classic example of an intellectual realist novel is provided by Thomas Mann (ʼʼMagic Mountainʼʼ, ʼʼConfession of the adventurer Felix Krulʼʼ). This is also palpable in the dramaturgy of Bertolt Brecht.

The second feature of realism in the 20th century is the strengthening and deepening of the dramatic, more tragic beginning. This is obviously in the work of F.S. Fitzgerald (ʼʼTender is the nightʼʼ, ʼʼThe Great Gatsbyʼʼ).

As you know, the art of the 20th century lives by its special interest not just in a person, but in his inner world. The study of this world is connected with the desire of the writers to ascertain, depict moments of the unconscious and subconscious. To this end, many writers use the stream of consciousness technique. This can be traced in the short story by Anna Zegers ʼʼThe Walk of the Dead Girlsʼʼ, the work of W. Koeppen ʼʼDeath in Romeʼʼ, the dramatic work of Y. O'Neill ʼʼLove under the Elmsʼʼ (influence of the Oedipus complex).

Another feature of the realism of the 20th century is the active use of conventional art forms. Especially in realistic prose second half of the 20th century artistic convention extremely common and diverse (for example, Y. Brezan ʼʼKrabat, or the Transformation of the Worldʼʼ).

Literature of revolutionary and socialist ideology. Henri Barbusse and his novel ʼʼFireʼʼ

The realist trend in the literature of the 20th century is closely connected with another trend - socialist realism, or, more precisely, the literature of revolutionary and socialist ideology. In the literature of this trend, the first criterion is ideological and ideological (ideas of communism, socialism). In the background in the literature of this level is aesthetic and artistic. This principle is a truthful depiction of life under the influence of a certain ideological and ideological attitude of the author. The literature of the revolutionary and socialist ideology is in its origins connected with the literature of the revolutionary socialist and proletarian turn XIX-XX centuries, but the pressure of class views, ideologisation in socialist realism is more palpable.

Literature of this kind often appears in conjunction with realism (the depiction of a truthful, typical human character in typical circumstances). This direction received direction until the 70s of the XX century in the countries of the socialist camp (Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany), but also in the work of writers of the capitalist countries (panoramic-epic version of the work of Dimitar Dimov ʼʼTobaccoʼʼ). In the work of socialist realism, the polarization of two worlds is noticeable - the bourgeois and the socialist. This is also noticeable in the system of images. Indicative in this regard is the work of the writer Erwin Stritmatter (GDR), who, under the influence of the socialist realist creativity of Sholokhov (ʼʼVirgin Soil Upturnedʼʼ), created the work ʼʼOle Binkopʼʼ. In this novel, like in Sholokhov, modern to the author the village, in the depiction of which the author sought to reveal, not without drama and tragedy, the assertion of new, revolutionary socialist foundations of existence, just as Sholokhov, recognizing the significance of the ideological principle above all, sought to depict life in its revolutionary development.

In the first half of the 20th century, socialist realism became widespread in many countries of the "capitalist world" - in France, Great Britain, and the USA. The works of this literature include ʼʼ10 days that shook the worldʼʼ J. Reed, A. Gide ʼʼreturn to the USSRʼʼ and others.

Just as in Soviet Russia Maxim Gorky was considered the founder of socialist realism, Henri Barbusse (years of life: 1873-1935) is recognized in the West. This writer, very controversial, entered literature as a poet who felt the influence of symbolist lyrics (ʼʼMournersʼʼ). The writer whom Barbusse admired was Émile Zola, to whom Barbusse dedicated the book ʼʼZolaʼʼ (1933 ᴦ.) at the end of his life, which is considered by researchers as a model of Marxist literary criticism. At the turn of the century, the writer was significantly influenced by the Dreyfus Affair. Under its influence, Barbusse affirms in her work universal humanism, in which goodness, prudence, cordial responsiveness, a sense of justice, the ability to come to the aid of another person who is dying in this world operate. This position is captured in the 1914 short story collection ʼʼWeʼʼ.

In the literature of revolutionary and socialist ideology, Henri Barbusse is known as the author of the novels ʼʼFireʼʼ, ʼʼClarityʼʼ, the 1928 collection of short stories ʼʼTrue Talesʼʼ, and the essay book ʼʼJesusʼʼ (1927 ᴦ.). IN latest work the image of Christ is interpreted by the writer as the image of the world's first revolutionary, in that ideological and ideological certainty, in which the word ʼʼrevolutionaryʼʼ was used in the 20-30s of the last century.

An example of a work of socialist realism in its unity with realism can be called Barbusse's novel ʼʼFireʼʼ. ʼʼFireʼʼ is the first work about World War I, in which a new quality of conversation about this human tragedy. The novel, which appeared in 1916, largely determined the direction of development of literature about World War I. The horrors of the war are described in the novel with a colossal amount of detail, his work pierced the picture of the war varnished by censorship. War is not an attack similar to a parade, it is super-monstrous fatigue, waist-deep water, mud. It was written under the direct influence of the impressions that the writer made while personally staying at the front on the eve of the war, as well as in the first months after it began. 40-year-old Henri Barbusse volunteered to go to the front, he knew the fate of a soldier as a private. He believed that he was saved from death by a wound (1915 ᴦ.), after which Barbusse spent many months in the hospital, where he generally comprehended the war in its various manifestations, the specifics of events and facts.

One of the most important creative guidelines that Barbusse set for himself when creating the novel "Fire" is connected with the writer's desire to show with all obviousness and ruthlessness what war is. Barbusse does not build his work according to tradition, highlighting certain storylines, but writes about the life of ordinary soldiers, from time to time snatching and giving close-up some characters from the soldiers' mass. Either this is La Mousse, the farmhand, or Paradis, the driver. This principle of organizing the novel without highlighting the organizing plot beginning is noted in the subtitle of the novel ʼʼDiary of a Platoonʼʼ. In the form of a diary entry of a certain narrator, to whom the author is close, a this story like a series of diary fragments. This form of non-traditional novel compositional solution fits into the number of various artistic searches, landmarks of the literature of the 20th century. At the same time, these diary entries are authentic pictures, since what is imprinted on the pages of this diary of the first platoon is perceived artistically and reliably. Henri Barbusse purposefully in his novel depicts the simple life of soldiers with bad weather, hunger, death, disease and rare glimpses of relaxation. This appeal to everyday life is connected with Barbusse's conviction, as his narrator says in one of the entries: ʼʼwar - ϶ᴛᴏ not fluttering banners, not the invocative voice of a horn at dawn, this is not heroism, not the courage of exploits, but diseases that torment a person, hunger, lice and deathʼʼ.

Barbusse here turns to naturalistic poetics, giving repulsive images, describing the corpses of soldiers who are floating in the stream of water among their dead comrades, unable to get out of the trench during weeks of rain. Naturalistic poetics is also palpable in the writer’s appeal to a special kind of naturalistic comparisons: Barbusse writes about one soldier getting out of a dugout as a bear moving backwards, about another, scratching his hair and suffering from lice, like a monkey. Thanks to the second part of the comparison, a person is likened to an animal, but Barbusse's naturalistic poetics is not an end in itself. Thanks to these techniques, the writer can show what war is, cause disgust, hostility. The humanistic beginning of Barbusse's prose is manifested in the fact that even in these people doomed to death and misfortune he shows the ability to show humanity.

Barbusse's second line of creative conception is connected with the desire to show the growth of the consciousness of the simple soldier masses. In order to trace the state of consciousness of the mass of soldiers, the writer turns to the method of non-personalized dialogue, and in the structure of the work, dialogue occupies such a significant place as the depiction of events in the life of the characters in reality, and as descriptions. The peculiarity of this technique is, in fact, that when fixing a replica actor The words of the author accompanying these remarks do not indicate exactly to whom personally, individually, the statement belongs (the narrator says ʼʼsomeone saidʼʼ, ʼʼsomeone’s voice was heardʼʼ, ʼʼshouted out one of the soldiersʼʼ, etc.).

Barbusse traces how a new consciousness of ordinary soldiers is gradually being formed, who were brought to a state of despair by war with hunger, disease, and death. Barbusse's soldiers realize that the Bosches, as they call the enemy Germans, are the same simple soldiers, as unfortunate as they are, the French. Some who have realized this declare it openly, in their exalted utterances they declare that war is opposed to life. Some say that people are born in order to be husbands, fathers, children in this life, but not for the sake of death. Gradually, a frequently repeated thought arises, expressed different characters from the mass of soldiers: after this war there should be no wars.

Barbusse's soldiers realized that this war was being waged not in their human interests, not in the interests of the country and the people. The soldiers, in their understanding of this ongoing bloodshed, single out two reasons: the war is being waged solely in the interests of the chosen "bastard caste" who are helped by the war to fill sacks of gold. War is in the careerist interests of other representatives of this "bastard caste" with gilded epaulettes, for whom war gives them the opportunity to rise to a new step on the career ladder.

The democratic mass of Henri Barbusse, growing in its awareness of life, gradually not only feels, but also realizes the unity of all people from simple classes, doomed to war, in their aspiration they oppose anti-life and anti-human war. Moreover, Barbusse's soldiers mature in their international moods, as they realize that it is not the militarism of a particular country and Germany as the unleashing war that is to blame for this war, but world militarism, in connection with this, ordinary people should, like world militarism, unite, since in this universal international unity they will be able to resist the war. Then one feels the desire that after this war there would be no more wars in the world.

In this novel, Barbusse is revealed as an artist who uses various artistic means to reveal the author's main idea. In connection with the image of the people's growth of consciousness and consciousness, the writer does not turn to a new method of novel symbolism, which is manifested in the name last chapter containing the climax of the growth of the international consciousness of the soldiers. This chapter is usually called ʼʼDawnʼʼ. In it, Barbusse uses the technique of a symbol, which appears as a symbolic coloring of the landscape: according to the plot, it rained endlessly for many months, the sky was completely covered with heavy clouds hanging to the ground, pressing on a person, and it is in this chapter, where the climax is contained, that the sky begins clear, the clouds disperse, and between them the first ray of the sun timidly breaks, indicating that the sun exists.

In Barbusse's novel, the realistic is organically combined with the properties of the literature of revolutionary and socialist ideology, in particular, this is manifested in the depiction of the growth of popular consciousness. This ideological stretch with his inherent French humor was beaten by Romain Rolland in a review of ʼʼFireʼʼ, which appeared in March 1917 ᴦ. revealing different sides question, Rolland speaks of the justification for a truthful and merciless depiction of the war and that under the influence of military events, the everyday life of war, there is a change in the consciousness of the simple soldier mass. This change in consciousness, Rolland notes, is symbolically emphasized by the timidly breaking first ray of the sun in the landscape. At the same time, Rolland declares that this ray does not yet make the weather: the certainty with which Barbusse strives to show and depict the growth of consciousness of the soldiers is still very far away.

ʼʼFireʼʼ is a product of its time, the era of the spread of socialist and communist ideology, their implementation in life, when there was a holy faith in the possibility of their implementation in reality through revolutionary upheavals, to change life for the good of every person. In the spirit of the time, living with revolutionary socialist ideas, this novel was evaluated by contemporaries. A contemporary of Barbusse, communist writer Raymond Lefebvre called this work (ʼʼFireʼʼ) an ʼʼinternational epicʼʼ, stating that this is a novel that reveals the philosophy of the proletariat of war, and the language of ʼʼFireʼʼ is the language of proletarian war.

The novel ʼʼFireʼʼ was translated and published in Russia at the time of its release in the country of the author. It was far from the establishment of social realism, but the novel was perceived as a new word about life in its cruel truth and movement towards progress. This is exactly how the leader of the world proletariat V.I. Lenin. In his reviews, he repeated the words of M. Gorky from the preface to the publication of the novel in Russia: ʼʼeach page of his book is a blow of the iron hammer of truth on what is generally called warʼʼ.

The literature of revolutionary and socialist ideology continues to exist in the socialist and capitalist countries until the end of the 1980s. With this literature late period its existence (60-70s) is associated with the work of the German writer from the GDR Hermann Kant (ʼʼAssembly Hallʼʼ - a retro-style novel (70s), as well as returning the reader to the events of the Second World War ʼʼ Stopover ʼʼ).

Of the writers of the capitalist countries of the West, the poetic and romantic works of Louis Aragon are associated with literature of this kind (a number of novels in the cycle ʼʼThe Real Worldʼʼ - the historical novel ʼʼHoly Weekʼʼ, the novel ʼʼCommunistsʼʼ). In English literature - J. Albridge (his works of socialist realism - ʼʼI don’t want him to dieʼʼ, ʼʼHeroes of desert horizonsʼʼ, dilogy ʼʼDiplomatʼʼ, ʼʼSon of a foreign land (ʼʼPrisoner of a foreign landʼʼ)).

Features of realism of the XX century - the concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Features of realism of the XX century" 2017, 2018.

Realism (from Latin "realis" - real, material) is a trend in art, it arose at the end of the 18th century, reached its peak in the 19th, continues to develop at the beginning of the 20th century and still exists. Its goal is a real and objective reproduction of objects and objects of the surrounding world, while preserving their typical features and features. In progress historical development of all art as a whole, realism acquired specific forms and methods, as a result of which its three stages are distinguished: enlightenment (the Age of Enlightenment, the end of the 18th century), critical (19th century) and socialist realism(early 20th century).

The term "realism" was first used by the French literary critic Jules Jeanfleury, who in his book "Realism" (1857) interpreted this concept as an art created to resist such currents as romanticism and academism. He acted as a form of response to idealization, which is characteristic of romanticism and the classical principles of academism. Having a sharp social orientation, it was called critical. This direction reflected in the world of art sharp social problems, gave an assessment of various phenomena in the life of society of that time. Its leading principles consisted in the objective display of the essential aspects of life, which at the same time contained the height and truth of the author's ideals, in the reproduction of characteristic situations and typical characters while maintaining the fullness of their artistic individuality.

(Boris Kustodiev "Portrait of D.F. Bogoslovsky")

The realism of the early twentieth century was aimed at finding new connections between a person and the reality surrounding him, new creative ways and methods original means artistic expressiveness. Often it was not expressed in its pure form, it is characterized by a close connection with such trends in the art of the twentieth century as symbolism, religious mysticism, modernism.

Realism in painting

The emergence of this direction in french painting primarily associated with the name of the artist Gustave Courbier. After several paintings, especially those of great importance to the author, were rejected as exhibits at the World Exhibition in Paris, in 1855 he opened his own “Pavilion of Realism”. The declaration put forward by the artist proclaimed the principles of a new direction in painting, the purpose of which was to create a living art that conveyed the mores, customs, ideas and appearance of his contemporaries. Courbier's "realism" immediately provoked a sharp reaction from society and critics, who claimed that he, "hiding behind realism, slanders nature", called him an artisan in painting, made parodies of him in the theater and slandered him in every possible way.

(Gustave Courbier "Self-portrait with a black dog")

Realistic art is based on its own, special view of the surrounding reality, which criticizes and analyzes many aspects of society. Hence the name of realism of the 19th century “critical”, because it criticized, first of all, the inhuman nature of the cruel exploitative system, showed the blatant poverty and suffering of the offended common people, the injustice and permissiveness of those in power. Criticizing the foundations of the existing bourgeois society, realist artists were noble humanists who believed in the Good, Supreme Justice, Universal Equality and Happiness for everyone without exception. Later (1870), realism splits into two branches: naturalism and impressionism.

(Julien Dupre "Return from the fields")

The main themes of the artists who painted their canvases in the style of realism were genre scenes of the city and rural life ordinary people(peasants, workers), scenes of street events and incidents, portraits of regulars of street cafes, restaurants and nightclubs. For realist artists, it was important to convey the moments of life in its dynamics, to emphasize individual characteristics as plausibly as possible. acting characters, realistically show their feelings, emotions and experiences. The main characteristic of paintings depicting human bodies- this is their sensuality, emotionality and naturalism.

Realism as a direction in painting developed in many countries of the world such as France (Barbizon School), Italy (was known as verismo), Great Britain (Figurative School), USA (Edward Hopper's Trash Can School, art school Thomas Eakins), Australia (Heidelberg School, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin), in Russia it was known as the movement of Wanderers.

(Julien Dupre "The Shepherd")

French paintings, written in the spirit of realism, often belonged to the landscape genre, in which the authors tried to convey the surrounding nature, the beauty of the French province, rural landscapes, which, in their opinion, demonstrated the “real” France in all its splendor in the best possible way. The paintings of French realist artists did not depict idealized types, there were real people, ordinary situations without embellishment, there was no usual aesthetics and the imposition of universal truths.

(Honore Daumier "Third Class Carriage")

The most prominent representatives of French realism in painting were the artists Gustave Courbier ("Artist's Workshop", "Stone Crushers", "Knitter"), Honore Daumier ("Third Class Carriage", "On the Street", "Laundress"), Francois Millet (" Sower”, “Gatherers”, “Angelus”, “Death and the woodcutter”).

(François Millet "The Gatherers")

In Russia, the development of realism in fine arts closely related to awakening public consciousness and development of democratic ideas. The advanced citizens of society denounced the existing political system showed deep sympathy for tragic fate ordinary Russian people.

(Alexey Savrasov "The Rooks Have Arrived")

The group of Wanderers, formed by the end of the 19th century, included such great Russian masters of the brush as landscape painters Ivan Shishkin (“Morning in a Pine Forest”, “Rye”, “ Pinery”) and Alexei Savrasov (“The Rooks Have Arrived”, “Rural View”, “Rainbow”), masters of genre and historical paintings Vasily Perov (“Troika”, “Hunters at Rest”, “Rural Procession at Easter”) and Ivan Kramskoy (“Unknown”, “Inconsolable Mountain”, “Christ in the Desert”), an outstanding painter Ilya Repin (“Barge haulers on the Volga ”, “They didn’t expect”, “Religious procession in the Kursk province”), master of large-scale images historical events Vasily Surikov (“Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, “Boyar Morozova”, “Suvorov Crossing the Alps”) and many others (Vasnetsov, Polenov, Levitan),

(Valentin Serov "Girl with peaches")

By the beginning of the 20th century, the traditions of realism were firmly entrenched in the fine arts of that time; such artists as Valentin Serov (“Girl with Peaches”, “Peter I”), Konstantin Korovin (“In Winter”, “At the Tea Table”, “Boris Godunov . Coronation"), Sergei Ivanov ("Family", "Arrival of the Governor", "Death of a Settler").

Realism in 19th century art

Critical realism, which appeared in France and reached its peak in many European countries by the middle of the 19th century, arose in opposition to the traditions of art movements that preceded it, such as romanticism and academism. His main task was the objective and truthful reflection of the "truth of life" with the help of specific means of art.

The emergence of new technologies, the development of medicine, science, and various industries industrial production, the growth of cities, the intensification of exploitative pressure on the peasants and workers, all this could not but affect cultural sphere of that time, which later led to the development of a new movement in art - realism, designed to reflect the life of a new society without embellishment and distortion.

(Daniel Defoe)

The founder of European realism in literature is considered English writer and publicist Daniel Defoe. In his works "Diary of the Plague Year", "Roxanne", "The Joys and Sorrows of Mole Flenders", "Life and amazing Adventures Robinson Crusoe" he displays various social contradictions of that time, they are based on the statement about the good beginning of each person, which can change under the pressure of external circumstances.

The founder of literary realism and the psychological novel in France is the writer Frederic Stendhal. His famous novels "Red and Black", "Red and White" showed readers that the description of the ordinary scenes of life and everyday human experiences and emotions can be done with the greatest skill and elevate it to the rank of art. Also to the outstanding realist writers of the 19th centuries include the French Gustave Flaubert ("Madame Bovary"), Guy de Maupassant ("Dear Friend", "Strong as Death"), Honore de Balzac (series of novels "The Human Comedy"), the Englishman Charles Dickens ("Oliver Twist", " David Copperfield"), Americans William Faulkner and Mark Twain.

The origins of Russian realism were such outstanding masters of the pen as playwright Alexander Griboedov, poet and writer Alexander Pushkin, fabulist Ivan Krylov, their successors Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The painting of the period of realism of the 19th century is characterized by an objective depiction of real life. French artists led by Théodore Rousseau paint rural landscapes and scenes from street life, proving that ordinary nature without embellishment can also be a unique material for creating masterpieces of fine art.

One of the most scandalous realist artists of that time, causing a storm of criticism and condemnation, was Gustave Courbier. His still lifes, landscape paintings ("Deer at the Waterhole"), genre scenes ("Funeral in Ornan", "Stone Crushers").

(Pavel Fedotov "Major's Matchmaking")

The founder of Russian realism is the artist Pavel Fedotov, his famous paintings"Major's Matchmaking", " fresh cavalier”, in his works he exposes the vicious mores of society, and expresses his sympathy for the poor and oppressed people. The followers of its traditions can be called the movement of Wanderers, which was founded in 1870 by fourteen of the best graduates of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Arts together with other painters. Their very first exhibition, opened in 1871, was a huge success with the public, it showed a reflection of the real life of the simple Russian people, who are in terrible conditions of poverty and oppression. These are the famous paintings by Repin, Surikov, Perov, Levitan, Kramskoy, Vasnetsov, Polenov, Ge, Vasiliev, Kuindzhi and other prominent Russian realist artists.

(Constantin Meunier "Industry")

In the 19th century, architecture, architecture and related applied arts were in a state of deep crisis and decline, which predetermined unfavorable conditions for the development of monumental sculpture and painting. The dominant capitalist system was hostile to those types of art that were directly related to social life collective (public buildings, ensembles of a wide civilian), realism as a trend in art was able to fully develop in the visual arts and partially in sculpture. Outstanding realist sculptors of the 19th century: Constantin Meunier ("Loader", "Industry", "Pudlinger", "Hammer") and Auguste Rodin ("The Thinker", "Walking", "Citizens of Calais").

Realism in the art of the XX century

In the post-revolutionary period and during the creation and flourishing of the USSR, socialist realism became the dominant trend in Russian art (1932 - the appearance of this term, its author Soviet writer I. Gronsky), which was an aesthetic reflection of the socialist concept of Soviet society.

(K. Yuon" new planet" )

The main principles of social realism, aimed at truthful and realistic image of the surrounding world in its revolutionary development, were the principles:

Nationalities. Use common speech turns, proverbs, so that literature is understandable to the people;
Ideological. Designate heroic deeds, new ideas and ways necessary for the happiness of ordinary people;
Specificity. Depict the surrounding reality in the process of historical development, corresponding to its materialistic understanding.

In the literature, the main representatives social realism there were writers Maxim Gorky (“Mother”, “Foma Gordeev”, “The Life of Klim Samgin”, “At the Bottom”, “Song of the Petrel”), Mikhail Sholokhov (“Virgin Soil Upturned”, epic novel “ Quiet Don”), Nikolai Ostrovsky (the novel “How the Steel Was Tempered”), Alexander Serafimovich (the story “The Iron Stream”), the poet Alexander Tvardovsky (the poem “Vasily Terkin”), Alexander Fadeev (the novels “The Rout”, “The Young Guard”), etc. .

(M. L. Zvyagin "To work")

Also in the USSR, the works of such foreign authors as the pacifist writer Henri Barbusse (the novel "Fire"), the poet and prose writer Louis Aragon, the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, the German writer and communist Anna Segers (the novel "The Seventh Cross") were considered among the socialist realist writers. , Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda, Brazilian writer Jorge Amado ("Captains of the Sand", "Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands").

Outstanding representatives of the direction of socialist realism in Soviet painting: Alexander Deineka ("Defense of Sevastopol", "Mother", "Future Pilots", "Athlete"), V. Favorsky, Kukryniksy, A. Gerasimov ("Lenin on the podium", "After the rain", "Portrait of a ballerina O. V . Lepeshinskaya"), A. Plastov ("Bathing horses", "Dinner tractor drivers", "Collective farm herd"), A. Laktionov ("Letter from the front"), P. Konchalovsky ("Lilac"), K. Yuon (" Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “People”, “New Planet”), P. Vasiliev (portraits and stamps depicting Lenin and Stalin), V. Svarog (“Heroes-pilots in the Kremlin before the flight”, “First of May - Pioneers”), N Baskakov ("Lenin and Stalin in Smolny") F. Reshetnikov ("Again deuce", "Arrived on vacation"), K. Maksimov and others.

(Vera Mukhina monument "Worker and Collective Farm Woman")

Prominent Soviet sculptors-monumentalists of the era of socialist realism were Vera Mukhina (monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl"), Nikolai Tomsky (bas-relief of 56 figures "Defence, Labor, Rest" on the House of Soviets on Moskovsky Prospekt in Leningrad), Evgeny Vuchetich (monument "Warrior- Liberator" in Berlin, the sculpture "The Motherland Calls!" in Volgograd), by Sergei Konenkov. Typically for large monumental sculptures particularly durable materials, such as granite, steel or bronze, were selected, installed on open spaces to perpetuate especially important historical events or heroic-epic deeds.