On the history of the styles of the Russian literary language (“letters from France” d. and

G. P. Makogonenko

Nikolai Karamzin and his Letters from a Russian Traveler

Karamzin N. M. Letters from a Russian traveller. Tales. M .: Pravda, 1980. Compilation by N. N. Akopova Foreword by G. P. Makogonenko Notes by M. V. Ivanov On May 17, 1789, twenty-three-year-old Russian writer Nikolai Karamzin left Tver via St. Petersburg, Narva, Derpt, Riga on a long journey across Europe . Having visited Prussia, Saxony, Switzerland, France and England, he returned to his homeland in September 1790. After a short stay in the capital, the writer moved to Moscow, where he began to prepare the publication of his own journal, which began to appear from the next year, 1791, under the name "Moscow Journal". From the very first issue, Karamzin began to publish Letters of a Russian Traveler, which were written under the fresh impression of a trip to Europe he had just completed - his first major work . For two years, "Letters" were published in the "Moscow Journal", arousing wide readership, bringing fame and respect to the author. In the last, double October-November issue of the "Moscow Journal" for 1792, the printing of the written part of "Letters of a Russian Traveler" was completed. The last letter, marked: "Paris, March 27" - told about the first day of stay in the capital of France. Parting with the subscribers of the Moscow Journal, Karamzin announced that he was leaving Moscow, that he was stopping publication of the journal in order to write “trinkets” during “hours of rest” (as Karamzin jokingly called works of small genres - poems, stories, articles), which, together with "knick-knacks" of his friends will be printed in the form of "small notebooks" called "Aglaya". "Letters of a Russian Traveler" he promised "to print especially in two parts: the first will conclude with the departure from Geneva, and the second with the return to Russia." Political circumstances forced Karamzin to stoozhnosti - the revolution continued in France, on August 10, 792, a new popular uprising overthrew the monarchy, the French king Louis XVI was arrested. The Convention created after the uprising (September 1792) at the beginning of winter prepared the trial of the king. In January 1793, the Convention passed a death sentence on the king, and he was executed. That is why Karamzin vaguely reports on the second part of the "Letters" - "Return to Russia": in fact, it was to tell about his stay in revolutionary Paris (March - June 1790) and a trip to England. Some sections of this part of the "Letters of a Russian Traveler" Karamzin wrote in 1793-1794 and published in the first and second books of the almanac "Aglaya" (1794-1795). It was only in 1797 that the "Letters" were published in a "special" way, and besides, only the first part - without a description of impressions of Paris and England, the second was banned by censorship. The first complete edition of Letters from a Russian Traveler appeared only in 1801 after the death of Paul I. Later, during the life of the writer, Letters from a Russian Traveler were published three times as part of his collected works. "Letters of a Russian Traveler" is one of the largest and most popular works of Russian literature of the late 18th century, pursued by censorship, which did not allow the writer to describe revolutionary Paris and express his opinion about the French Revolution: he considered it necessary to express this opinion anonymously in the foreign press. "Letters" had a great influence on several generations of writers. They quickly became known in the West - at the beginning of the 19th century, they twice appeared on German, were translated into English (1803), Polish (1802), French (1815). Before talking about the "Letters of a Russian Traveler", about their literary novelty, about what attracted readers to them, it is necessary to at least briefly get acquainted with the life and work of the writer. It is important to imagine the circumstances in which this work was created. What is further fate the author of "Letters"? Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was born on December 1 (12), 1766, and died on May 22 (June 3), 1826. For about forty years Karamzin worked in literature. He began his activity at the formidable glow of the French Revolution, ended during the years of the great victories of the Russian people in the Patriotic War of 1812 and the maturation of the noble revolution that broke out on December 14, 1825. Time and events left their mark on Karamzin's convictions, determined his social and literary position. That is why it is important to imagine and understand the evolution of the writer's worldview. The first printed work of Karamzin appeared in 1783. It was a translation of the idyll of the Swiss poet Gesner "Wooden Leg". The following year, Karamzin became close to the publishing center of the largest Russian educator and prose writer, the well-known publisher of satirical magazines Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov, who entrusted him with editing the first Russian magazine for children " Children's reading". In 1787, Novikov published Karamzin's translation of Shakespeare's tragedy "Julius Caesar", and the following year - Lessing's tragedy "Emilia Galotti". In "Children's Reading" Karamzin published his first story "Eugene and Julia" (1789). during the same years, Karamzin read a lot of contemporary Western writers, special attention refers to Rousseau and Stern. At the same time, the novice writer enters into correspondence with the famous Swiss philosopher Lavater. In one letter, he confessed: "I read Lavater, Gellert and Haller and many others. I cannot give myself the pleasure of reading much in my mother tongue. We are still poor in prose writers." Karamzin was right - indeed, Russian prose had not yet emerged from its infancy by the mid-1780s - poetry developed rapidly in previous decades. In subsequent years, thanks to the activities of Fonvizin, Radishchev, Krylov and in first of all by Karamzin himself, Russian prose will achieve remarkable success.Since 1787, with the publication of the translation of Shakespeare's tragedy and the writing of the original poem "Poetry", in which the idea of ​​the high social role of the poet was formulated, a systematic literary activity Karamzin. The philosophy and literature of the French and German Enlightenment determined the features of the aesthetic convictions that developed in the young man. Enlighteners awakened interest in a person as a spiritually rich and unique personality, whose moral dignity does not depend on property status and class affiliation. The idea of ​​personality became central both in Karamzin's work and in his aesthetic conception. Karamzin's social convictions developed differently. As a real noble ideologist, he did not accept the idea of ​​social equality of people - the central one in the educational ideology. Already in the journal "Children's Reading" a moralizing conversation between Dobroserdov and children about the inequality of conditions was published. Dobroserdov taught the children that it was only thanks to inequality that the peasants cultivated the field and thereby obtained the bread that the nobles needed. "So," he concluded, "by means of an unequal division of fate, God binds us closer in a union of love and friendship." From his youth until the end of his life, Karamzin remained true to the conviction that inequality is necessary, that it is even beneficial. At the same time, Karamzin makes a concession to enlightenment and recognizes the moral equality of people. On this basis, Karamzin developed at this time (1780-early 1790s) an abstract, dreamy utopia about the future brotherhood of people, about the triumph of social peace and happiness in society. In the poem "Song of the World" (1792), he wrote: "Millions, embrace, as a brother embraces a brother", "Make a chain, millions, children of one father! You have been given one law, you have been given one heart!" The religious and moral doctrine of the brotherhood of people merged in Karamzin with the abstractly understood ideas of the enlighteners about the happiness of a free, unoppressed person. Drawing naive pictures of the possible "bliss" of the "brothers", Karamzin persistently repeats that this is all a "dream of the imagination." Such a dreamy love of freedom opposed the views of the Russian enlighteners, who selflessly fought for the realization of their ideals, opposed, above all, the revolutionary convictions of Radishchev. But under the conditions of Catherine's reaction in the 1790s, these beautiful-hearted dreams and the constantly expressed belief in the beneficence of enlightenment for all classes alienated Karamzin from the camp of reaction, determined his social independence to a certain extent. This independence manifested itself primarily in relation to the French Revolution, which he had to observe in the spring of 1790 in Paris. Naturally, Karamzin could not welcome the revolution. But he is in no hurry (as many did in his time) with her condemnation, preferring to carefully observe the events, trying to understand their real meaning. Upon his return from his travels, Karamzin in his Moscow Journal not only published his works of art - Letters from a Russian Traveler, novels, poems, but also introduced a special section of reviews of foreign and Russian political and artistic works, performances of the Russian and Parisian theaters. It was in these reviews that the public position Karamzin, his attitude to the French revolution. Among the numerous reviews of foreign books, it is necessary to single out a group of works (mainly French) devoted to political issues. Karamzin recommended to the Russian reader the work of an active participant in the revolution, the philosopher Volney, "The Ruins, or Reflections on the Revolutions of the Empire", Mercier's book about Jean-Jacques Rousseau, worldwide famous essay- "Utopia" by Thomas More, which he characterized as follows: "This book contains a description of an ideal or imaginary republic ..." These and similar reviews taught the Russian reader to think about important social and political issues. The artistic and critical works of Karamzin, published in the Moscow Journal, clearly established him as a sentimentalist writer. By the early 1790s, European sentimentalism had reached a remarkable height. Russian sentimentalism, which began its history in the late 1760s, only with the advent of Karamzin became the dominant trend in literature. Sentimentalism, an advanced art inspired by the ideology of the Enlightenment, was established and won in England, France and Germany in the second half of the 18th century. Enlightenment as an ideology expressing not only bourgeois ideas, but ultimately defending the interests of the broad masses of the people, brought A New Look on a person and the circumstances of his life, on the place of the individual in society. Sentimentalism, extolling man, focused on the image mental movements revealing the world of moral life. But this did not mean that sentimentalist writers were not interested in the outside world, that they did not see the connection and dependence of a person on the mores and customs of the society in which he lives. Enlightenment ideology, defining the essence of the artistic method of sentimentalism, opened up to a new direction not only the idea of ​​personality, but also its dependence on circumstances. However, the hero of sentimentalism, contrasting the wealth of property with the wealth of individuality and the inner world, the wealth of the pocket with the wealth of feelings, was at the same time deprived of a fighting spirit. This is due to the duality of the ideology of the Enlightenment. Enlighteners, putting forward revolutionary ideas, resolutely fighting feudalism, themselves remained supporters of peaceful reforms. This was reflected in the bourgeois limitations of the Western Enlightenment. And the hero of European sentimentalism does not protest, he is a fugitive from the real world. In cruel feudal reality, he is a victim. But in his solitude he is great, for, as Rousseau said, "man is great in his feelings." Therefore, the hero of sentimentalism is not just a free person and a spiritually rich person, but also private person, fleeing from a world hostile to him, not wanting to fight for his real freedom in society, staying in his solitude and enjoying his unique "I". This individualism of both French and English sentimentalism was progressive at the time of the struggle against feudalism. But even in this individualism, in this indifference to the fate of other people, in concentrating all attention on oneself, the traits of egoism are clearly visible, which will flourish in a magnificent flower in the bourgeois society that was established after the revolution. It was these features of European sentimentalism that allowed the Russian nobility to adopt and master its philosophy. Developing the weaknesses, first of all, of the new direction, what limited its objective revolutionary character (advocacy of human freedom and social equality in society), a group of writers under the conditions of reaction after the defeat of the peasant war of 1773-1775 under the leadership of Pugachev asserted sentimentalism in Russia (Kheraskov, Muravyov , Kutuzov, Petrov and others). In the 1790s, having defeated classicism, sentimentalism became the dominant trend, headed by Karamzin. Karamzin's sentimentalism, typologically associated with the pan-European literary trend, turned out to be in many respects a completely different phenomenon. The general view was of a person as a person who realizes himself in the wealth of feelings, in spiritual life, in upholding lonely happiness. But much separated Karamzin from his teachers. And not only the national conditions of life, but also the time determined this difference. Sentimentalism in the West was formed at the time of the rise and the highest flowering of the Enlightenment. Karamzin's sentimentalism, also conditioned by the Enlightenment, finally took shape in art system in the years of the fatal test of the theory of the Enlightenment by the practice of the French Revolution, in the era of the beginning of the drama advanced people and the revealed catastrophic nature of the human being of modern times. The revolution convinced that the "kingdom of reason", justice and freedom promised by the Enlightenment did not come. An era of growing disillusionment with the ideals of the Enlightenment began, the burning torches of freedom and hope were extinguished - that's why modern life seemed tragically hopeless. All this determined the special, nationally unique image of Karamzin's sentimentalism. Subjectivism and pessimism characterized Karamzin's worldview in the 1790s, but they were generated by the drama of the ideas of the century. That is why, even shutting himself in the moral world, Karamzin posed not intimate, but universal questions. All this is reflected primarily in his stories. The publication by Karamzin of his stories was a major event. literary life last decade of the 18th century. The writer created the genre of acute psychological story. Deeply lyrical in style, they revealed the poetry of the spiritual life of ordinary people, capturing the experiences of the characters, all the complexity and inconsistency of their feelings. The action in the stories develops rapidly, but it is not the plot that captivates the reader, but the psychological drama of the story, the exposure of the “secret secrets” of the spiritual world of the individual, the “life of the heart” of the characters and the author himself, who spoke confidentially with the reader, sharing his thoughts with him, not hiding his feelings and attitude towards the characters. Everything in the stories was new for readers, but this new, unexpected did not repel him, because it was expressed at the right time. The reader already knew - in the original or in translations - many works of European sentimentalism. Stern and Rousseau, Goethe and Richardson and many other English, French and German writers focused on psychological analysis personalities: revealing the spiritual wealth of a person, they taught to appreciate him for the complexity of feelings, rehabilitated his passions. The novels of these writers were known in Russia before Karamzin, and Karamzin himself was their enthusiastic admirer. Now the reader has found in Karamzin - the author of "Letters of a Russian Traveler" and stories - a Russian writer who wrote about Russian life, about Russian people, wrote in modern language, endowed with the ability to convey an "inexpressible" state of mind, a deeply emotional pathos of human life. That is why the reader warmly, with unprecedented enthusiasm, accepted the stories of the young writer. No work of Russian literature has ever received such success, such popularity. The story "Poor Lisa" (1792) brought fame to the writer. Karamzin's stories were also a success in the first decade of the 19th century - young sentimentalist writers followed their teacher. Most of all attracted the plot of "Poor Lisa". In this regard, assessing Karamzin's achievements in the development of Russian prose, Belinsky wrote: "Karamzin was the first in Rus' to begin writing stories that interested society ... stories in which people acted, portrayed the life of the heart and passions in the midst of ordinary everyday life." The critic rightly pointed out their weakness: they did not have a "creative reproduction of reality", but depicted only the moral world of his contemporaries, "as in a mirror the _life of the heart_ is correctly reflected, as it existed for people of that time." The critic's final assessment sounded like a harsh sentence - Karamzin's stories retained only "historical interest." The time and circumstances of the literary struggle for realistic art determined such a verdict of the critic. Karamzin's stories belong to the best artistic achievements of Russian sentimentalism. They played significant role in the development of Russian literature of his time. They really retained historical interest for a long time. But is it only historical? The hobbies, tastes, ideas of the noble reader of the end of the 18th century, who loved Karamzin's stories, have sunk into oblivion. The literary controversies that they caused have long been forgotten, and memoirs about the resounding success of Poor Liza sound like "tradition of deep antiquity". The modern reader is free from the old traditions. What will be revealed to him in a naive and old-fashioned, emphatically emotional story about the moral life of Russian people of the past, what will they tell him to lead his mind and heart, what will attract his attention and, most importantly, will he attract when he reads Karamzin's stories today? Sensitivity - this is how the main merit of Karamzin's stories was defined in the language of the late 18th century. The writer taught to sympathize with people, discovering "the tenderest feelings" in the "bends of the heart", immersed the reader in a tense emotional atmosphere of "tender passions". "Sensitive", "gentle" called Karamzin. The tragedy of the life of a person of that time is what the modern reader will first of all discover in Karamzin's stories, this is what will attract his attention. "Poor Liza" opens with a lyrical introduction that psychologically prepares the reader for a dark story with its inevitable tragic ending. Before the mental gaze of the writer there are pictures of the "history of the fatherland", "the sad history of those times" when the Russians were under the yoke of the Tatars. But the life of contemporaries turns out to be disastrous, as witnessed by the fate of poor Lisa. Not in control of her feelings, she fell in love, her nature yearns for happiness, but it is impossible in this world. Vaguely, from the first meetings with Erast, Liza foresees trouble, and she comes: Erast deceives her, and the poor girl throws herself into the pond. With even greater nakedness, this fatal law, dooming a person to suffering and death, is revealed in the stories The Island of Bornholm (1794) and The Sierra Morena (1794). Bornholm Island is one of best stories Karamzin, it is written in the style of early romanticism: hence the mystery of the scene - an island abandoned in the sea with an exotic name, medieval castle , a dungeon where a young woman languishes for an unknown guilt, understatement in the development of the plot, hints of the narrator as a stylistic principle of the story. As in "Poor Lisa", "Bornholm Island" reports the collapse of the happiness of two young people who love each other. What is the essence of that fatal law that governs the fate of the heroes of Karamzin's stories? The writer is convinced that passions are the great force that guides a person. Of these, love is the most powerful. This passion is good, it reveals in a person the best sides of his spirit, makes him morally rich and beautiful, irresistibly leads to happiness. But the passions inspired by nature are opposed by "laws" that condemn these passions and deprive a person of happiness. The hero of the story "Bornholm Island" - an unfortunate young man, forcibly separated from his beloved, sings a sad song in which he tells the story of his love for Lila. It speaks frankly of all about the tragic contradiction between the laws of nature and other laws - inhuman, inexorably operating in society. The young man is trying to defend his right to happiness, referring to nature: "Nature! You wanted me to love Lila!" But "laws", people condemn their passion, declare it criminal: What law is holier than Your innate feelings? What power is stronger than Love and beauty? What is this "power" that is "stronger" than love? What "laws" are more powerful than the dictates of nature? Who creates and governs these "laws"? Karamzin does not answer these questions, refuses to evaluate these "laws" - he only states their inexorable action. The conflict of "Poor Lisa" is generated by reality, its contradictions. Before Karamzin, it was used in the love song, which was widely circulated in the 1780s. Dozens of poets, most often anonymous, wrote songs about the beauty and power of love, about the dramatic trials of those who love. The song affirmed with emotional force the philosophy of a free man put forward by the enlighteners. The song awakened a sense of personality, taught to value a person not according to his estate, but for moral wealth, manifested in an intimate Feeling. The power of love is omnipotent. It helps to break the laws established by people, which disfigure human life. Chief among them is the social inequality that divides people. The songs glorified the passion that helps to transgress this law. That is why the plot of many songs was the love of a nobleman for a peasant woman. An emotional atmosphere of moral equality triumphed in them. In them, a person loved a person and was happy. Plot "Poor Lisa" turned out to be close to a love romance. Karamzin's conclusion - "even peasant women know how to love" - ​​was a generalization of the ethical code of the song. But the optimism of the song was alien to him. He shows the death of Liza, refusing to investigate the causes of her misfortune, avoiding the question: who is to blame? There is suffering, there are no guilty ones, - the writer states. "Erast was unhappy until the end of his life. Having learned about the fate of Lizina, he could not be comforted and considered himself a murderer." Soon the grieving Erast dies. But Karamzin the artist could not but see the real, earthly contours of the law that ruined his heroes. And no matter how he ran away from reality with its social contradictions, it invaded the story. At the moment of the birth of love for Erast, Lisa admits: "If the one who now occupies my thoughts was born a simple peasant ..." The understanding that social inequality (a nobleman could not marry a peasant woman) would destroy love did not help overcome the attraction of the heart - - Lisa fell in love and thereby doomed herself to death. In a moment of sincerity and heartfelt confessions, Erast promised Lisa never to part with her. Trembling, Lisa tells him: "However, you can't be my husband... I'm a peasant woman." Overwhelmed by passion, Erast assures that the law of inequality has no power over him: "For your friend, the most important thing is the soul, a sensitive, innocent soul - and Lisa will always be closest to my heart." The presentiment did not deceive Lisa: Erast left the one he loved and married without love, but on a level, a noblewoman, "an elderly rich widow." And the reader cannot fail to understand that the cause of the heroes' misfortunes is not an abstract moral "law", but a law created by people, the law of social inequality. In 1793, Karamzin's convictions were tested - he was frightened by the Jacobin stage of the French Revolution, a truly democratic method of asserting freedom and fighting its enemies. His former system of views collapsed, and then a doubt was born in the possibility of mankind to achieve happiness and prosperity. Events in France broke out in early June: saving the revolution, relying on the uprising of the Paris sections (May 31 - June 2), the Jacobins, led by Robespierre, Marat and Danton, established a dictatorship. Karamzin learned about these events in August, when he was resting at the Oryol estate. In a letter to his friend, the poet I. I. Dmitriev, he wrote: "... the terrible events of Europe excite my whole soul." In the autumn of 1793, a new stage in Karamzin's work began. Disappointment in the revolution led to disappointment in the ideals of the Enlightenment, gave rise to disbelief in the possibility of freeing people from vices, since passions are indestructible and eternal; there was a conviction that one should live away from society, from a life full of evil, finding happiness in enjoying oneself. New views on the tasks of the poet were also defined. The personality of the author has now become the center of creativity; autobiography found expression in the revelation of the inner world of the yearning soul of a man running from public life trying to find solace in selfish happiness. New views were most fully expressed in poetry. In 1794, Karamzin wrote two friendly letters - to I. I. Dmitriev and A. A. Pleshcheev, in which he detailed his deeply pessimistic views on social development and human behavior. Once upon a time, he "was deceived by dreams", "loved people with ardor", "wished them well with all his soul." But after the revolution that shook Europe, the crazy dreams of philosophers became clear to him. "And I see clearly that we cannot establish republics with Plato." Conclusion: if a person is not able to change the world in such a way that it would be possible to "reconcile the tiger with the lamb", so that "the rich make friends with the poor and the weak forgive the strong", then he must leave the dream - "so, let's extinguish the lamp." New, subjective poetry diverted people's attention from political to moral questions: Love and friendship - that's how you can console yourself under the sun! We should not seek bliss, But we should suffer less. Having immersed a person in the world of feelings, the poet makes him live only the life of the heart, since happiness is only in love, friendship and enjoyment of nature. Thus, poems appeared that revealed the spiritual world of a self-contained personality ("To oneself", "To the poor poet", "Nightingale", "To the unfaithful", "To the faithful", etc.). The poet preaches the philosophy of "painful joy", calls melancholy a sweet feeling, which is "the most tender overflow from sorrow and anguish to the pleasures of pleasure." The hymn to this feeling was the poem "Melancholia". In the poem "The Nightingale" Karamzin, perhaps for the first time with such boldness and determination, opposed the real world, the real world, the moral world, the world created by the human imagination. Now Karamzin puts art above life. Therefore, the poet's duty is to "invent," and the true poet is "a skillful liar." He confessed: "My friend! materiality is poor: play with your dreams in your soul." But, creating this new lyrics, Karamzin introduced new genres into it, which we will later meet with Zhukovsky, Batyushkov and Pushkin: a ballad, a friendly message, poetic "little things", madrigals. In elegiac, love lyrics, Karamzin created poetic language to express all complex and subtle feelings, to reveal the drama of man. Phraseology of Karamzin, his images, poetic phrases (such as: “I love - I will die loving”, “glory is an empty sound”, “the voice of the heart is intelligible to the heart”, “love feeds on tears, grows from sorrow”, “friendship is a priceless gift "," carefree youth joy "," winter of sadness "," sweet power of the heart ", etc.) were assimilated by subsequent generations of poets, they can be found in Pushkin's early lyrics. The meaning of Karamzin the poet was succinctly defined by the poet and critic P. A. Vyazemsky: “With him, poetry of feeling, love for nature, gentle ebb of thought and impressions was born in us, in a word, poetry is internal, sincere ... If in Karamzin one can notice some lack in the brilliant qualities of a happy poet, he had a feeling and consciousness of new poetic forms. The collapse of faith in the possibility of a "golden age", when a person would find the happiness he so needed, led to Karamzin's transition to the position of subjectivism. But this is an escape from pressing social issues. political life burdened Karamzin. Persistently studying history and the present, in particular, referring again and again to the events of the French Revolution in connection with his work on the Letters of a Russian Traveler, he sought to find a way out of the impasse to which the dramatic events of the Jacobin dictatorship had led him. In 1797, Karamzin wrote an article "Conversation about Happiness", which marked the beginning of a turning point in his views. The article raises the fundamental question enlightenment philosophy- "How to achieve happiness?". The article is written in the form of a dialogue between two friends. The first answers the question in the spirit of Karamzin's subjectivist sentiments: "A person must be the creator of his well-being, bringing passions into a happy balance and forming a taste for true pleasures." Another objected to him, and in these objections we see Karamzin already doubting his philosophical position: “But if I don’t find good food for myself, then can I enjoy the most wonderful taste? Admit that a peasant living in his dark, stinking hut ... can't find much pleasure in life." The first one tries to answer this real socially emphasized question from a moral standpoint: "The peasant loves his wife, his children, rejoices when it rains at the right time ... True pleasures equalize people." A friend does not agree with this position and ironically answers him: "Your philosophy is quite comforting, but not many will believe it." Karamzin did not believe the first. He firmly decided to break with his subjectivist aesthetics, which justified the social passivity of the writer. This decision indicated that the overcoming of the ideological crisis had begun. This was helped by the ongoing work on the Letters of a Russian Traveler. "Letters" were written for ten years, and, naturally, they reflected the evolution of the writer's ideological and aesthetic views. The turning point in this evolution in 1797 had, as we shall see, both the completion of the Letters and the understanding of the French Revolution. What are the Letters of a Russian Traveler, a work with such a complex creative destiny? Enlightenment determined the optimistic nature of Karamzin's convictions, his belief in the wisdom of the human mind, in the fruitfulness of people's activities for the common good. He admitted: “We considered the end of our century the end of the main disasters of mankind and thought that it would be followed by an important, general connection of theory with practice, speculation with activity, that people, morally convinced in the elegance of the laws of pure reason, would begin to fulfill them to the fullest extent. and under the shade of the world, in the shelter of peace and tranquility, they will enjoy the true blessings of life. With this faith, the young writer went on a journey through the countries Western Europe, which resulted in a wonderful book - "Letters of a Russian Traveler". On the way, he kept records of what he saw and heard, recorded his impressions, reflections, conversations with writers and philosophers, made sketches of constantly changing landscapes, noted for memory what required detailed explanation(information about the history of visited countries, social structure, art of peoples, etc.). But since Karamzin gave his work the form of travel letters addressed to friends, he imitated their private, so to speak, practical, rather than artistic character, emphasizing the immediacy of recording his impressions on the way. That is why, starting from the first letter, this tone is maintained: "I parted with you, dear ones, I parted!"; “Yesterday, my dearest, I arrived in Riga...” For the same purpose, a preface was written in which the reader was warned that in his letters the Traveler “told his friends what happened to him, what he saw, heard, felt, thought , and described his impressions not at leisure, not in the silence of the study, but where and how it happened, on the way, on shreds, in pencil. Recommending his work as a collection of everyday documents - private letters of the Traveler to friends, Karamzin sought to focus the reader's attention on their documentary nature. The "Letters" were presented as a confessional diary of a Russian person who had fallen into a vast, unknown world of the spiritual and social life of European countries, into the cycle of European events. In fact, "Letters from a Russian Traveler" were written in Moscow for many years. At the same time, the writer used not only his travel notes, but widely used books well known to him, topics countries he visited. He took what he needed from the works of various authors: Nicolai - "Berlin and Potsdam", Cox - "Letters on the political, civil and natural state of Switzerland", Mercier - "Pictures of Paris", Sainte-Foy - " Historical essays from Paris", Moritz - "Journey of a German to England". The choice of the genre of travel "letters" for his work was influenced by the European literature tradition. The structure of the "journey" genre is distinguished by dynamism, normativity is alien to it, it shows the ability for serious changes. In England, in the first half of the 18th century, various "journeys" (Defoe, Swift, Smollet) were created, which were united by the commonality of the author's position - the writers sought to depict exactly what they saw, reality, social life with its contradictions, in order not only to condemn its inhumanity, but also to discover in it - in living life - the source of its future renewal. Lawrence Sterne, using the already established tradition, treats it polemically, resolutely transforms the structure of the genre and creates a new type of modification - "Sentimental Journey" (1768). The writer is not interested in the real world, in which his hero-traveler Yorick is, but his attitude to what he saw, not real facts, but the subjective perception of them by the traveler. The genre of "journey" Stern submits to the task of discovering the complex, constantly changing, full of contradictions of the spiritual life of man. The sentimental journey turned out to be a journey into the secret, hidden from everyone, inexhaustibly rich moral world of the individual. Stern is a skeptic who has already seen the collapse of the revival and enlightenment ideals and teachings in his homeland. On the touchstone of merciless irony, he tests the "strength" of ideals, moral norms, traditional beliefs and beliefs. Psychologism turned out to be a highly effective method of revealing the inconsistency of Yorick's consciousness, devoid of reverence for the high duties of a person, flaunting his right to question everything, to scoff at everything in moderation, to laugh bitterly to the extent... , published in 1785 "Journey to Italy". In the book, the reader found a lot of interesting and useful information about the civil institutions of Italian cities and the way of life of the population, about museums and temples, palaces and libraries, about paintings and features of the Italian language, etc. The author is accurate in the descriptions, he is interested in facts, real life , he seeks to equip the reader with knowledge. Karamzin read and highly appreciated both Stern's Sentimental Journey and Dupati's Journey to Italy. He took into account their achievements, mastered the experience of using the "travel" genre for his own purposes. That is why his "Letters of a Russian Traveler" is an original work, it was born in Russian soil, determined by the needs of Russian life, it solved the problems that confronted Russian literature. Since the time of Peter the Great, society has faced the acute and topical issue of the relationship between Russia and the West at every historical stage. This issue was resolved at the state, economic, and ideological levels. From year to year, the number of translations of scientific and artistic, sociological, philosophical and special - applied in various fields of knowledge books and articles from various European languages. The experience of the West - political, social, cultural - has been mastered and taken into account all the time, and at the same time it has been mastered and taken into account both primitively, imitatively and critically, independently. And yet the Russian people knew unacceptably little about the West. The West knew even less about Russia. The visiting foreigners took away meager and most often distorted information. Russian people who traveled abroad did not share their impressions. The first to decide to fill this gap was Denis Fonvizin. He tried to print his letters about his visit to France in 1777-1778 in the 1780s, but at that time Catherine II forbade the publication of Fonvizin's works. The wonderful ideologically rich work did not reach the general reader, but began to spread in lists. Karamzin knew the situation well and was aware of his duty as a writer to overcome this mutual ignorance. He wrote: "Our compatriots have been traveling to foreign countries for a long time, but so far none of them has done this with a pen in hand." Karamzin and assumed the responsibility of traveling with a pen in his hand. That is why his "Letters from a Russian Traveler" opened the West to the general Russian reader and introduced the West to Russia. This task explains the most important side of the "Letters" - their information content. They were written in the educational tradition - in a fictionalized form, Karamzin reported a lot of accurate, objective information and facts, informed, enlightened, educated. "Letters of a Russian Traveler" was a kind of encyclopedia that captured the life of the West on the eve and during the greatest event of the end of the 18th century - in the era of the French Revolution. The reader learned about the political structure, social conditions, public institutions Germany, Switzerland, France and England. He was informed of the results of the study of history big cities Europe, and his own impressions of Leipzig and Berlin, Paris and London were especially detailed. At the same time, the history of cities was often revealed through material cultural monuments - museums, palaces, cathedrals, libraries, universities, the history of countries turned out to be imprinted in literature, science, and art. The circle of interests of the Russian Traveler is infinitely rich - he attends lectures by famous professors of the University of Leipzig and participates in folk street festivities, spends his days in the famous Dresden Gallery , talking in detail about the paintings of great European artists, and looks into taverns, talks with their regulars, gets acquainted with merchants, officers, scientists, writers, carefully studies the life of peasants in Switzerland, trying to understand what determines their well-being, their prosperity. But the Russian Traveler not only observes and writes down the details of what he saw and heard - he generalizes, expresses his opinion, shares his thoughts, his doubts with the reader. He notes the harmful influence of the police state of Germany on the freedom and life of the nation, with deep respect for the German philosophers, whose ideas and teachings have become widespread in Europe (Kant, Herder). The traveler emphasizes that it is the constitutional system of Switzerland and England that is the basis for the well-being of these nations. At the same time, he has a special sympathy for the Swiss Republic. In its state and social structure, he saw the embodiment of Rousseau's social ideal. It seems to him that in this small republic the enlightenment of the whole nation has given good results - under its influence all people have become virtuous. Thus, the idea was affirmed that not a revolution, but enlightenment is necessary for the peoples for their well-being. Everything reported by the Traveler - both observations, and facts, and reflections, and thoughts - forced the Russian reader to compare with the orders known to him, with the way of life in his homeland, to compare and think about Russian affairs, about the fate of his fatherland. France occupies a special place in the Letters of a Russian Traveler. The pages dedicated to this country also told about the life of different segments of the population of France, about the history of Paris, described the appearance of the capital - its palaces, theaters, monuments, famous people ... But, of course, the main thing in France was a grandiose event: Revolution in the eyes of the Traveler. It aroused interest and frightened, attracted attention and horrified the traveling Russian, a principled opponent of violent upheavals, popular revolutions. Karamzin did not yet know how to write about the revolution. But, on the other hand, he understood that in the Russian conditions of the 1790s, at the time of Catherine's persecution and persecution of all leading figures, it was both dangerous and hopeless to write about the revolution - censorship would not have missed ... That's why printing " Letters" in the "Moscow Journal" was terminated on the news of the Traveler's entry into Paris ... The writer will express his opinion about the French Revolution later, when his position is finally somehow determined. Another beginning - adjacent to the informative - was the lyrical element of "Letters of a Russian Traveler". They imprinted the personal, emotional attitude of the Traveler to everything he saw in the West. The reader found out what pleased the Traveler, what upset and saddened, what aroused sympathy and what frightened and repelled. This personal attitude is imprinted in the style - it is sometimes ironic, sometimes sensitive, sometimes strictly businesslike. The style revealed the spiritual world of the Traveler. Not only the organic fusion of informative and lyrical principles determines the originality of the "Letters of a Russian Traveler", but above all the creation of the image of the Traveler. In this regard, the very title of the work is fundamental, each word of which is significant and essential for understanding the genre. "Letters" - this was an indication of the tradition that has developed in Western and Russian literature; "Letters" are a confession, a confession, even information, but not of a reference, not of a scientific type; this is not a simple enumeration of what he saw, heard, learned - this is a story about the experience of this particular person. This is precisely what the Traveler emphasized in his last letter from Kronstadt: "Coast! Fatherland! I bless you! I am in Russia and in a few days I will be with you, my friends! months!" The second word of the title significantly clarified the reader's understanding and perception of this person - this is a Russian, a representative of Russian culture, a messenger of Russian literature in European countries. Meeting with Western figures of science, culture and literature, he not only asked, but also told from Russia, about its history, about its culture and literature. The third word of the title - "traveler" motivates and justifies the place of action of the hero in the work - European countries; his movement in space, dynamically changing impressions - he is always among people ("Letters" are densely populated by people, the writer shows skill in depicting many characters, strives to catch national traits people he met), among events, adventures, incidents. The traveler lives an intense spiritual life, everything he has seen and experienced passes through his heart, he is worried about meetings and events, he constantly thinks about what he has learned, searches for himself and makes his reader look for answers to many important questions of life. The reader of the "Letters" sees and understands the process of ideological masculinity of the Russian Traveler taking place before his eyes at a time when Western Europe was going through great revolution in France. That is why the drama of feelings and thoughts is the main feature of the image of the Traveler. A few years before Karamzin, Alexander Radishchev, who published Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow in 1790, worked on a work of a similar genre. The work of the revolutionary writer was fundamentally different from Karamzin's Letters. And yet, with all the difference in the ideological positions of Radishchev and Karamzin, the national tradition affected the creation of the image of the protagonist: their traveler is a Russian person who lives in the big world and absorbs the interests of this world into his heart. This hero is devoid of egoism, he lives among people, he is also interested in the life of other countries and other peoples, he thinks about the questions of human existence. The originality of the "Letters of a Russian Traveler" is still not sufficiently disclosed. Most often, this work is considered in the abstract series of sentimental journeys. That is why the objective image of the Traveler is not noticed and underestimated - "Letters" are considered as a "mirror of the soul" of Karamzin himself, as his original diary. Of course, both the eighteenth-century reader and the modern reader know that Karamzin made the journey, that he is the author of the Letters. But we must not forget that he created piece of art and everything written in it, including the image of the Traveler, must be perceived according to the laws artistic image and knowledge of life. The hero of "Sentimental Journey" is Yorick, not Stern, although much in Yorick's views is close and dear to Stern. Karamzin gave a lot of his own to the Traveler, he captures many personality traits of the author himself, and yet the image of the Traveler is not adequate to Karamzin. Between the Author and the Traveler there is a distance created by art; Karamzin is present in the "Letters" as if in two guises. Here is how succinctly and expressively Karamzin defined the spiritual world, the moral, aesthetic and political interests of the Traveler: "Everything interests him: sights of cities, the smallest differences in the way of life of their inhabitants, monuments that resurrect various significant events in his memory; traces of great people who have already not in the world, pleasant landscapes, a view of fertile fields and a boundless sea, either he visits the ruins of an abandoned ancient castle in order to indulge in dreams without interference and wander in thought in the darkness of past centuries, or he comes to the house of famous writers ... Kant, Nikolai , Ramler, Moritz, Garder receive him cordially and affably ... He heard about the French Revolution for the first time in Frankfurt am Main; this news excites him extremely ... He hurries to Switzerland to breathe in the air of peaceful freedom there; he sees captivating valleys, where the farmer calmly enjoys the fruits of his measured labor ... In Zurich, he dine every day in the company of the famous Lavater ... he meets the famous Mr. Bonnet ... He repeatedly visits Ferney Castle, from where the rays of Enlightenment once poured, scattering in Europe the darkness of prejudices, where rays of wit and feelings lit up, making all the contemporaries weep, then laugh. (This understanding by the Traveler of the activities of the great Voltaire is noteworthy.) Karamzin highly valued Stern's talent, translated and published excerpts from his writings in the Moscow Journal. But "Letters of a Russian Traveler" is an original work, and it was written in a different tradition. The originality of the writer manifested itself both in the method of depicting people and objective reality, in relation to what he saw, and in creating the image of the Traveler, first of all, in revealing his view of European life, in his manner of understanding what he saw, in a clearly expressed Russian thought. It should also be taken into account that this "bifurcation" was generated not only by the artistic nature of the work, but also by the specific historical situation. The French Revolution destroyed Karamzin's former convictions, shook his social idealism - faith in the triumph of justice and humanity on earth, in the possibility of achieving social peace in society and the happiness of every person, in establishing a brotherhood of people in the future ("Millions, embrace as a brother embraces a brother "). Karamzin the writer was acutely aware of the crisis of his convictions. Former ideals have faded, new ones have not yet taken shape - the writer was looking for a saving way out of the contradictions of reality. So, stopping work on the "Letters", Karamzin in 1794, under the influence of events - the Jacobin dictatorship - writes filled with bitterness of disappointment and intense search for a new truth, full of confusion and contradictions, article-letters - "Melodor to Philaletus" and "Philalet to Melodorus." Melodorus and Philalethes are not different people, they are the "voices of the soul" of Karamzin himself, they are the confused and bewildered old Karamzin and the new Karamzin, looking for other ideals of life that are different from the previous ones. Melodor sadly confesses: "The Age of Enlightenment! I do not recognize you - in blood and flame I do not recognize you, among the murders and destruction I do not recognize you!" The fatal question arises: how to live on? Seek salvation in selfish happiness? But Melodor knows that "for good hearts there is no happiness when they cannot share it with others." Otherwise, Melodorus asks, "what will I, you, everyone live on? What did our ancestors live on? What will posterity live on?" The collapse of faith in the humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment was the tragedy of Karamzin. Herzen, who was keenly experiencing his spiritual drama after the suppression of the French Revolution of 1848, called these hard-won confessions of Karamzin "fiery and full of tears." In the same article and in connection with Karamzin, Herzen defined the most important feature of Russian people and Russian writers in the first place - their responsiveness to universal deeds and destinies: his opinion ... "(Herzen A. I. Collection of works in thirty volumes, vol. VI. M., 1955, p. 10, 12.). Melodorus is answered by Philalethes. He, as an educator, is optimistic, and his optimism is based on faith in the good beginning of human nature. “Let us, my friend, let us now console ourselves with the thought that the lot of the human race is not an eternal error and that people will someday stop torturing themselves and each other.” He agrees with Melodor that everything thinking people, who previously hoped for the triumph of the "laws of reason", were mistaken. The revolution helped to understand the utopianism of philosophical dreams. "Woe to that philosophy which wants to decide everything." But faith in man was not lost: "I believe and will always believe that virtue is inherent in man and that he was created for virtue." The crisis state of Karamzin's worldview in 1794 ultimately determined the ideological position of the Traveler, allowed him to formulate his attitude towards the revolution in general. The "Correspondence" of Melodorus and Philaletus, which arose in 1794 as a direct reaction to the Jacobin dictatorship with its terror, is an important commentary on the "Letters of a Russian Traveler". The traveler, as it were, accepts the faith of Philaletes in his denial of the revolutionary path to the happiness of man. Here is his position: "Any civil society, approved for centuries, is a shrine for good citizens, and in the most imperfect one one must be surprised at the wonderful harmony, improvement, order. "Utopia" (or "The Kingdom of Happiness", the writings of Morus) will always be a dream good heart or it may be fulfilled by the inconspicuous action of time, through the slow but sure, safe advances of reason, enlightenment, education, good morals. When people are convinced that virtue is necessary for their own happiness, then the golden age will come, and in every government a person will enjoy the peaceful well-being of life. Any violent upheavals are disastrous, and each rebel prepares a scaffold for himself. "The traveler, undoubtedly, expressed the author's point of view that any violent upheavals are disastrous for the nation and people. In this case Traveler and Author find mutual language, because they profess the ideals of the Enlighteners, who claimed that the path to a just social organization lies through enlightenment, not through revolution, through the education of virtuous citizens. But, undoubtedly, behind this enlightening shield is the conviction of a nobleman. The author is a principled opponent of the revolution; he does not accept the forcible change of the essential social system. And yet Karamzin's position is both more complicated and, most importantly, more historical than the Traveler's view. That is why the writer felt the need to speak out, to state in print his opinion not about the Jacobin stage of the French Revolution, but about the revolution in general, about the place of the revolution in the movement of peoples along the path of progress. He carried out his intention in 1797, when his understanding of the resolution was more or less determined, not in the Russian press, but abroad - in the Hamburg magazine Severny Spectator. Karamzin published the article “A Few Words about Russian Literature” in the “Spectator”, the central place in it was taken by a peculiar (corrected) retelling of the “Letters of a Russian Traveler”, which included the opinion of the writer, which was absent in their Russian edition. Karamzin's approach to the revolution is fundamentally different from the Traveler's assessments - the latter condemns the revolution, while Karamzin tries to explain it historically. The traveler is convinced that the revolution in France is not popular, that the “nation” does not “participate” in it: “hardly a hundredth part is active”, and these “actors” are “rebels”, “daring”, who “raised the ax on sacred tree, saying: "We'll do better." "Republicans with vicious hearts" "prepare their own scaffold." Karamzin begins a conversation about the French Revolution with the history of France and concludes: "So, the French nation has gone through all stages of civilization in order to reach its current state" "Revolution is not a revolt of a handful of "daring" and "predatory like wolves" Republicans, it is a natural link in the chain of continuous development of the nation. Therefore, the revolution means the onset of a new period in the history of not only France, but of all mankind. Karamzin wrote: "French revolution refers to such phenomena that determine the fate of mankind for a long generation of centuries. Begins new era. I see it, but Rousseau foresaw it." Karamzin strongly opposes a thoughtless attitude to the greatest event of our time, disagreeing neither with those who praise it, nor with those who rush to condemn it: "I hear magnificent speeches for and against; but I'm not going to imitate those screamers. I confess that my views on this subject are not mature enough. One event follows another, like waves in a stormy sea; and people already want to consider the revolution as completed. No. No. We will see many amazing things in the future. The extreme excitement of the minds speaks for it. I'm dropping the curtain." Main lesson taught by the French Revolution to mankind, consisted in the demand for a historical explanation of the causes and nature of social development. The revolution taught that it is not "philosophical dreams", not "laws of reason" that determine the progress of human society, but the internal causes of historical development. So the truth that people need should be sought not in books, but in history. The article "A few words about Russian literature" captures Karamzin's attempt to give a historical explanation of the revolution. That is why in the 1790s he begins to pay special attention to history - European and Russian. A significant step forward in this direction was the article "The Reasoning of a Philosopher, Historian and Citizen". The philosopher who repeats the idea popular in European literature that "happiness dwells" in the heart of every person is refuted by the historian. The appearance of the figure of a historian is characteristic of the evolution of Karamzin's convictions. On behalf of the historian, the writer proclaims: “Proud wise men! Do you want to find the path to truth in yourself? No, no! You should not look for it there. desolation, you will see a little-known path leading to a magnificent temple of true wisdom and happy success. Experience is its gatekeeper ... "("Moskovskie Vedomosti", 1795,? 97.). Interest in the history of Karamzin meant that an active process of overcoming the contradictions of the enlightenment ideology began. He was convinced that the truth is not invented by the mind, but it is extracted from the experience of the centuries-old life of the people. Only the history and historical experience of each country will make it possible to discover the "little-known path" that will lead it to the "temple of true wisdom." From the universal, truly global ethical problems of the fate of mankind and the tragedy of human life in the 1790s, the transition to the enormous problems of the historical existence of the nation, the transition from the Letters of a Russian Traveler and stories to the History of the Russian State, turned out to be natural. In 1802-1803, Karamzin began publishing a new journal - Vestnik Evropy, with permanent sections - literary, critical and political. He attracted Derzhavin, Dmitriev and his young followers, V. Zhukovsky, to cooperation (he published his famous elegy " rural cemetery") and V. Izmailov. In critical articles, Karamzin outlined his new aesthetic program, the implementation of which helped literature become nationally distinctive. He pointed out that literature should take care of the moral and patriotic education of fellow citizens. Now, for Karamzin, the artist is not a "liar" who knows how to "it's nice to invent", but the "organ of patriotism", obliged to portray "heroic characters". Karamzin declared the history of the fatherland to be the key to originality, which he wrote about in the article "On cases and characters in Russian history that can be the subject of art." Karamzin- the publicist still believed that "the nobility is the soul and noble image of the whole people". But Karamzin the artist saw how in reality the nobles were far from the ideal he had created. In his new stories, satirical colors appeared ("My Confession"), irony ( unfinished novel"Knight of our time"). The last work is interesting as the first attempt to capture the character of the hero of his time. Of greatest importance was the story "Martha the Posadnitsa", in which, referring to Russian history, Karamzin created a strong character a Russian woman who did not want to submit to the despotism of the Moscow Tsar Ivan III, who destroyed the liberty of Novgorod. Speaking about the fighting Novgorodians, the author wrote: "... the resistance of the Novgorodians is not a revolt of some Jacobins: they fought for their ancient charters and rights." But, true to his political conception, Karamzin considered the destruction of Novgorod Republic and its subordination to the Russian autocracy. At the same time, a woman who is ready to die for freedom arouses admiration in the writer. Based on the experience of N. I. Novikov, D. I. Fonvizin, G. R. Derzhavin, Karamzin did a lot for the formation of the national literary language. In the novels and "Letters of a Russian Traveler" he abandoned the heavy book construction of a sentence with a verb at the end. Using the norms of colloquial speech, Karamzin created a light, elegant phrase that conveys the emotional expressiveness of the word. He discovered new semantic nuances in old, often book-Slavonic words ("need", "development", "image" - in relation to art, etc.), widely used lexical and phraseological calques (from French). New concepts and ideas were designated in new phrases; the writer also created new words ("industry", "public", "general useful", "human", etc.). At the same time, Karamzin fought against the use of obsolete Church Slavonicisms, words and phrases of the old bookishness. The "new style", the creation of which contemporaries credited Karamzin with, was widely used by him in the "middle" genres - stories, letters (private and literary), critical articles, and lyrics. Belinsky, noting the merits of Karamzin, wrote that he "...transformed the Russian language, removing it from the stilts of Latin construction and heavy Slavicism and bringing it closer to live, natural, colloquial Russian speech." In political articles written in the first two decades of the 19th century, Karamzin made recommendations to the government and promoted the idea of ​​an all-class education, although not the same for different classes. The program of the reign of Alexander I was outlined by him in his work "Historical eulogy to Catherine II" (1802), in which, relying on Montesquieu's book "The Spirit of the Laws", he insisted on implementing the policy of enlightened absolutism. Trying to influence the tsar, Karamzin gave him his "Note on Ancient and New Russia" (1811), which was not published during the life of the writer. Repeating the idea that "autocracy is the palladium of Russia" (Palladium - protection.), That serfdom should be preserved at the present time, he sharply criticized the reign of Alexander I, declaring that "Russia is filled with discontent", that the reform of Speransky's ministries is nothing did not give that the government handed over power to the governors - "fools" or "robbers". Alexander I was annoyed by the "Note". In 1819, Karamzin filed a new note - "The Opinion of a Russian Citizen", which caused even greater indignation of the tsar. However, Karamzin did not abandon his faith in the saving power of the autocracy, and therefore he condemned the Decembrist uprising of 1825. Objectively, the political position of Karamzin in the conditions of the struggle against the autocracy begun by the Decembrists was of a reactionary nature. But the achievements of Karamzin the artist, his devotion to literature, personal honesty and civic courage attracted leading figures of the era to the writer's house - he was visited by the Decembrists N. I. Turgenev, N. M. Muravyov, the young Pushkin. Since 1804, Karamzin devoted himself entirely to the enormous work - the creation of a multi-volume History of the Russian State. In 1818, the first eight volumes of the History were published. The Decembrists opposed the monarchist concept of Karamzin. In 1821, the 9th volume, dedicated to the reign of Ivan the Terrible, was published, in 1824, the tenth and eleventh volumes, which told about Fyodor Ivanovich and Boris Godunov. The death of Karamzin in 1826 interrupted work on the twelfth volume of the History. While maintaining his ideological positions, the historian did not remain deaf to the social events that preceded the Decembrist uprising, and changed the emphasis in recent volumes"History" - in the center of attention were the autocrats, who took the path of despotism. The ninth volume, which sharply condemned the tyranny of Ivan the Terrible, was a particularly great success. K. Ryleev used his material in his "Duma". Of great importance for the creation of the tragedy "Boris Godunov" by Pushkin was the tenth volume of "History". Emphasizing the great importance of "History", Pushkin wrote that "ancient Russia seemed to be found by Karamzin, like America by Colomb." Karamzin in his "History" discovered the vast artistic world of ancient chronicles. The writer cut a window into the past, he really, like Columbus, found ancient Russia, linking the past with the present. The past, removed from the present for many centuries, appeared not as antiquity painted with fiction, but as a real world, many secrets of which were revealed as truths that helped not only to understand the fatherland, but also served modernity. The concept of Russian national self-consciousness was filled with concrete content. Despite the unusual nature of the genre, "History of the Russian State" is a major work of Russian literature, the highest artistic achievement of Karamzin, his main book. Based on historical material, she taught to understand, see and deeply appreciate poetry. real life. The heroes of Karamzin were the motherland, the nation, its proud fate, full of glory and great trials, the moral world of the Russian people. Karamzin enthusiastically glorified the Russian, "taught the Russians to respect their own". The political convictions of the writer determined his focus on depicting the life of princes, kings, and the state. But the study of truth with increasing force riveted his attention to the people. When describing some eras under the pen of Karamzin, ordinary people became the main character. That is why he pays special attention to such events as "the uprising of the Russians at the Donskoy, the fall of Novgorod, the capture of Kazan, the triumph of popular virtues during the interregnum." Having absorbed the experience of the chronicles, "History" armed the new Russian literature with important knowledge of the past, helping it to rely on national traditions. At the first stage, Pushkin and Gogol, in their address to the history of the fatherland, showed how enormous and important Karamzin's contribution was. Karamzin the writer was a discoverer of the new. In his stories, he revealed the life of the heart of his contemporary, the rich world of his moral life. Having created the "Letters of a Russian Traveler", he opened to the Russian people a vast world of intense social, political and spiritual life of the peoples of Western Europe at a time when the foundations of feudal society were shaken by the French Revolution. Karamzin enlightened and educated his readers, taught to appreciate the achievements of the human mind, the culture of people of different nations, to understand the life and customs of other peoples and to love their homeland; forced, following the Russian Traveler, to think about the most important problems of human life, peoples and beloved Russia ... The reader, closing the book, once again re-reads with excitement the last letter of the Russian Traveler: "Coast! Fatherland! I bless you! I'm in Russia! .. I stop everyone , I ask, solely in order to speak Russian and hear Russian people.

Said at Moscow University on December 1, 1866, on the centenary of the birth of Karamzin

The first centennial anniversary of our great prose writer has its own special significance. This celebration cannot be only a remembrance of an important literary work, which is the basis of the Russian nationality; because this matter is not a departed antiquity, generally dear to the national feeling, but one of the essential elements of modern Russian enlightenment, which has not yet ceased to exert its life-giving force in each of us gathered here. Older generations still feel all the charming freshness of the direct action of this harmony of thoughts and sounds, with which Karamzin captivated his compatriots in their memory; younger generations have learned and are still learning to think and express their thoughts on the basis of his writings, on which both Russian syntax and Russian stylistics are still based: so - if I thought to present Karamzin's merits to you in this regard, then I would have to do a list of paragraphs of the textbook indicating how each of them is subject to the influence of Karamzin.

But I find it inappropriate to take away from your attention the living image of the one whose memory we celebrate. A biography of Karamzin with detailed excerpts from his writings would best satisfy the general desire, but this subject cannot be contained within the scope of my present reading. Limiting myself to a few, I choose only a year and a half from Karamzin's life - a significant time of transition from youth to adulthood, when the moral and literary physiognomy of the writer was determined, namely 1789 - 1790, described by him in "Letters of a Russian Traveler".

Fearing to belittle the merits of the author now honored, I hesitate to name these Letters the best of his own literary works, however, it seems, without hesitation, I can assert that, after the "History of the Russian State", they, more than his other works, had their effect on the education of the Russian public, they still have, making up one of the best decorations of any anthology Russian literature.

With his letters from abroad, Karamzin for the first time introduced into our literature the most detailed information about European civilization, which was all the more instructive because it related to the last years of the last century, when the domination French direction it began to yield to new ideas that continued to develop in the first half of the current century; so that the “Letters of a Russian Traveler” even during the period of Pushkin’s activity did not lose their modern significance, they still have part of it now, because for the first time many concepts and convictions were expressed in them, which have now become the property of every educated person.

The extraordinary civilizing power of these letters, in addition to the high talent and extensive information of the author, depended a lot on the very form of this kind of writing. Instead of systematic treatises on history and statistics Western nations, about their literature, art and science, the sympathetic personality of a Russian person constantly appears before readers, highly educated, as far as it was possible at the end of the last century, and highly impressionable and gifted, who matures with every step on his path, tirelessly learns from books , and from conversations with celebrities of that time, and as he progresses, he passes on the fruits of his development to his few friends, whose circle was to expand to the entire reading Russian public, as soon as they were published in the light of the "Letters of a Russian Traveler"; and their numerous readers in all parts of our fatherland were insensitively brought up in the ideas of European civilization, as if they themselves matured along with the maturation of the young Russian traveler, learning to look at education through his eyes, to feel his noble feelings, to dream of his beautiful dreams.

If Russian literature, since the time of Peter the Great, completing the work of transformation, had as its task to bring to us the fruits of Western enlightenment, then Karamzin brilliantly fulfilled his purpose. He brought up a man in himself, so that later, with full consciousness, he would reveal a Russian patriot in himself. Love for humanity was for him the basis of a reasonable love for the motherland, and Western enlightenment was dear to him because he felt in himself the strength to establish it in his own fatherland.

Striving to study in the West for the good of his fatherland, he followed the path laid down by Peter the Great and Lomonosov, and, in turn, gave himself a model for the newest generations, leaving them such a testament from his experience: "Nowhere ways of teaching not brought to such perfection as it is now in Germany: and whom Platner, whom Heine does not force to fall in love with science, he, of course, no longer has any ability in himself.

Representatives of a nation always have something typical, exemplary in themselves: as an ideal, they dominate the minds of their compatriots, directing their thoughts and actions.

Considering my task - to renew in your imagination, mm. years, the memory of Karamzin from his travel notes, I will keep as close as possible to the data reported about myself by him, and I will limit my work only to bringing these data into a few groups, remaining in full confidence that the words of Karamzin I cite will be the best adornment of the reading appointed for the solemn remembrance of him.

First of all, what strikes in the Letters of a Russian Traveler is the many-sided and thorough education that Russia could give him at the end of the last century and in which he found sufficient preparation not only to conduct a useful conversation with such European celebrities as Wieland, Herder, Lavater , Kant, Bonnet, but also to inspire them with respect for him.

In the same letters from abroad, Karamzin gives many details about the years of his early studies, details that his biographers used more than once.

The name of Paris became known to Karamzin almost along with his own name: he read so much about this city in novels, heard so much from travelers; from novels and newspaper articles, even in his early youth, he admired the English and imagined England the most pleasant land for his heart. Seeing Paris and London has always been his dream, and once he himself was going to write a novel and in his imagination travel around the very lands to which he later went. Then childhood dreams were replaced by a fundamental desire: he wanted to spend his youth in Leipzig: his thoughts rushed there, at the university there he wanted to collect what was necessary for the search for that truth, about which - in his own words - his heart yearned from his very childhood.

Sharing the tastes of his contemporaries, he was briefly acquainted with French writers. XVIII century and worshiped Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but at the same time from an early age he was accustomed to respect both German and English literature: so that when in foreign lands he happened to appear before famous personalities of that time and see famous objects, he was not only not amazed novelty, but as long known and loved, he combined what he saw and heard with his memories. In London, he examines paintings with plots from Shakespeare's dramas and, already knowing Shakespeare firmly, he almost does not need to cope with the description in the catalog, and, looking at the paintings, guesses the content. In Lausanne, in one garden, he sees an inscription taken from Addison's ode, and at the same time he remembers how he once spent a whole summer night translating that very ode and how the rising sun then illuminated him while doing such work. "This morning," adds the young traveler, "was one of the best of my life." In Leipzig, he met the well-known writer Weisse, whose articles from "Children's Friend" he has translated before. In Zurich, he seeks out Archdeacon Tobler, whose name he knew well from the translation of Thomson's "The Seasons" published by Gesner. In the same city, he visits Lavater, with whom he had been in correspondence back in Moscow, and who receives him as an old friend. In Paris, his French theater does not surprise him at all, because, as he put it on this subject: “I still have not changed my opinion about the French Melpomene: she is noble, majestic, beautiful, but she will never touch, will not shake my heart as muse of Shakespeare and some (though few) Germans.

The very plan of a young Russian traveler in all cities of Europe to personally get acquainted with famous writers of that time was as much the result of his extensive education as it was the verification of it, a strict test. "Your writings made me love you," he says to Wieland in Weimar, "and aroused in me the desire to know the author personally." “You see in front of you such a person,” he introduced himself in Geneva to Bonnet, the author of Palingenesia, “who read your writings with great pleasure and benefit and who loves and honors you heartily.” And everywhere the young Russian traveler was warmly welcomed, everywhere he was welcomed not only as an enlightened person, but also as a worthy representative of his compatriots. “I am Russian,” he said to Barthelemy at the Paris Academy of Inscriptions, “I read Anacharsis; I know how to admire the works of great, immortal talents. So, although in awkward words, accept the sacrifice of my deep respect. hand, with a gentle look warned me of his goodwill and finally answered: "I am glad to meet you, I love the north, and the hero I have chosen is not a stranger to you." I would like to have some resemblance to him. I am in the academy: Plato before me, but my name is not as well known as the name of Anacharsis." "You are young, traveling and, of course, in order to decorate your mind with knowledge, similarities are enough."

Interested in Russia and its literature, Lavater suggested to Karamzin that he issue in Russian an extract from his writings. “When you return to Moscow,” he said to Karamzin, “I will send you a handwritten original by mail,” and when our traveler left Zurich, the author of Physionomics provided him with eleven letters of recommendation in different cities Switzerland and assured him of the immutability of his friendly disposition towards him. In Geneva, Karamzin announced his desire to Bonnet to also translate his "Contemplation of nature and Palingenesis", and in a letter from him I received the following answer: "The author will be very grateful to you for introducing his works to such a nation that he respects," and when after that Karamzin came to him: "You decided to translate "Contemplation of nature",- he said. - Start translating it in the eyes of the author, and on the table on which it was composed. Here is a book, paper, ink, a pen. "Even Wieland himself, who at first received Karamzin coldly and arrogantly, then became so close to him that at parting he asked him to at least occasionally write letters to him:" I will always answer you wherever you are". In Koenigsberg, Karamzin talks with the great Kant about the future life and is surprised at the philosopher's extensive historical and geographical knowledge; in Leipzig, to study aesthetics, he enters into personal relations with Professor Platner; in Weimar, he talks with Herder about ancient literature and art, and about Goethe; in Lyon he makes friends with Mattison, a well-known German poet of that time.

The Russian traveler went to the west with a definite goal - to complete his education in the so-called graceful the sciences to which, by his own admission in Leipzig to Professor Platner, he devotes himself; that is, from the point of view of literature and art, Karamzin was interested in European civilization in general.

No matter how wide the circle literary education Karamzin, he nevertheless concentrated on France. At that time, Batteux and La Harpe were mentors in literature for everyone; Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau still dominated the minds, although not unconditionally. The Russian traveler heard already unfavorable reviews of the French classics in Paris itself, heard how the philosopher Bonnet, beloved by him, called Jean-Jacques only a rhetorician, and his philosophy a castle in the air; and yet the power of time and habit is so great that Voltaire and Rousseau were the chief guides of his convictions.

With the reverent attention of a learned archaeologist visiting the Roman ruins, the Russian traveler visited and explored the places where these two famous French writers lived and from where they taught the whole world with their creations.

Not carried away by the extremes in the teachings of Voltaire, Karamzin does justice to him in that "he (Karamzin's words) spread this mutual tolerance in the faiths, which has become the character of our times, and most confounded the vile false faith," which our traveler sees in Catholic monasteries, calling their dwelling place of fanaticism, filled with horrors, founded by founders who knew poorly the morality of man, educated for action; mocks Catholic relics and icons of the Mother of God, depicting portraits of famous enchantresses. According to these views, he generally does not like the Middle Ages and the Gothic style, although he recognizes courage in him, he sees in him the poverty of the human mind; in the bas-reliefs of the Strasbourg Cathedral, he notices only the strange and funny, and recognizes the thought and work of the bas-reliefs of the Dagobert tomb with images of the famous legend about the struggle of St. Dionysius with the devils for the soul of Dagobert worthy of barbaric times, which he considers the Middle Ages. With the same refined taste of an 18th-century Frenchman, he treats ancient literature. Mysteries and folk dramas for him - stupid plays; Chaucer - wrote obscene tales; Rabelais is the author of novels "filled with witty ideas, nasty descriptions, dark allegories and absurdities"; even Erasmov "Praise of Stupidity" according to Karamzin - tomfoolery despite some wit, the book is rather boring for those "who have already read the works of Voltaire and Wieland of the eighth to ten centuries."

And at the same time, Karamzin found it quite agreeable with his theory of taste to admire the cold allegorical images of Nature and Poetry, which shed tears on Gesner's grave urn, or Immortality, Courage and Wisdom on the Tyuren monument, and recognized Lebrun's Magdalene as a miracle of art, because in her form the artist depicted the Duchess of Lavaliere. Such was the charm of this extremely conditional, but seductive luxury of pampered art for the eyes, that it was then most convenient to translate their feelings into the language of ancient mythology. In the Boulogne villa of Count d'Artois, love itself smiled at Karamzin in the paintings, and allegorical delights dreamed in the alcoves; on the ruins of knightly castles, the goddess of melancholy was imagined to him sitting, and in a silent grove, not jokingly, he called out to the ancient Sylvanus.

However, as a person of a new direction, the Russian traveler was no longer completely content with false classicism, he preferred antique sculpture French and with Pausanias in hand, he dared to find flaws in the works of Pigalle. He already knew, and from conversations with Herder, he was convinced that the Germans understood classical antiquity better than other peoples: “and therefore neither the French nor the British have such good translations from Greek, with which the Germans have now enriched their literature (these are the words of Karamzin). Homer they have Homer: the same unartificial noble simplicity in language, which was the soul of ancient times, when princesses walked on water and kings knew the number of their sheep.

Karamzin's release from French influence is even more noticeable in his judgments about dramatic poetry, which he owed to the study of Shakespeare and German writers. By the end of the last century, the great British playwright was appreciated, his works were played at theaters in England, Germany, and even, in bad alterations, in France, in London the Shakespeare Gallery, composed of pictures, the plots of which are taken from Shakespeare's dramas. In whatever city of Germany Karamzin visited, everywhere he could see works of the new German drama on the stage, so different from classical French. In Berlin, they played the drama of Kotzebue with him "Hatred of People and Remorse" and Schiller's tragedy "Don Carlos". I will not cite Karamzin's enthusiastic praises of Shakespeare, so well known and now fully justified; but in order to characterize the delicate aesthetic taste of our traveler, I cannot pass over the following review of him: “Reading Shakespeare, reading the best German dramas, I vividly imagine how an actor should play and how to say what, but when reading French tragedies I can rarely imagine how it is good for an actor to play in them, or in a way that touches me."

Karamzin's views, opposite to the false classicism of the 18th century and more in tune with the taste of our time, were still one-sided in character, being brought into one system with the then dominant theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau about the unlimited rights of nature over man. Every civilization, and therefore ancient civilization, must yield to these almighty rights: and Karamzin, in characterizing the works of Raphael, Giulio Romano, Rubens and other painters, giving preference to those who followed nature more than the antiquities, not only speaks the truth in general, but and, in particular, as a man of his time, reconciles his taste with the theory of Rousseau.

The same theory justified in painting the then dominant landscape, and in literature - descriptive, or, as Karamzin calls it, picturesque poetry, whose fatherland he considers England: "The French and Germans," he says, "adopted this kind from the English, who know how to notice the smallest features in nature. To this day, nothing can compare with Thomson's "Seasons": they can be called a mirror of nature. "This poetry, explained by the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, gave our young traveler an inexhaustible source of sentimental delight when contemplating the beauties of nature. That is why he loved Switzerland so much, in which, in his words, "everything, everything can be forgotten, everything except God and nature. " Art itself seemed to him an insignificant toy in front of the phenomena of nature: "What do all our vaults mean in front of the vault of heaven? he exclaims, stopping under the dome of St. Paul in London. - How much mind and work is needed to perform such an unimportant action? Is not art the most shameless ape of nature when it wants to compete with it in greatness?

According to Karamzin's theory, man is created to enjoy and be happy. The source of happiness is nature, which gives everything created along with being and enjoy it. Family and social unions are dear and dear to us because they are based on nature. Death itself, as a natural phenomenon, is beautiful, and the horror of death is the result of our deviation from the ways of nature.

By their effect on the happiness of man, the arts complement nature. Everything beautiful pleases, in whatever form it may be. In the moral world, virtue is beautiful: "One glance at the good is happiness for those in whom the feeling of good has not become hardened." Religion leads people to goodness and makes them better. Descartes is great because "with his morality he exalts the rank of man, convincingly proving the existence of the Creator, the pure incorporeality of the soul, the holiness of virtue." The young Russian traveler strengthened himself in these truths, talking with Kant, Herder, Lavater, Bonnet, found evidence in his own heart and in the joys brought by nature and art, and finally enjoyed no small pleasure in life when, "leaning on the monument of the unforgettable Jean "Jacques, I saw the setting sun and thought about immortality."

Mm. You, no doubt, expect me to touch on one major feature in the description of the Russian traveler, which, like a life-giving ray, illuminates with a welcoming light all his travel impressions, all his thoughts, hopes and dreams. This is his most ardent love for motherland, the thought never leaves him. If he talks with Wieland about literature, he will not fail to say that some of his most important works have also been translated into Russian. Whether he is having fun with the Leipzig professors over a bottle of wine, he informs them that ten songs of Klopstock's Messiah have been translated into Russian, and in order to acquaint them with the harmony of our language, he reads them Russian verses. He listens to the melodies of Swiss songs and looks for similarities in them with our folk songs, "so touching for him." In London, he studies English and comes to the conviction of the superiority of the Russian language over him: “Let there be honor and glory to our language,” he exclaims, “which in its native wealth, almost without any foreign admixture, flows like a proud, majestic river - makes noise, thunders - and suddenly, if necessary, softens, murmurs in a gentle stream and sweetly flows into the soul, forming all the measures that consist only in the fall and rise of the human voice.

If the Russian traveler has always appeared to foreigners as the most zealous, eloquent and clever lawyer for Russia, it is precisely because he was sincerely convinced of its merits. In many ways, he gave her preference even over England itself, whose welfare and organization he admired so much, and incomparably higher Louis XIV put Peter the Great, whom, he said, "I revere as a great man, as a hero, as a benefactor of mankind, as my own benefactor." In the transformations of Peter, he saw a reasonable reconciliation of love for the motherland with love for all civilized mankind.

The future author of the "History of the Russian State" visited Western Europe when a huge upheaval was beginning in France, which was to shake the whole of Europe. Karamzin was destined to live for three months in Paris, during the fateful period between the storming of the Bastille and the execution of the French king.

Was the young Russian traveler prepared enough to comprehend the new order of things that was opening before his eyes? Did he find moral support in himself to be guided by firm convictions when everything around him loosened and collapsed to receive the new kind? Finally, to what extent did his historical view form direct observation of one of the most important events in modern history?

Karamzin was brought up in the ideas of the 18th century, which greatly contributed to the French Revolution.

The rights of mankind, based on the laws of nature, and not on artificial conditions, freedom of thought and conscience, and free institutions - these are the dreams that the young traveler took with him from Russia and which in his imagination took the form of reality when he found himself in the country republican: “So, I’m already in Switzerland,” he wrote from Basel, “in a country of picturesque nature, in a land of freedom and prosperity! It seems that the local air has something enlivening in itself: my breathing has become easier and freer, my camp has straightened, my head rises up by itself, and I proudly think of my humanity.

But this reality very soon turned out to be imaginary. Karamzin did not like the Republic of Basel in everything, but as for the Republic of Geneva, he finally saw in it nothing more than wonderful toy.

The ideal of free institutions remained an ideal; the young dreamer did not stop believing in him, but as a bright goal he pushed it far away when he saw face to face an unworthy means to achieve it, falling like a man taken by surprise into the very confusion of a revolution, through the heavy atmosphere of which in a thousand dirty and senseless accidents not could he see the light in the near future nothing consoling.

By the very organization of his tender soul, he did not tolerate anything violent, harsh, painful. He could not indifferently hear the complaints of poverty, and physical suffering in the hospital it struck him so much that for a long time afterwards the moan of the sick resounded in his ears; he considered suicide a terrible violation of the laws of nature; in the name of humanity, he was ready to destroy prisons, and in the war itself, even in victory, he saw only a cruel necessity. Could he otherwise than with disgust relate to the terrible scenes of which he was an eyewitness in France?

That is why his thoughts were so dull and gloomy when, heading from Lyon to Paris, he glances at the fruitful fields along the banks of the Seine, dreaming of their primitive savagery and fearing that the former barbarism would not once again settle on them: " One thing consoles me,” he adds, “that with the fall of nations the whole human race will not fall: some give way to others.”

That is, in the boundless horizon of historical contemplation, in the eyes of the future Russian historian, the French Revolution was reduced to the miserable dimensions of an accident, which has more destructive power than constructive.

It is in this very sense that he refers to the events of that time - in a letter from London: “Here (i.e. in England) there was more than one French revolution. How many virtuous patriots, ministers, royal favorites laid their heads on the scaffold! What frenzy in the hearts! What a frenzy of minds! Who will love the English, reading their history!

As an educated man, he does justice to the French monarchy, which has done so much for education, and fears its approaching fall. As a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he loves humanity at all levels of society, but in street bullies, senseless and inhuman, he does not dare to see representatives of the French nation. “Do not think (however,” he wrote from Paris, “that the whole nation is participating in the tragedy that is now being played in France. Hardly a hundredth part is acting; all the others are watching, crying or laughing, clapping their hands or booing, as in theater. Those who have nothing to lose are bold as ravenous wolves; those who can lose everything are timid as hares; some want to take everything, others want to save something. A defensive war against an insolent enemy is rarely happy. The story is not over ; but to this day, the French nobility and clergy seem to be thin defenders of the throne.

Finding support in the conviction that "every civil society, established for centuries, is a shrine for good citizens, that in the most imperfect one should be surprised at the wonderful harmony, improvement, order, and that Utopia(or the kingdom of happiness) can only be achieved by the gradual action of time, through the slow but sure, safe successes of enlightenment, and not by disastrous, violent upheavals, "the young Russian traveler in Paris itself, not embarrassed by the outbreaks of the revolution, continued to study and became all the more convinced What science is sacred when I sadly saw how crazy dreamers exchanged the peaceful silence of the study room for a scaffold.

That is why, leaving Paris, he sends him his farewell greeting: “I left you, my dear Paris, I left you with regret and gratitude! like a peaceful shepherd looks down from the mountain on the stormy sea."

This brief description I can’t conclude anything more decently than with the words of a Russian traveler from his last letter: “I am now re-reading some of my letters: here is the mirror of my soul, for eighteen months! It will still be pleasant for me in 20 years... I'll look in and see what I was like, how I thought and dreamed... Why should I know? Maybe others will find something pleasant in my sketches".

History, mm. years, proved that "Letters of a Russian Traveler" did not lose their significance even after 70 years, and posterity found in them not only pleasant, but also a lot of useful things.

Fedor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818-1897) Russian philologist, linguist, folklorist, literary critic, art historian, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1860).

The central work of Karamzin, “Letters of a Russian Traveler,” was also a new and largely individual construction, the only large-scale thing written by him before the “History”. Travel notes were one of the most common genres of sentimentalist literature throughout Europe. Stern's brilliant book A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) created a success for this genre. And in Russia, the two most significant works of the period of sentimentalism - Radishchev's book and Karamzin's Letters - belong to this genre. The main setting of all sentimental travels is to show society and nature through the prism of the personal experiences of the author-traveler.

But within the limits of this genre it is possible to indicate varieties that are largely dissimilar to each other. On the one hand, this is, for example, Stern's "Sentimental Journey", in which the material of observations and descriptions is absorbed by lyrics, self-disclosure of the psychology of the hero-author. The idealistic indifference and indifference to the outside world of the extreme individualist-esthete defines Stern's deliberately arrogant position. On the other hand, travelers such as Dupati (“Letters on Italy”, 1785) are passionate about the opportunity to combine into one book, thanks to a convenient compositional form, both abundant factual informative material and advanced ideological propaganda, of course, in the refraction of sentimental individualism. In sentimental travels, the contradictory elements of bourgeois individualism of the 18th century fought, the objective world came into conflict with a closed personality, and the more militant worldview was characteristic of the author of the book and his entourage, the more the objective principle won. In this sense, both the efficiency and the ideological sharpness of the French type of sentimental journey, which was created on the outskirts of the great bourgeois revolution, are characteristic. Radishchev's "Journey" adjoins the tradition of the French, and not of Stern; but it is completely independent. It does not provide almost any informative, educational material (in geography, history, etc.), but is entirely built on "external" material. The center of gravity of this material is politics, social relations, ideas.

Karamzin's "Letters" differ significantly from the genre type of "Journey" by Radishchev, differing from Stern's book as well. The subjective principle is characteristic to a large extent of Karamzin's book, but it does not absorb all the material of the book. Karamzin reports in his "Letters" a huge amount of specific information about culture, life, art, people of the West. The information task is brought to the fore in his book. Stern's type of travel could be written from the comfort of one's room. On the contrary, Letters from a Russian Traveler include many genuine observations and much book material. These are not at all the letters that Karamzin occasionally wrote to his friends in Moscow during his stay in the West. V.V. Sipovsky, in the study cited above, proved this with complete clarity; he proved that "Letters" is a book written in large part already in Moscow on the basis of notes made by Karamzin abroad, and on the basis of many book sources he used. Karamzin not only became thoroughly acquainted with the artistic, political, philosophical, historical literature the West, aiming to acquaint Russian readers with the West; he specially studied the vast literature about the places where he was, and drew a lot of information and observations from this literature in his book.

Thus, Karamzin did a great deal of scientific work in collecting materials that supplemented his personal observations for the Letters. This factuality, scientific character distinguishes his book from a number of other sentimental travels, foreign and Russian. "Letters of a Russian Traveler" was for the Russian reader a whole encyclopedia of Western life and culture. Karamzin tells in detail in his book about the political life of Western states, for example, about the English parliament, about the jury in England, about English prisons, he also shows the social life of Germany, Switzerland, France, England; he talks about Western science and scientists, about modern trends in philosophical and social thought in general.

V. V. Sipovsky writes:

“In Switzerland, he approaches local residents by going to the local "circles" for parties, taking an ardent part in local interests and entertainment. In Paris, he hurries to get acquainted with the “salons”, which were already dying out at that time, but at the same time he is also interested in the tavern; in England, he is a guest in the family of a wealthy Englishman and also carefully looks at social life. He studies the life of Europe in theaters, in palaces, at universities, at country festivities, in monasteries, on a noisy street, in a scientist’s study and in a quiet family environment ... Salon Parisian ladies, witty abbots, street screamers, poets, artists, scientists, Prussian officers, English merchants, German students - all this motley, noisy crowd attracts Karamzin's attention and from all this plentiful field he gathers a rich harvest, not getting lost from the abundance of material, finding in everything essential, characteristic ... Sometimes small features do not escape his attention , insignificant, but for some reason attracted his attention.

The economic life of the West is also of interest to him: the financial situation of the peasants, the economic prosperity or poverty of the population - all this awakens his thoughts, calls for considerations, comparisons, conclusions ... He briefly glances at the ethnographic features of European nationalities. Their typical features, customs and mores, costumes - all this is sometimes noted by Karamzin on the pages of his notebook ... Cities, large and small, through which his path lay - all attracted his attention. He studies these cities both from books and through direct impressions. Karamzin also treated the past of Western Europe with great attention and love. He himself declared in his Letters that he loves to look at the "remains of antiquities", "signs of past centuries", loves "to examine the monuments of glorious people and imagine their deeds".

Karamzin devotes much space to descriptions of nature. Everywhere he went, he tried to get acquainted with outstanding cultural figures, writers, and in his Letters he tells in detail about his conversations with them, gives their living portraits, reports on their writings.

Karamzin gives descriptions of art monuments, museums, statues, libraries, etc. And until now, his book is a precious collection of information about Europe at the end of the 18th century.

Thus, "Letters" is not only a "sentimental" journey. The educational and even educational role of this book was extremely great. After reading it, every Russian person got acquainted with the main phenomena of Western culture, became related to them. This was also due to the fact that Karamzin himself wrote about the West not at all as a provincial, not as a writer for whom the West is exotic and new. Karamzin completely overcame in his "Letters" cultural separatism, which was not alien to some noble figures of his time. He came to Europe as a European, for whom all the great achievements of the peoples of the West are not "alien, but his own, for whom his own Russian culture is inextricably linked with the heritage of the West. At the same time, he was fully oriented not in any one Western national culture, but in all together. He knows well what he needs to take from Switzerland and what from England. He was a real messenger of Russian culture in the West, and he showed that Russian culture is high enough to stand next to the Western one, moreover, that it is merged with it. No wonder Karamzin's works were widely known in the West. The Letters of a Russian Traveler were published twice in German (1800 and 1804), in French (in part in 1815, in full only in 1866), in English (1803), in Polish (1802), in Dutch (1804). ). Whole line stories of Karamzin and his essays was translated and appeared in print in many languages ​​in 1797-1826. The History of the Russian State was published in French, German, English, Greek, and Polish.

Karamzin's "Europeanism" is one of his great merits. The deep organic union in his consciousness of the Russian principle with the pan-European one prepared the internationalism of Pushkin's purely Russian culture.

All extensive informational material is united in the "Letters of a Russian Traveler" by the personality of the author himself - the hero of the book. Everything that was said above about the subjectivism of Karamzin's stories applies to his Letters as well. All objective material, huge and varied, Karamzin shows not by itself, but as his personal experience. Karamzin's attitude to the problem of personality, character, to the display of reality, nature, life in "Letters" is fundamentally the same as in "Julia" or "Sierra Morena". And here is the difference between his "Letters" and Radishchev's "Journey". In Radishchev, objective reality subdues personality; Karamzin is the opposite. At Radishchev social theme- home. For Karamzin, the main thing is individuality, "I", aesthetic and intellectual culture. Radishchev studies reality in order to change it, Karamzin - in order to know it, to taste the wonderful fruits of culture, to enjoy them for themselves. The revolutionary democrat Radishchev could not agree with Karamzin on the essence of the artistic method, although the unity of the era and the course of style brought them closer in certain features of this style. It is no coincidence that Karamzin describes the West in his book, Radishchev describes his homeland. Karamzin is afraid to talk about the most important, the most terrible. Radishchev dares everything, the truth to the end.

The purpose of the lesson: to acquaint students with the concepts of travel literature and the traveler, to formulate the basic principles of sentimentalism as a literary movement, to fragmentarily immerse themselves in Karamzin's text “Letters of a Russian Traveler”.

Advance work: students should already have general idea about sentimentalism, the creative personality of Karamzin, read “Poor Liza”.

fragments of "Letters of a Russian Traveler" (see appendix),

book and illustrative exhibition (Own universe of a citizen of the universe. N.M. Karamzin).

X one lesson

1. At the beginning of the lesson, we invite students to consider reproductions of paintings Jean Baptiste Chardin and Jean Baptiste Greza. Pay attention to who are the main "models" of artists. In what situations does J.B. Chardin portray his characters? What objects surround them? What is their social status? How do you represent their range of interests? What can be said about the people depicted by J. B. Grez? What do their faces express? What are the natures before us?

2. The work of these artists developed in the traditions sentimentalism- trends in literature and art of the late 18th century.

Questions for students. What do you already know about this direction? From what word did the name of the direction come from? What did sentimentalists value above all else in a person?

Teacher additions. Sentimentalism aimed to awaken sensitivity in a person. Sentimentalism turned to the description of man and his feelings. It was the sentimentalists who discovered that a person, compassionate to his neighbor, helping him, sharing his sorrows and sorrows, can experience a sense of satisfaction.

Questions for students. What direction preceded sentimentalism? The cult of what was the basis of this trend?

Teacher additions. The terrible events of the French Revolution, which ended the Age of Enlightenment, made people doubt the primacy of reason in human nature. “Is reason always the king of your feelings?”, - Karamzin asks his readers. Now feeling, and not reason, was proclaimed the basis of the human personality. Sentimentalists believed that by cultivating sensitivity in a person, the ability to respond to someone else's pain, one can defeat evil! Heroes of the works of sentimentalists - simple people with a rich spiritual world. They often shed tears, sigh and gasp, not only women, but also men. And to us, living in the 21st century, such behavior seems a little ridiculous and ridiculous. But in the distant XVIII century, such heroes acquire individuality.

3. We highlight the main features of the poetics of sentimentalism. Can be recorded.

The cult of feelings (all people, regardless of their position in society, are equal in their feelings);

Appeal to inner world person;

Appeal to genres, with the greatest completeness allowing to show the life of the human heart - a diary, travel, letters;

Compassion, sympathy of the hero for everything that surrounds him;

Interest in minor details, their detailed description and reflection on them.

4. Sentimentalism penetrated into Russia in the early 80s of the eighteenth century, thanks to the translations of the novels of Goethe, Richardson, Rousseau. The era of Russian sentimentalism opened Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin"Letters from a Russian Traveler". In the "Letters" we find sensitive appeals to the reader, subjective confessions, idyllic descriptions of nature, praise of a simple, unpretentious life, and abundantly shed tears.

5. Problem questions for students. Have you ever traveled? What does it mean to travel? What does it mean to be a Traveler? What do you pay the most attention to when traveling? And now it's time for us to touch the journey of the sentimental Traveler, committed in the distant eighteenth century.

6. The printed fragments of the “Letters” are distributed to the students, the corresponding slides open on the interactive board.

Teacher additions. The author of the letters informs his readers that these are "live, sincere impressions of a young, inexperienced heart, devoid of caution and legibility ...". Our Traveler cries when he sees Moscow receding, but road difficulties distract him from sad experiences. Narva, Palanga, Riga, Koenigsberg and a meeting with Kant, for whom “everything is simple, except for his metaphysics” and, finally, Berlin.

7. Berlin. Pupils read aloud a fragment, pay attention to sentimental vocabulary.

Questions for students. What can be said about the city? To whom does the author give a significant place in the narrative? Long alley in the menagerie. Why does the author write about her?

8. From Berlin our Traveler heading off V Dresden. First of all, he goes to inspect art gallery. And he describes not only his impressions of the meeting with the paintings of great masters, but also provides biographical information about Raphael, Correggio, Veronese, Poussin, Rubens.

Questions for students. How does the Traveler convey his state of mind through the description of the city? What is the need for a description of Mr. P.'s dinner and a description of the family?

9. From Dresden, our Traveler decides to go to Leipzig. On the way, describing in detail the pictures of nature that open to him from the window of the mail coach. Leipzig amazes with its abundance bookstores, which, in principle, is natural for a city where book fairs are held three times a year.

Questions for students. What interests the Traveler more - the road from Meissen or a conversation with a student? What thoughts does the path to the city bring to our hero? What role do thunder and thunderstorms play in this passage?

10. And now our Traveler is waiting for the "country of freedom and prosperity" - Switzerland. He enjoys walks in the Alpine mountains and lakes, visits memorable places. Talks about education and universities. Moreover, our Traveler is wandering around with a volume of Rousseau's "Eloise". wants to compare his personal impressions of the places in which Rousseau settled his sentimental lovers with literary descriptions.

Questions for students. How does Switzerland greet the Traveler? Climbing the Alpine mountain. What is more in this story - a description of the mountain or your own emotions?

11. After spending a few months in Switzerland, our Traveler sets off To France. The first city is Lyon. The traveler is interested in everything - the theater, ancient ruins, the new tragedy of Andre Chenier ...

However, soon the Traveler leaves in Paris, being impatient before meeting the great city. In Paris, our Traveler seems to have been everywhere - theaters, boulevards, Academies, coffee houses, literary salons and private houses, the Bois de Boulogne and Versailles.

Questions for students. Why is the Traveler so looking forward to meeting Paris? What do the words “I'm in Paris!” mean for the hero?

12. But the time comes to leave Paris and go to London - the goal outlined back in Russia.

Questions for students. So what became the main thing, the main one in Karamzin's descriptions? The answer is obvious. These are not ethnographic and geographical features, but the identity of the Traveler.

1. Karamzin N.M. Letters from a Russian traveler. // Karamzin N.M. Selected works in 2 volumes. - M., L., 1964.
2. Solovyov E. A. A trip abroad. “Letters from a Russian Traveler.”// Karamzin. Pushkin. Gogol. Aksakovs. Dostoevsky. - Chelyabinsk, 1994. S.26-37.
3. Rassadin S.B. Vzryvniki.//Rassadin S.B. Russian literature: from Fonvizin to Brodsky - M., 2001. S.30-36.
4. Gatekeeper of immortality.// Non-standard lessons Russian literature. 10-11 grades. - Rostov-on-Don, 2004. P.8-23.
5. Dushina L.N. Sentimental “poetry of feeling” by N.M. Karamzin. // Dushina L.N. Russian poetry of the 18th century. - Saratov, 2005. S.163-194.
6. Basovskaya E.N. Own universe of a citizen of the universe (N.M. Karamzin). // Basovskaya E.N. Personality - society - the universe in Russian literature. - M.: 1994. - P.396-408.
7. Kuleshov V.I. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. / / Kuleshov V.I. History of Russian criticism of the 18th - early 20th centuries. - P.44-56.
8. Sentimentalism.//Encyclopedic Dictionary of a Young Literary Critic - M., 1998. - P.296-298.

Narration in "Letters of a Russian Traveler":

essay, journalistic, artistic aspects

as a prototype of the novel structure

The central work of Karamzin in the 1790s. - "Letters of a Russian Traveler". The "Letters" were based on a real journey made by Karamzin through the countries of Western Europe (Germany, Switzerland, France and England).

"Letters ..." is an original modification of the genre of travel notes, popular in the sentimentalism of all European literature, combining two types of narration and two genre varieties of travel at the same time. One of the travel samples for Karamzin was "Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy" by L. Stern. Such a journey is made not so much along roads in real geographical space, but along the secret nooks and crannies of a sensitive soul.

On the other hand, "Letters ..." were written not without the influence of an exemplary geographical journey of the 18th century. - "Letters about Italy" by Charles Dupati, which are also repeatedly mentioned on their pages. These two examples of the genre of travel emphasize in Karamzin's "Letters ..." focused on them their philosophical and journalistic aspect and the genre shade of an educational novel.

In Karamzin's work, the universalism of the genre structure of his version of travel notes is clearly outlined. Crossing the traditions of the sensitive, geographical and philosophical-journalistic varieties of the travel genre contributed to the organic synthesis of the emotional, descriptive and rational-analytical aspects of the narrative. The imposition of two forms of narration in the first person - notes about the journey, as it were, doubled the personal nature of the narration.

Both travel notes and the epistolary give an image of reality, passed through the prism of individual perception.

The personality of the hero becomes the central aesthetic category of the text. Determining its plot structure and composition.

Thus, in the "Letters ..." two peculiar nerve knots are revealed. Firstly, this is the structure of the narrative, which develops approximately in the same way as the three-component Radishchev narrative structure. Secondly, these are the features of the purely artistic structure of the text, built in a completely innovative way of subjective-personal centralization of the narrative.

The essay layer of the narrative of "Letters ..." is so diverse and provides so much factual information and details about people, life, art, history, culture, social structure and modern image life of the countries of Western Europe, that in literary criticism there is a tradition of interpreting the main idea and task of the "Letters ..." as informational in the first place.

The category of sensibility, the "inner man," is as much a constant narrative object in the Letters as is the outer world that surrounds the traveller; and this “inner man” is as mobile and changeable as the panorama of objective reality is moving, changing before the eyes of the hero moving in space.

Gradually, the state of inner self-absorption gives way to a lively interest in the variety of infinitely changeable moving pictures of the objective world that surrounds the traveler.

In selecting the facts of reality, Karamzin, the author of "Letters...", was guided primarily by the emotional movement of a sensitive soul, directing the traveler's attention to one or another object. This cause-and-effect relationship between the life of the soul and the plastic real world is especially clearly manifested in the Parisian letters - because France and Paris were originally the main goal and passion of the Russian traveler.

Fundamentally new meaning acquires the composition "Letters ...", deceptively pushing the thought of an overly gullible reader to consider it as the basis of the natural randomness of the successive change of road impressions. The whimsical alternation of different styles, different genres, different topics actually reflects the complex, whimsical life of a sensitive soul in its unknowable laws of changing psychological states.

Such emotional outbursts, dissonantly wedged into an objective plastic description, are a kind of key to the thematic diversity and kaleidoscopicity on which the composition of "Letters ..." is built, apparently not subject to any logic, except for the logic of movement from one geographical point to another, from one impression to another.

Four European countries visited by Karamzin and described in Letters from a Russian Traveler offered the thinker-sociologist two types of government: monarchical (Germany, France) and republican (Switzerland, England), and in one case, Karamzin, who spent three months in Paris, became a witness, observer and eyewitness of the very process of the revolutionary transition from a monarchy to a republic, which in England took place in the historical past, and Germany was to come in the historical future. Thus, both the writer Karamzin and the traveler-narrator of "Letters ..." found themselves in Western Europe at the crossroads of historical eras.

Given the relevance of the journalistic-philosophical aspect of the narrative for the entire text of the "Letters ...", its center of gravity lies on the Parisian letters.

It is no coincidence, of course, that the fact that the name of Radishchev, to the extent that Karamzin could do this after the political process of the writer, is mentioned in the “Letters ...” along with the name of A.M. Kutuzov - a man to whom two of Radishchev's works are dedicated and with whom Karamzin himself was in close friendly relations. The indirect mention of the name becomes a kind of prelude to the development of a sociological concept that rejects social violence as a way to transform even an unjust social order.

It is hard not to see the striking unanimity between Radishchev and Karamzin on the question of the nature and character of collective and individual despotism, in response to which both writers do not make any fundamental difference between the autocratic tyrant-monarch and the collective tyrant - the revolutionary people.

Personal aspect of the story:

the problem of life-building and its implementation

Despite the fact that in "Letters ..." the essay, emotional and journalistic layers of the narrative are not connected by a rigid cause-and-effect relationship, their ability in their entirety to model the process of cognition and spiritual growth still seems undoubted.

What is the ratio of the author-creator of the text and the image of its subject-narrator, is the author, the creator of the text written in the first person, its hero-narrator? The answer to this question will be negative, Karamzin's hero is an individualized image. This individuality is very close to the author's, although it does not completely coincide with the empirically real face of Karamzin. As it has long been established, the Letters of a Russian Traveler, despite all the author’s desire to inspire readers with the conviction that he publishes his genuine travel letters to friends, are by no means Karamzin’s actual messages to his Moscow friends Pleshcheev, A. A. Petrov and I. I. Dmitriev.

However, the desire of the reader and researchers to see in the face of the hero of the "Letters ...", if not an image, then a reflection of Karamzin's personality is not entirely unfounded. The author and the hero have the same name, the European route of the hero is based on the realities of Karamzin's actual route, with the only difference being that, unlike his hero, who once visited Paris, Karamzin, apparently, visited the revolutionary city twice, and the first time - in the midst of the beginning of revolutionary events.

“The main difference between the two travelers lies in their spiritual maturity: although they are the same age, a cute, inquisitive, but rather frivolous young man travels through the pages of the book, with lively but shallow interests. Karamzin himself at that time was already a man who had changed his mind and re-read a lot, showing the most important feature of spiritual maturity - the independence of interests and judgments. And this spiritually mature Karamzin periodically peeks out from under the mask of a literary hero that is not tightly attached to his face.

The hero-traveler is his own abstraction from the real empirical man. artistic image. If Radishchev wanted to show through his hero to all readers of his book the path of self-knowledge and liberation already passed by the author, then Karamzin created his own artistic image and led his individualized hero along his own European route in order to know and create himself.

The analogy of a mirror that promotes self-knowledge and self-identification is no longer life, but a text - a way of life perceived by the author and alienated from his personality in the word, a text that acquires an independent existence like any other object separate from a person.

Double analogy - life-mirror, in which the soul examines and cognizes itself, and the text - the mirror of the soul, preserving its true appearance, likens its extreme positions to each other. Life as a mirror and text as a mirror become interchangeable realities. This makes his contemporaries and descendants see in the literary image of the writer an undeniable portrait of a living, real person.

The main result of this discovery of a fundamentally new type of connection between life and a literary text was that the literary image blocked the appearance of a real person. Practically not a single story from among those created by him during the period of work on the book will now do without a personified subject of the narration - the author, in the first person of whom the Russian reader, convinced that this is the face of Karamzin himself, will be told the stories of poor Lisa, Natalya, the boyar daughter, a mysterious stranger from the island of Bornholm.