The problems of Herzen's novel "Who is to Blame?"

The novel "Who is to Blame?" started by Herzen in 1841 in Novgorod. Its first part was completed in Moscow and appeared in 1845 and 1846 in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. It was published in its entirety as a separate publication in 1847 as a supplement to the Sovremennik magazine.

According to Belinsky, the peculiarity of the novel “Who is to Blame?” - the power of thought. “With Iskander,” writes Belinsky, “his thoughts are always ahead, he knows in advance what he is writing and why.”

The first part of the novel characterizes the main characters and outlines the circumstances of their lives in many ways. This part is primarily epic, presenting a chain of biographies of the main characters. novel character compositional serfdom

The plot of the novel is a complex knot of family, everyday, socio-philosophical and political contradictions. It was from Beltov’s arrival in the city that a sharp struggle of ideas unfolded, moral principles conservative-noble and democratic-raznochinsky camps. The nobles, sensing in Beltov “a protest, some kind of denunciation of their life, some kind of objection to its entire order,” did not choose him anywhere, “they gave him a ride.” Not satisfied with this, they weaved a vile web of dirty gossip about Beltov and Lyubov Alexandrovna.

Starting from the beginning, the development of the novel’s plot takes on increasing emotional and psychological tension. Relations between supporters of the democratic camp are becoming more complicated. The experiences of Beltov and Krutsiferskaya become the center of the image. The culmination of their relationship, as well as the culmination of the novel as a whole, is a declaration of love, and then a farewell date in the park.

The compositional art of the novel is also expressed in the fact that the individual biographies with which it began gradually merge into an indivisible stream of life.

Despite the apparent fragmentation of the narrative, when the story from the author is replaced by letters from the characters, excerpts from the diary, and biographical digressions, Herzen’s novel is strictly consistent. “This story, despite the fact that it will consist of separate chapters and episodes, has such integrity that a torn page spoils everything,” writes Herzen.

The main organizing principle of the novel is not the intrigue, not the plot situation, but the leading idea - the dependence of people on the circumstances that destroy them. All episodes of the novel are subordinate to this idea; it gives them internal semantic and external integrity.

Herzen shows his heroes in development. To do this, he uses their biographies. According to him, it is in the biography, in the history of a person’s life, in the evolution of his behavior, determined by specific circumstances, that his social essence and original individuality are revealed. Guided by his conviction, Herzen builds the novel in the form of a chain of typical biographies, interconnected by life destinies. In some cases, his chapters are called “Biographies of Their Excellencies”, “Biography of Dmitry Yakovlevich”.

The compositional originality of the novel “Who is to Blame?” lies in the consistent arrangement of his characters, in social contrast and gradation. By arousing the reader's interest, Herzen expands the social sound of the novel and enhances the psychological drama. Starting in the estate, the action moves to provincial town, and in episodes from the life of the main characters- to Moscow, St. Petersburg and abroad.

Herzen called history a “ladder of ascension.” First of all, it is the spiritual elevation of the individual above the living conditions of a certain environment. In the novel, a person declares himself only when he is separated from his environment.

The first step of this “ladder” is entered by Krutsifersky, a dreamer and romantic, confident that there is nothing accidental in life. He helps Negrov’s daughter get up, but she rises a step higher and now sees more than he does; Krutsifersky, timid and timid, can no longer take a single step forward. She raises her head and, seeing Beltov there, gives him her hand.

But the fact of the matter is that this meeting did not change anything in their lives, but only increased the severity of reality and exacerbated the feeling of loneliness. Their life was unchanged. Lyuba was the first to feel this; it seemed to her that she and Krutsifersky were lost among the silent expanses.

The novel clearly expresses the author's sympathy for the Russian people. Herzen contrasted the social circles ruling on estates or in bureaucratic institutions with clearly sympathetically portrayed peasants and the democratic intelligentsia. The writer attaches great value to every image of the peasants, even the minor ones. So, under no circumstances did he want to publish his novel if the censorship distorted or discarded the image of Sophie. Herzen managed in his novel to show the implacable hostility of the peasants towards the landowners, as well as their moral superiority over their owners. Lyubonka is especially fascinated by peasant children, in whom she, expressing the views of the author, sees rich inner inclinations: “What glorious faces they have, open and noble!”

In the image of Krutsifersky, Herzen poses the problem of the “little” man. Krutsifersky, the son of a provincial doctor, by the accidental grace of a philanthropist, graduated from Moscow University, wanted to study science, but need, the inability to exist even with private lessons forced him to go to Negrov for conditioning, and then become a teacher at a provincial gymnasium. This is a modest, kind, prudent person, an enthusiastic admirer of everything beautiful, a passive romantic, an idealist. Dmitry Yakovlevich firmly believed in the ideals hovering above the earth, and explained all the phenomena of life with a spiritual, divine principle. In practical life, this is a helpless child, afraid of everything. The meaning of life became his all-consuming love for Lyubonka, family happiness, which he reveled in. And when this happiness began to waver and collapse, he found himself morally crushed, capable only of praying, crying, being jealous and drinking himself to death. The figure of Krutsifersky acquires tragic character, determined by his discord with life, his ideological backwardness, and infantilism.

Doctor Krupov and Lyubonka present new level in revealing the type of commoner. Krupov is a materialist. Despite the inert, muffling all the best impulses provincial life- Semyon Ivanovich retained in himself human principles, a touching love for people, for children, a sense of self-esteem. Defending his independence, he tries to the best of his ability to bring good to people, without considering their ranks, titles and conditions. Incurring the wrath of those in power, disregarding their class prejudices, Krupov goes first of all not to the noble, but to those most in need of treatment. Through Krupov, the author sometimes expresses his own views about the typicality of the Negrov family, about the narrowness human life, given only to family happiness.

Psychologically, the image of Lyubonka appears more complex. Negrov's illegitimate daughter from a serf peasant woman, she early childhood found herself in conditions of undeserved insults and gross insults. Everyone and everything in the house reminded Lyubov Alexandrovna that she was a young lady “by good deed”, “by grace”. Oppressed and even despised for her “servile” origin, she feels lonely and alien. Feeling insulting injustice towards herself every day, she began to hate untruth and everything that oppresses human freedom. Compassion for the peasants, related to her by blood, and the oppression she experienced, aroused in her ardent sympathy for them. Being constantly under the wind of moral adversity, Lyubonka developed firmness in defending her human rights and intransigence to evil in all its forms. And then Beltov appeared, pointing out, in addition to family, the possibility of other happiness. Lyubov Alexandrovna admits that after meeting him she changed and matured: “How many new questions arose in my soul!.. He opened up a new world inside me.” Beltov’s unusually rich, active nature captivated Lyubov Alexandrovna and awakened her dormant potential. Beltov was amazed at her extraordinary talent: “Those results for which I sacrificed half my life,” he tells Krupov, “were simple, self-evident truths for her.” With the image of Lyubonka, Herzen shows a woman’s rights to equality with a man. Lyubov Alexandrovna found in Beltov a person in tune with her in everything, her true happiness was with him. And on the way to this happiness, in addition to moral and legal norms, public opinion, stands Krutsifersky, begging not to leave him, and their son. Lyubov Alexandrovna knows that she will no longer have happiness with Dmitry Yakovlevich. But, submitting to circumstances, pitying the weak, dying Dmitry Yakovlevich, who pulled her out of Negro oppression, preserving her family for her child, out of a sense of duty she remains with Krutsifersky. Gorky said very correctly about her: “This woman remains with her husband - a weak man, so as not to kill him with betrayal.”

The drama of Beltov, the “superfluous” person, is placed by the author in direct dependence on the social system that then dominated in Russia. Researchers very often saw the cause of Beltov’s tragedy in his abstract humanitarian upbringing. But it would be a mistake to understand Beltov’s image only as a moralizing illustration of the fact that education should be practical. The leading pathos of this image lies elsewhere - in the condemnation of the social conditions that destroyed Beltov. But what prevents this “fiery, active nature” from unfolding for the benefit of society? Undoubtedly, the presence of a large family estate, lack of practical skills, work perseverance, lack of a sober view of the surrounding conditions, but most importantly, social circumstances! Those circumstances are terrible, inhumane, in which noble, bright people, ready for any feats for the sake of common happiness, are unnecessary and unnecessary. The condition of such people is hopelessly painful. Their right-wing, indignant protest turns out to be powerless.

But it doesn't stop there social meaning, progressive educational role of Beltov’s image. His relationship with Lyubov Alexandrovna is an energetic protest against the proprietary norms of marriage and family relations. In the relationship between Beltov and Krutsiferskaya, the writer outlined the ideal of such love that spiritually lifts and grows people, revealing all the abilities inherent in them.

Thus, Herzen’s main goal was to show with his own eyes that those he depicted social conditions they strangle the best people, stifle their aspirations, judging them by the unfair but indisputable court of musty, conservative public opinion, entangling them in networks of prejudice. And this determined their tragedy. Favorable decision for everyone goodies The novel can only be ensured by a radical transformation of reality - this is Herzen’s fundamental thought.

The novel “Who is to Blame?”, distinguished by the complexity of its problems, is polysemantic in its genre-species essence. This is a social, everyday, philosophical, journalistic and psychological novel.

Herzen saw his task not in resolving the issue, but in identifying it correctly. Therefore, he chose a protocol epigraph: “And this case, due to the non-discovery of the guilty, should be handed over to the will of God, and the matter, having been considered unresolved, should be handed over to the archives. Protocol".

The ideological and artistic originality of Herzen’s novel “Who is to Blame?”, the problems of the stories “Doctor Krupov” and “The Thieving Magpie”

The writer worked on the novel “Who is to Blame” for six years. The first part of the work appeared in Otechestvennye zapiski in 1845-1846, and both parts of the novel were published as a separate edition as a supplement to Sovremennik in 1847.

In his novel, Herzen touched on many important issues: the problem of family and marriage, the position of women in society, the problem of education, the life of the Russian intelligentsia. He resolves these issues in the light of the ideas of humanism and freedom. Belinsky defined Herzen’s sincere thought in his novel as “the thought of human dignity, which is humiliated by prejudice, ignorance, and humiliated either by man’s injustice to his neighbor, or by his own voluntary distortion of himself.” This sincere thought was anti-serfdom. The pathos of the fight against serfdom as the main evil of Russian life of that time permeates from beginning to end.

The plot of the novel is based on the difficult drama experienced by husband and wife Krutsifersky: the dreamy, deeply focused illegitimate daughter of the landowner Negrov, Lyubonka, and the enthusiastic idealist, son of a doctor, candidate at Moscow University, Negrov’s home teacher, Dmitry Krutsifersky. The second storyline of the novel is connected with the tragic fate of Vladimir Beltov, who occupied a prominent place in the gallery of Russian “superfluous people.” Talking about the tragic situation of a commoner - teacher Dmitry Krutsifersky, his wife Lyubov Alexandrovna, who fell in love young nobleman Beltova, the writer reveals all the confusion and painful confusion that ruined the lives of these people, ruined them. He wants the reader to know who is to blame for the tragic fate heroes of the novel. Taking as the epigraph to the novel the words of some court ruling: “And this case, due to the failure to discover the guilty, should be handed over to the will of God, and the matter, having been considered resolved, should be handed over to the archives,” Herzen, with the entire course of his novel, seems to want to declare: “The culprit has been found, the case must be taken up.” from the archive and re-decide for real.” The autocratic-serf system, the terrible kingdom of dead souls, is to blame.

Beltov is a typical face of his era. A talented, lively and thinking person, he became an intelligent irrelevance in a feudal society. "I'm definitely our hero folk tales... walked along all the crossroads and shouted: “Is there a man alive in the field?” But the living man did not respond... my misfortune... and one in the field is not a warrior... So I left the field,” Beltov says to his Genevan teacher. Following Pushkin and Lermontov, Herzen paints the image of “ extra person", showing the clash of a gifted and intelligent personality with the surrounding backward, but strong in its inertia environment. However, Chernyshevsky, comparing Beltov with Onegin and Pechorin, said that he was completely different from his predecessors, that he had personal interests secondary importance. Dobrolyubov singled out Beltov in the gallery of “superfluous people” as “the most humane among them,” with truly high and noble aspirations.

The novel ends in tragedy. Lyubonka, broken by moral torment, withdraws into her own after Beltov’s departure. inner world to take hidden dreams and love to the grave.

Herzen's novel was new and original not only in its richness of ideas and images, but also in its artistic style. Belinsky, analyzing “Who is to blame?”, compared Herzen with Voltaire. The peculiarity of the style of Herzen's novel lies, first of all, in the complex interweaving of various techniques of artistic writing. The author makes excellent use of satire when we're talking about about Negro, about the vulgarity of the inhabitants of the “uniform” city of NN. Here he continues the Gogol tradition of ridiculing dead souls and gives the theme of denunciation of serfdom a new force, full of revolutionary negation. Gogol's laughter sounded through his tears. Herzen's eyes are dry.

The compositional structure of the novel “Who is to Blame?” is peculiar. Herzen's work is not actually a novel, but a series of biographies, masterfully written and originally linked into one whole. At the same time, these biographies are excellent artistic portraits.

The novel is deeply original. Herzen once said with good reason: “My language.” Behind each of his phrases there is a deep intelligence and knowledge of life. Herzen freely introduced colloquial speech, was not afraid to complicate his style with proverbial expressions of Russian and foreign speech, he abundantly introduced literary quotations, historical images, suddenly evoking entire pictures.

The story “Krupov” is a bright satirical pamphlet, partly reminiscent of Gogol’s ““. The story was written as an excerpt from the autobiography of the old materialist doctor Krupov. Many years of medical practice lead Krupov to the conclusion that human society it hurts with madness. According to the doctor’s observation, in a world of social injustice, in a society where man is a wolf to man, where the power of the rich exists and poverty and lack of culture reign, those recognized as “crazy” “are essentially no more stupid or more damaged than everyone else, but only more original, more focused, more independent.” , more original, even, one might say, more brilliant than those.”

Herzen's satire extends not only to the autocratic-serf system of Russia, but also to bourgeois relations in Europe. Krupov notes in his journal that madness is committed both in the East and in the West (pauperism, etc.).

Cycle works of art Herzen’s work of the 40s ends with the story “The Thieving Magpie,” written in 1846, which appeared in Sovremennik in 1848. The plot of “The Thieving Magpie” is based on M. S. Shchepkin’s story about the sad story of a serf actress from the theater of the depraved tyrant serf owner S. I. Kamensky in Orel. Herzen raised the story of Shchepkin, who appears in the story under the name of a famous artist, to the level of great social generalization.

Both in the novel “Who is to Blame?” and in the story “The Thieving Magpie” Herzen touches on a question very acutely posed in Western European literature George Sand - the question of the rights and status of women. In the story, this issue is illuminated as applied to the tragic fate of a serf woman, a talented actress.

Drawing the unusually rich personality of Aneta, Herzen shows the horror of her slavish dependence on the insignificant “bald celadon” of Prince Skalinsky. Her situation becomes tragic from the moment when Aneta decisively and boldly rejected the prince’s encroachments.

Her suffering is warmed by the author’s emotional attitude towards his heroine. A tragic note is heard in the thoughts of the artist-storyteller: “Poor artist!.. What kind of crazy, what kind of criminal person thrust you into this field without thinking about your fate! Why did I wake you up?.. Your soul would sleep in underdevelopment, and a great talent unknown to you yourself would not torment you; Maybe sometimes an incomprehensible sadness would rise from the bottom of your soul, but it would remain incomprehensible.”

These words emphasize the deep drama of the Russian popular intelligentsia, rising from the darkness of serf life. Only freedom could open a wide path for people's talents. The story “The Thieving Magpie” is imbued with the writer’s boundless faith in the creative powers of his people.

Of all the stories of the 40s, “The Thieving Magpie” stands out for its sharpness and courage in revealing the contradiction between “baptized property” and its owners. Irony, as in early works, serves to expose the hypocrisy of the wealthy serf-owner landowner, “a passionate lover of art.” The stories of the artist and the actress herself are deeply lyrical and emotional. This contributed to awakening in the reader sympathy for the serf actress, whose stunning story reflects the tragedy of the Russian people under the autocratic serfdom. This is exactly how he perceived it when he noted that “Herzen was the first in the 40s to boldly speak out against serfdom in his story “The Thieving Magpie.”

You have read the finished development: The ideological and artistic originality of Herzen’s novel “Who is to Blame?”, the problems of the stories “Doctor Krupov” and “The Thieving Magpie”

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45. Who is to blame? A.I. Herzen. V.G. Belinsky about the novel.

Composition of the novel“Who is to blame?” very original. Only the first chapter of the first part has the actual romantic form of exposition and the beginning of the action - “A retired general and teacher, deciding on the place.” This is followed by: “Biography of Their Excellencies” and “Biography of Dmitry Yakovlevich Krutsifersky”. The chapter “Life and Being” is a chapter from the correct form of narration, but it is followed by “Biography of Vladimir Beltov”.

Herzen wanted to compose a novel from this kind of individual biographies, where “in the footnotes one can say that so-and-so married so-and-so.” “For me, a story is a frame,” said Herzen. He painted mostly portraits; he was most interested in faces and biographies. “A person is a track record in which everything is noted,” writes Herzen, “a passport on which visas remain.”

He saw his task not in resolving the issue, but in identifying it correctly. Therefore, he chose a protocol epigraph: “And this case, due to the non-discovery of the guilty, should be handed over to the will of God, and the case, having been considered unresolved, should be handed over to the archives. Protocol".

But he did not write a protocol, but a novel, in which he explored not “a case, but a law of modern reality.” That is why the question posed in the title of the book resonated with such force in the hearts of his contemporaries. The critic saw the main idea of the novel in the fact that the problem of the century receives from Herzen not a personal, but a general meaning: “It is not we who are to blame, but the lies in whose networks we have been entangled since childhood.”

But Herzen was interested in the problem of moral self-awareness and personality. Among Herzen's heroes there are no villains who would consciously and deliberately do evil to their neighbors. His heroes are children of the century, no better and no worse than others; rather, even better than many, and some of them contain the promise of amazing abilities and opportunities. Even General Negros, the owner of “white slaves”, a serf owner and a despot due to the circumstances of his life, is depicted as a man in whom “life has crushed more than one opportunity.” Herzen's thought was social in essence; he studied the psychology of his time and saw a direct connection between a person's character and his environment.

Herzen called history a “ladder of ascension.” This thought meant, first of all, the spiritual elevation of the individual above the living conditions of a certain environment. So, in his novel “Who is to Blame?” only there and then does the personality declare itself, when it is separated from its environment; otherwise it is consumed by the emptiness of slavery and despotism.

And so Krutsifersky, a dreamer and romantic, confident that there is nothing accidental in life, enters the first step of the “ladder of ascension.” He gives his hand to Lyuba, Negrov’s daughter, and helps her rise. And she rises after him, but one step higher. Now she sees more than he does; she understands that Krutsifersky, a timid and confused person, will not be able to take another step forward and higher. And when she raises her head, her gaze falls on Beltov, who was much higher on the same stairs than she was. And Lyuba herself extends her hand to him...

“Beauty and in general strength, but it acts according to some kind of selective similarity,” writes Herzen. The mind also operates by selective similarity. That is why Lyubov Krutsiferskaya and Vladimir Beltov could not help but recognize each other: they had this similarity. Everything that was known to her only as a sharp guess was revealed to him as complete knowledge. This was a nature “extremely active inside, open to all modern issues, encyclopedic, gifted with bold and sharp thinking.” But the fact of the matter is that this meeting, accidental and at the same time irresistible, did not change anything in their lives, but only increased the severity of reality, external obstacles, and aggravated the feeling of loneliness and alienation. The life they wanted to change with their ascent was motionless and unchanging. It looks like a flat steppe in which nothing moves. Lyuba was the first to feel this when it seemed to her that she and Krutsifersky were lost among the silent expanses: “They were alone, they were in the steppe.” Herzen expands the metaphor in relation to Beltov, deriving it from folk proverb“Alone in the field is not a warrior”: “I’m like a hero of folk tales... I walked along all the crossroads and shouted: “Is there a man alive in the field?” But the living man did not respond... My misfortune!.. And alone in the field not a warrior... I left the field...” The “staircase of ascension” turned out to be a “humpbacked bridge”, which raised me to a height and released me on all four sides.

“Who is to blame?” - intellectual novel. His heroes are thinking people, but they have their own “woe from their minds.” And it lies in the fact that with all their brilliant ideals they were forced to live in a gray world, which is why their thoughts were seething “in empty action.” Even genius does not save Beltov from this “millions of torments,” from the consciousness that the gray light is stronger than his brilliant ideals, if his lonely voice is lost among the silence of the steppe. This is where the feeling of depression and boredom arises: “Steppe - go wherever you want, in all directions - free will, but you won’t get anywhere...”

There are also notes of despair in the novel. Iskander wrote the story of the weakness and defeat of a strong man. Beltov, as if with peripheral vision, notices that “the door that opened closer and closer was not the one through which the gladiators entered, but the one through which their bodies were carried out.” Such was the fate of Beltov, one of the galaxy of “superfluous people” of Russian literature, the heir of Chatsky, Onegin and Pechorin. From his sufferings grew many new ideas that found their development in Turgenev’s “Rudin” and in Nekrasov’s poem “Sasha”.

In this narrative, Herzen spoke not only about external obstacles, but also about the internal weakness of a person brought up in conditions of slavery.

“Who is to blame?” - a question that did not give a clear answer. It is not without reason that the search for an answer to Herzen’s question occupied the most prominent Russian thinkers - from Chernyshevsky and Nekrasov to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

The novel “Who is to Blame?” predicted the future. It was a prophetic book. Beltov, like Herzen, not only in the provincial city, among officials, but also in the capital’s chancellery, found “utter melancholy” everywhere, “dying of boredom.” “On his native shore” he could not find a worthy business for himself.

But slavery also established itself “on the other side.” On the ruins of the revolution of 1848, the triumphant bourgeois created an empire of property owners, discarding good dreams of fraternity, equality and justice. And again a “most perfect emptiness” formed, where thought died of boredom. And Herzen, as predicted by his novel “Who is to Blame?”, like Beltov, became “a wanderer around Europe, a stranger at home, a stranger in a foreign land.”

He did not renounce either the revolution or socialism. But he was overcome by fatigue and disappointment. Like Beltov, Herzen “made and lived through the abyss.” But everything he experienced belonged to history. That is why his thoughts and memories are so significant. What Beltov was tormented by as a mystery became Herzen’s modern experience and insightful knowledge. Again the same question arose before him with which it all began: “Who is to blame?”

Belinsky: To see in the author “Who is to blame?” an extraordinary artist- means not understanding his talent at all. True, he has a remarkable ability to accurately convey the phenomena of reality, his essays are definite and sharp, his paintings are bright and immediately catch the eye. But even these very qualities prove that main strength it is not in creativity, not in artistry, but in thought, deeply felt, fully conscious and developed. The power of this thought is the main strength of his talent; artistic style to correctly grasp the phenomena of reality is a secondary, auxiliary strength of his talent. Take the first one away from him, and the second one will turn out to be too untenable for original activity. Such talent is not something special, exceptional, or accidental. No, such talents are as natural as purely artistic talents. Their activity forms a special sphere of art, in which fantasy comes second and intelligence comes first. Little attention is paid to this difference, and this is why there is terrible confusion in the theory of art. They want to see in art a kind of mental China, sharply separated by precise boundaries from everything that is not art in the strict sense of the word. Meanwhile, these boundary lines exist more hypothetically than actually; at least you can’t point them out with your finger, like on a map of state boundaries. Art, as it approaches one or another of its borders, gradually loses something of its essence and takes into itself from the essence of what it borders on, so that instead of a dividing line there is a region that reconciles both sides.

It all started in childhood. Krupov was the son of a deacon, and he was being prepared to take his place someday. There was such a boy Levka in the village, Senka’s (Krupov) only friend. Levka was blessed, he didn’t understand a damn thing at all and didn’t love anyone except Senka and his dog. Levka lived an amazing life: he found food for himself, communicated with nature, didn’t attack anyone, but everyone offended him. In short, the man was happy, but everyone was bothering him. Senka was interested in how this could happen. Why do people think he's crazy? And he came to the conclusion that “the reason for all the persecution of Levka is that Levka is stupid in his own way - and others are completely stupid.” Krupov also decided: “in this world of social injustice and hypocrisy, Krupov is convinced, the so-called “crazy” are “essentially no more stupid or more damaged than everyone else, but only more original, focused, independent, more original, one might even say, which is more brilliant than those." But still, Senka wanted to explore all this from a scientific point of view. He wanted to go to university, but his father did not allow him. Then he went to the master, but the master did not accept him. As a result, after the death of his father, Senka ended up in it. University and enrolled in general psychiatry. And so, after years of practice with psychotics, Krupov drew his conclusions about the signs of disorders:

A) in incorrect, but also involuntary consciousness of surrounding objects

C) stupid pursuit of unrealistic goals and omission of real goals.

And so he began to adjust people to these signs and it turned out that EVERYONE was nuts.

He had a bourgeois ward who closed a vicious circle herself: she bought wine for her husband, he drank, beat her, and left. day all over again... Krukpov tells her: don’t buy wine. And she told him: why the hell shouldn’t I bring wine to my lawful husband? Krupov: then why are you arguing with your legal husband? She: this freak is not my husband, fuck him... Then she loved her child strangely. She hunched over at work all day to buy him new clothes, but if he got it dirty, she beat the child. Further. All officials are complete psychos: they do meaningless work all day long. What about the landowners? Two people lived in a legal marriage, but they hated each other terribly and wished each other death. Krupov suggested: just loosen your grip on the estates, everything will be better. And they: yes, now, I was born and raised in a pious family, I know the laws of decency! Or there was another stingy landowner who starved everyone to death. But when a high-ranking official arrived, he ran and almost on his knees asked him to dine with him. And then I spent so much money on it that my dear mother. The whole system of life looks “damaged”, in which people working “day and night” “did not produce anything, and those who did nothing continuously produced nothing, and those who did nothing continuously produced, and a lot.” ".And look at the history of mankind! History is caused by a universal pathology.

And therefore the doctor says that he no longer has anger towards people, but only gentle condescension towards the patient.

The originality of satire:

Speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Here's what Lotman says:

Reflections on the question of the relationship between various social phenomena and reasons social evil led the best progressive representatives of critical realism to the perception of the ideas of utopian socialism. They are reflected in Saltykov’s story. The circle of Petrashevites, ideologically connected with Belinsky, was actively involved in the propaganda of these ideas. Meetings of the Petrashevsky circle were attended by many writers of the Gogol school. In The Holy Family, Marx formulated the idea of the contact between revolutionary humanism and materialism of the 19th century and socialist ideas as follows: “It does not require great wit to see the connection between the teaching of materialism about the innate tendency towards goodness, about the equality of the mental abilities of people, about the omnipotence of experience, habits, upbringing, the influence of external circumstances on a person, high value industry, about the moral right to enjoyment, etc. - both communism and socialism. If a person draws all his knowledge, sensations, etc. from the sensory world and the experience received from this world, then it is necessary, therefore, to arrange the world around us in such a way that a person recognizes what is truly human in it, so that he gets used to cultivating human properties in it. If correctly understood interest constitutes the principle of all morality, then it is necessary, therefore, to strive to ensure that private interest individual person coincided with universal human interests ... If a person's character is created by circumstances, then it is necessary, therefore, to make circumstances

humane. If man, by nature, is a social being, then he, therefore, can only develop his true nature, and the strength of his nature must be judged not by individuals, but by the whole society.”

Speaking about the absurdity of the modern social structure in the story “Doctor Krupov,” Herzen criticized society from a socialist position. Through the mouth of his hero, the writer declared: “In our city there were five thousand inhabitants; Of these, two hundred people were plunged into tedious boredom from the lack of any activity, and four thousand seven hundred people were plunged into tedious activity from the lack of any rest. Those who worked day and night produced nothing, and those who did nothing produced continuously and a lot.” 2

Herzen seemed to be developing the idea of Gogol’s St. Petersburg stories, especially “Notes of a Madman,” about the madness of society, about the abnormality of relationships that are recognized in modern society for the “norm”, and at the same time his story was sharply different from Gogol’s stories. Unlike Gogol, Herzen took the position of a revolutionary; he was a socialist and saw the possibility of correcting society through revolutionary means.

And one more thing:

The famous artist in “The Thieving Magpie” said bitterly: “There are crazy people all around.” But it was like a random phrase. Dr. Krupov develops his theory of “comparative psychiatry” in detail and in detail. At every step he sees how people waste their lives “in the pain of madness.” From observations of modern life, Krupov moved on to studying history, re-reading ancient and modern authors - Titus Livy. Tacitus, Gibbon, Karamzin - and found clear signs of madness in the deeds and speeches of kings, monarchs, and conquerors. “History,” writes Dr. Krupov, “is nothing more than a coherent story of generic chronic madness and its slow cure.”

The philosophical essence of the story lies in overcoming Hegel’s “beautiful” theory that “everything that is real is reasonable, and everything that is reasonable is real,” a theory that was the basis of “reconciliation with reality.” Dr. Krupov saw in this theory a justification of existing evil and was ready to assert that “everything that is real is insane.” “It was not pride and disdain, but love that led me to my theory,” says Krupov.

In order for the monsters of madness to disappear, the atmosphere must change, Dr. Krupov proves. Vemlya was once trampled by mastodons, but the composition of the air changed, and they disappeared. “In some places the air becomes cleaner, mental illnesses are tamed,” writes Krupov, “but the ancestral madness in the human soul is not easily processed.”

47. The Thieving Magpie of A.I. Herzen in the literary and social struggle of the 1840s.

This retelling is from the site of Herzen fans, but you couldn’t write it better:

Three people are talking about the theater: a “Slav” with a buzz cut, a “European” with “no haircut at all”, and a young man standing outside the party, with a buzz cut (like Herzen), who proposes a topic for discussion: why in Russia there is no good actresses. Everyone agrees that there are no good actresses, but each explains this according to his own doctrine: the Slav speaks about the patriarchal modesty of the Russian woman, the European speaks about the emotional underdevelopment of Russians, and for the man with a close-cropped hair, the reasons are unclear. After everyone has had time to speak, appears new character- a man of art and refutes theoretical calculations with an example: he saw a great Russian actress, and, which surprises everyone, not in Moscow or St. Petersburg, but in a small provincial town. The artist's story follows (his prototype is M. S. Shchepkin, to whom the story is dedicated).
Once upon a time in my youth (in early XIX c.) he came to the city of N, hoping to enter the theater of the rich Prince Skalinsky. Talking about the first performance seen at the Skalinsky Theater, the artist almost echoes the “European”, although he shifts the emphasis in a significant way:
“There was something tense, unnatural in the way the courtyard people<…>represented lords and princesses." The heroine appears on stage in the second performance - in the French melodrama “The Thieving Magpie” she plays the maid Aneta, unfairly accused of theft, and here in the play of the serf actress the narrator sees “that incomprehensible pride that develops on the edge of humiliation.” The depraved judge offers her to “buy freedom with the loss of honor.” The performance, the “deep irony of the face” of the heroine especially amazes the observer; he also notices the prince’s unusual excitement. The play has a happy ending - it is revealed that the girl is innocent and the thief is a magpie, but the actress in the finale plays a creature mortally tortured.
The audience does not call the actress and outrages the shocked and almost in love narrator with vulgar remarks. Behind the scenes, where he rushed to tell her about his admiration, they explain to him that she can only be seen with the permission of the prince. The next morning, the narrator goes for permission and in the prince’s office he meets, among other things, the artist, who had been playing the lord for three days, almost in a straitjacket. The prince is kind to the narrator because he wants to get him into his troupe, and explains the strictness of the rules in the theater by the excessive arrogance of the artists, accustomed to the role of nobles on stage.
“Aneta” meets a fellow artist as if she were a loved one and confesses to him. To the narrator, she seems like a “statue of graceful suffering,” he almost admires how she “perishes gracefully.”
The landowner, to whom she belonged from birth, seeing her abilities, provided every opportunity to develop them and treated her as if she were free; he died suddenly, and did not bother to write out vacation pay for his artists in advance; they were sold at public auction to the prince.
The prince began to harass the heroine, she evaded; Finally, an explanation occurred (the heroine had previously read aloud “Cunning and Love” by Schiller), and the offended prince said: “You are my serf girl, not an actress.” These words had such an effect on her that soon she was already in consumption.
The prince, without resorting to gross violence, pettyly annoyed the heroine: he took away the best roles, etc. Two months before meeting the narrator, she was not allowed from the yard to the shops and was insulted, suggesting that she was in a hurry to see her lovers. The insult was deliberate: her behavior was impeccable. “So is it to preserve our honor that you lock us up? Well, prince, here's my hand, my honestly“that next year I will prove to you that the measures you have chosen are insufficient!”
In this novel of the heroine, in all likelihood, the first and last, there was no love, but only despair; she said almost nothing about him. She became pregnant, and what tormented her most was that the child would be born a serf; she only hopes for a quick death for herself and her child by the grace of God.
The narrator leaves in tears, and, having found at home the prince’s offer to join his troupe on favorable terms, he leaves the city, leaving the invitation unanswered. Then he learns that “Aneta” died two months after giving birth.
The excited listeners are silent; the author compares them to a “beautiful gravestone group” for the heroine. “That’s all right,” the Slav said, getting up, “but why didn’t she get married secretly?..”

Literary and social struggle of the 1840s:

The character of this period of Russian literature was directly influenced by the ideological movement that, as stated, manifested itself in the mid-thirties in Moscow circles of young idealists. Many of the greatest luminaries of the forties owe their first development to them. In these circles, the basic ideas arose that laid the foundation for entire directions of Russian thought, the struggle of which revived Russian journalism for decades. When the influence of the idealistic German philosophy of Hegel and Schelling was joined by a passion for French romantic radicalism (V. Hugo, J. Sand, etc.) , a strong ideological ferment manifested itself in literary circles: they either converged on many points they had in common, then diverged to the point of outright hostile relations, until, finally, two bright literary trends were defined: Westernism, St. Petersburg, with Belinsky And Herzen at the head, which put at the forefront the foundations of Western European development, as an expression of universal human ideals, and the Slavophile, Moscow, in the person of the brothers Kireevskikh, Aksakov And Khomyakova, trying to find out special ways historical development, corresponding to a very specific spiritual type of a known nation or race, in in this case Slavic In their passion for struggle, passionate adherents of both directions very often went to extremes, either denying all the bright and healthy aspects of national life in the name of exalting the brilliant mental culture of the West, or trampling on the results developed by European thought in the name of unconditional admiration for the insignificant, sometimes even insignificant, but national characteristics of his historical life.
However, during the forties, this did not prevent both directions from converging on some basic, common and obligatory provisions for both, which had the most beneficial effect on the growth of public self-awareness. This common thing that connected both warring groups was idealism, selfless service to the idea, devotion popular interests in the broadest sense of the word, no matter how differently the paths to achieving possible ideals are understood.
Of all the figures of the forties, one of the most powerful minds of that era best expressed the general mood - Herzen, whose works harmoniously combined the depth of his analytical mind with the poetic softness of sublime idealism. Without venturing into the realm of fantastic constructions, which Slavophiles often indulged in, Herzen, however, recognized many real democratic foundations in Russian life (for example, the community).
Herzen deeply believed in the further development of the Russian community and at the same time analyzed dark sides Western European culture, which was completely ignored by pure Westerners. Thus, in the forties, literature for the first time put forward clearly expressed directions social thought. She strives to become an influential social force. Both warring trends, the Westernizer and the Slavophile, equally categorically pose the tasks of civil service for literature.

"The Thieving Magpie" is the most famous story Herzen with a very complex

internal theatrical structure. First three appear on stage

The persons talking are “Slavic”, “European” and “author”. Then to them

joins" famous artist". And immediately, as if in the depths of the stage,

the second curtain rises and a view of the Skalinsky Theater opens up. Moreover

the "famous artist" moves to this second stage as an actor

faces But that's not all. The Skalinsky Theater has its own stage, on which,

in the very depths and in the center of this triple perspective, a figure arises

the main character playing the role of Ayeta from the play famous in those years

"The Thieving Magpie" [The play was written by Quenier and d'Aubigny in 1816

"The Thieving Magpie", and in 1817 G. Rossini created an opera based on this

The story was written at the height of the disputes between Westerners and

Slavophiles. Herzen brought out the ah ah scene as the most characteristic types time.

And gave everyone the opportunity to speak according to their character

and beliefs. Herzen, like Gogol, believed that the disputes between Westerners and

Slavophiles are the “passions of the mind” raging in abstract spheres, while

how life goes its own way; and while they argue about national character and

whether it is decent or indecent for a Russian woman to be on stage, somewhere in the wilderness,

A great actress dies in a serf theater, and the prince shouts to her: “You are mine.”

a serf girl, not an actress."

The story is dedicated to M. Shchepkin, he appears on the “stage” under the name

"famous artist" This gives The Thieving Magpie a special edge.

After all, Shchepkin was a serf; his case delivered from slavery. And the whole story about the serf actress was a variation

on the theme "Thieving Magpies", a variation on the theme of the guilty 6ez guilt...

Aneta from "The Thieving Magpie" in her character and in her destiny is very

Total y...

History of Russian literature (1)

Sample program

... (1826 – 1855 yy.) 2.1. Generalcharacteristicliteraryprocess Nicholas era and literary-public... literaryprocess second quarter of the XIX V. 2.1.1. 1826 – 1842 yy. The role of A. S. Pushkin and his legacy in literaryprocess 1830s yy ...

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (March 25 (April 6) 1812, Moscow - January 9 (21), 1870, Paris) - Russian publicist, writer, philosopher, teacher, one of the most prominent critics of the feudal Russian Empire.

(Natural school is the conventional name for the initial stage of development of critical realism in Russian literature of the 1840s, which arose under the influence of the work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Turgenev and Dostoevsky, Grigorovich, Herzen, Goncharov, Nekrasov, Panaev, Dahl, Chernyshevsky were considered to be the “natural school” , Saltykov-Shchedrin and others)

Issues

The composition of the novel “Who is to Blame?” very original. Only the first chapter of the first part has the actual romantic form of exposition and the beginning of the action - “A retired general and teacher, deciding on the place.” This is followed by: “Biography of Their Excellencies” and “Biography of Dmitry Yakovlevich Krutsifersky”. Chapter “ Living life” is a chapter from the correct narrative form, but it is followed by “ Biography of Vladimir Beltov" Herzen wanted to compose a novel from this kind of individual biographies, where “in the footnotes one can say that so-and-so married so-and-so.” “For me, a story is a frame,” said Herzen. He painted mostly portraits; he was most interested in faces and biographies. “A person is a track record in which everything is noted,” writes Herzen, “a passport on which visas remain.” At visible fragmentation of the narrative, when the story from the author is replaced by letters from the heroes, excerpts from the diary, biographical digressions, Herzen's novel is strictly consistent.

He saw his task not in resolving the issue, but in identifying it correctly. Therefore, he chose a protocol epigraph: “And this case, due to the non-discovery of the guilty, should be handed over to the will of God, and the case, having been considered unresolved, should be handed over to the archives. Protocol". But he did not write a protocol, but a novel in which investigated not “a case, but a law of modern reality”" That is why the question posed in the title of the book resonated with such force in the hearts of his contemporaries. The critic saw the main idea of the novel in the fact that the problem of the century receives from Herzen not a personal, but a general meaning: “It is not we who are to blame, but the lies in whose networks we have been entangled since childhood.”

But Herzen occupied the problem of moral self-awareness and personality. Among Herzen's heroes there are no villains who would consciously and deliberately do evil to their neighbors . His heroes are children of the century, no better and no worse than others; rather, even better than many, and some of them contain the promise of amazing abilities and opportunities. Even General Negros, the owner of “white slaves”, a serf owner and a despot due to the circumstances of his life, is depicted as a man in whom “life has crushed more than one opportunity.” Herzen's thought was social in essence; he studied the psychology of his time and saw a direct connection between a person's character and his environment. Herzen called history a “ladder of ascension”" This idea meant first of all spiritual elevation of the individual above the living conditions of a certain environment. So, in his novel “Who is to Blame?” only there and then the personality declares itself when it separates from its environment; otherwise it is consumed by the emptiness of slavery and despotism.

“Who is to blame? - an intellectual novel. His heroes are thinking people, but they have their own “woe from their minds.” And it lies in the fact that with all their brilliant ideals they were forced to live in a gray world, which is why their thoughts were seething “in empty action.” Even genius does not save Beltov from this “millions of torments,” from the consciousness that the gray light is stronger than his brilliant ideals, if his lonely voice is lost among the silence of the steppe. This is where it comes from feeling depressed and bored:“Steppe - go wherever you want, in all directions - free will, but you won’t get anywhere...”

“Who is to blame? - a question that did not give a clear answer. It is not without reason that the search for an answer to Herzen’s question occupied the most prominent Russian thinkers - from Chernyshevsky and Nekrasov to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The novel “Who is to Blame?” predicted the future. It was a prophetic book. Beltov, like Herzen, not only in the provincial city, among officials, but also in the capital’s chancellery, found “utter melancholy” everywhere, “dying of boredom.” “On his native shore” he could not find a worthy business for himself. But slavery also established itself “on the other side.” On the ruins of the revolution of 1848, the triumphant bourgeois created an empire of property owners, discarding good dreams of fraternity, equality and justice. And again a “most perfect emptiness” formed, where thought died of boredom. And Herzen, as predicted by his novel “Who is to Blame?”, like Beltov, became “a wanderer around Europe, a stranger at home, a stranger in a foreign land.” He did not renounce either the revolution or socialism. But he was overcome by fatigue and disappointment. Like Beltov, Herzen “made and lived through the abyss.” But everything he experienced belonged to history. That is why his thoughts and memories are so significant. What Beltov was tormented by as a mystery became for Herzen modern experience and insightful knowledge. Again the same question arose before him with which it all began: “Who is to blame?”

Beltov's image

Beltov’s image contains a lot of unclear, seemingly contradictory, sometimes given only by hints. This was reflected both by Herzen’s creative subjectivity, who created the character of the hero according to the fresh traces of his own ideological development, and even more so by the censorship conditions that did not allow him to speak directly about many things. This also determined the incorrect understanding of Beltov’s character on Belinsky’s part. In the “backstory” of the hero, the critic only drew attention to the fact that Beltov has “a lot of intelligence”, that his “nature” is spoiled by “false upbringing”, “wealth”, and therefore he does not have “a special vocation for any kind of activity “that he was “condemned to languish ... with the anguish of inaction.” In the main part of the novel, the character of the hero, according to the critic, is “arbitrarily changed by the author,” and Beltov “suddenly appears before us as some kind of higher, genius nature, for whose activity reality does not represent a worthy field...”. “This is no longer Beltov, but something like Pechorin.” The last opinion is correct: the matured Beltov has something in common with Pechorin. But this is not their “genius” and their tragic relationship with society. However, Belinsky was mistaken in assessing the character of young Beltov. Already in his youth, Beltov was not just a spoiled gentleman. And then there were more romantic impulses in him than “melancholy of inaction.” As for his transition to the skepticism of a mature understanding of life, this transition looks sudden because the author could not talk about it in detail. This change is not taking place at the discretion of the author, and as a result of the “power of circumstances" This time Herzen's hero is a Russian nobleman and even the son of a serf peasant woman. Unlike Chatsky, Onegin and Pechorin, who received the capital's, secular-aristocratic education, Beltov, like Turgenev’s heroes (Lezhnev, Lavretsky, etc.), was brought up in the estate, and from there he got into the circle of students at Moscow University. A characteristic feature of Beltov’s ideological development is his early emergence pursuit of romantic ideals. Drawing on his own experience, Herzen connects these aspirations with reading Plutarch and Schiller, with strong impressions of revolutionary movements in the West.

… Beltov's development took place in the Russian environment public life early 1830s. Herzen speaks briefly and deliberately vaguely about a “friendly circle of five or six young men,” but emphasizes that the ideas of this circle were “alien to the environment” and that “the young people drew colossal plans for themselves,” which were far from being realized. In this, Beltov differs sharply from Pechorin. Pechorin, created by temperament for active social struggle, longs for “storms and battles,” but exchanges his strength in random everyday clashes. Beltov, brought up more abstractly, draws up “colossal plans” for himself, but wastes his time in carrying out private practical tasks, which he always undertakes to solve alone, with “desperate courage of thought.” This is, first of all, Beltov’s service in department e, which the aristocrat Pechorin would never agree to. Beltov undoubtedly set himself a “colossal” and naively romantic task: alone to fight injustice and overcome it. No wonder the officials were indignant at the fact that he “runs around with all sorts of rubbish, gets excited, like his own father... they cut him down, but he saves”... No wonder the minister himself vainly made him “gentle” suggestions, and then simply thrown out of service for obstinacy. Such is the passion Beltova medicine. And here he would like to benefit people, trying to solve difficult scientific problems with “desperate courage of thought,” and was defeated. Even in his painting classes, the young man’s civic and romantic interests were reflected. Summing up the failures of his hero in the first part of the novel, asking a “sophisticated question” about their causes, Herzen correctly believes that the answer must be sought not in “the mental structure of a person,” but, as he deliberately vaguely says, “in the atmosphere, in the environment, in influences and contacts..." Beltov himself later objected well to Krupov, who explained his idleness by wealth, that there are “quite strong incentives to work” and “besides hunger,” at least “the desire to speak out.” Pechorin would not have said that. This is the self-assessment of "a man of the 1840s"" And in this respect, Beltov can be compared not with Pechorin, but with Rudin. Beltov realized the reason for his failures only during his wanderings in the West. The author emphasizes many times that before leaving abroad his hero, due to his romantic upbringing, “did not understand reality.” Now he understood something about her. In his own words, he “lost his youthful beliefs” and “acquired a sober look, perhaps bleak and sad, but true.” Calling Beltov’s new views “bleak” but “true,” Herzen undoubtedly has in mind the ideological crisis that the most advanced people in Russia experienced in the early 40s during the transition from philosophical idealism to materialism. ..... This is exactly what Herzen emphasizes in Beltov, saying that Beltov “lived a lot in thought,” that he now has “bold, sharp thinking” and even “a terrible breadth of understanding,” that he is internally open to “all modern issues.” It is interesting, however, that Herzen, not content with this, scattered hints in the novel about some of Beltov’s activities abroad, which apparently led him to new views and moods. You can try to bring these hints into one whole, at least hypothetically.

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Belarusian State University

Faculty of Philology

Department of Russian Literature

“Problematics of Herzen’s novel “Who is to Blame?” (problems of love, marriage, education, guilt and innocence). Plot-compositional structure and system of images. Types of heroes of time"

Completed:

2nd year student, 5th group

Specialties "Russian Philology"

Govorunova Valentina Vasilievna

Minsk, 2013

The plot of the novel is a complex knot of family, everyday, socio-philosophical and political contradictions. It was from Beltov’s arrival in the city that a sharp struggle of ideas and moral principles of the conservative-noble and democratic-raznochinsky camps unfolded. The nobles, sensing in Beltov “a protest, some kind of denunciation of their life, some kind of objection to its entire order,” did not choose him anywhere, “they gave him a ride.” Not satisfied with this, they weaved a vile web of dirty gossip about Beltov and Lyubov Alexandrovna.

The compositional art of the novel is also expressed in the fact that the individual biographies with which it began gradually merge into an indivisible stream of life.

The compositional originality of the novel “Who is to Blame?” lies in the consistent arrangement of his characters, in social contrast and gradation. By arousing the reader's interest, Herzen expands the social sound of the novel and enhances the psychological drama. Starting in the estate, the action moves to the provincial city, and in episodes from the life of the main characters - to Moscow, St. Petersburg and abroad.

The novel clearly expresses the author's sympathy for the Russian people. Herzen contrasted the social circles ruling on estates or in bureaucratic institutions with clearly sympathetically portrayed peasants and the democratic intelligentsia. The writer attaches great importance to every image of the peasants, even the minor ones. So, under no circumstances did he want to publish his novel if the censorship distorted or discarded the image of Sophie. Herzen managed in his novel to show the implacable hostility of the peasants towards the landowners, as well as their moral superiority over their owners. Lyubonka is especially fascinated by peasant children, in whom she, expressing the views of the author, sees rich inner inclinations: “What glorious faces they have, open and noble!”

In the image of Krutsifersky, Herzen poses the problem of the “little” man. Krutsifersky, the son of a provincial doctor, by the accidental grace of a philanthropist, graduated from Moscow University, wanted to study science, but need, the inability to exist even with private lessons forced him to go to Negrov for conditioning, and then become a teacher at a provincial gymnasium. This is a modest, kind, prudent person, an enthusiastic admirer of everything beautiful, a passive romantic, an idealist. Dmitry Yakovlevich firmly believed in the ideals hovering above the earth, and explained all the phenomena of life with a spiritual, divine principle. In practical life, this is a helpless child, afraid of everything. The meaning of life became his all-consuming love for Lyubonka, family happiness, which he reveled in. And when this happiness began to waver and collapse, he found himself morally crushed, capable only of praying, crying, being jealous and drinking himself to death. The figure of Krutsifersky acquires a tragic character, determined by his discord with life, his ideological backwardness, and infantilism.

Doctor Krupov and Lyubonka represent a new stage in the development of the commoner type. Krupov is a materialist. Despite the inert provincial life that muffles all the best impulses, Semyon Ivanovich retained human principles, a touching love for people, for children, and a sense of self-worth. Defending his independence, he tries to the best of his ability to bring good to people, without considering their ranks, titles and conditions. Incurring the wrath of those in power, disregarding their class prejudices, Krupov goes first of all not to the noble, but to those most in need of treatment. Through Krupov, the author sometimes expresses his own views about the typicality of the Negrov family, about the narrowness of human life, given only to family happiness.

Psychologically, the image of Lyubonka appears more complex. The illegitimate daughter of Negrov from a serf peasant woman, from early childhood she found herself in conditions of undeserved insults and gross insults. Everyone and everything in the house reminded Lyubov Alexandrovna that she was a young lady “by good deed”, “by grace”. Oppressed and even despised for her “servile” origin, she feels lonely and alien. Feeling insulting injustice towards herself every day, she began to hate untruth and everything that oppresses human freedom. Compassion for the peasants, related to her by blood, and the oppression she experienced, aroused in her ardent sympathy for them. Being constantly under the wind of moral adversity, Lyubonka developed firmness in defending her human rights and intransigence to evil in all its forms. And then Beltov appeared, pointing out, in addition to family, the possibility of other happiness. Lyubov Alexandrovna admits that after meeting him she changed and matured: “How many new questions arose in my soul!.. He opened up a new world inside me.” Beltov’s unusually rich, active nature captivated Lyubov Alexandrovna and awakened her dormant potential. Beltov was amazed at her extraordinary talent: “Those results for which I sacrificed half my life,” he tells Krupov, “were simple, self-evident truths for her.” With the image of Lyubonka, Herzen shows a woman’s rights to equality with a man. Lyubov Alexandrovna found in Beltov a person in tune with her in everything, her true happiness was with him. And on the way to this happiness, in addition to moral and legal norms, public opinion, stands Krutsifersky, begging not to leave him, and their son. Lyubov Alexandrovna knows that she will no longer have happiness with Dmitry Yakovlevich. But, submitting to circumstances, pitying the weak, dying Dmitry Yakovlevich, who pulled her out of Negro oppression, preserving her family for her child, out of a sense of duty she remains with Krutsifersky. Gorky said very correctly about her: “This woman remains with her husband - a weak man, so as not to kill him with betrayal.”

But the social meaning and the progressive educational role of Beltov’s image are not limited to this. His relationship with Lyubov Alexandrovna is an energetic protest against the proprietary norms of marriage and family relations. In the relationship between Beltov and Krutsiferskaya, the writer outlined the ideal of such love that spiritually lifts and grows people, revealing all the abilities inherent in them.

Thus, Herzen’s main goal was to show with his own eyes that the social conditions he depicted stifle the best people, stifle their aspirations, judging them by the unfair but indisputable court of musty, conservative public opinion, entangling them in networks of prejudice. And this determined their tragedy. A favorable resolution of the fates of all the positive heroes of the novel can only be ensured by a radical transformation of reality - this is Herzen’s fundamental thought.

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“The artistic originality of the novel “Who is to blame? The artistic originality of A. Herzen’s novel “Who is to Blame?” The novel's figurative system. The image of a superfluous person Teaching aids and thematic links for schoolchildren, students and everyone involved in self-education

The problems of Herzen's novel "Who is to Blame?"

The ideological and artistic originality of Herzen’s novel “Who is to Blame?”, the problems of the stories “Doctor Krupov” and “The Thieving Magpie”

Textbooks and thematic links for schoolchildren, students and anyone involved in self-education

History of Russian literature (1)

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The problems of Herzen's novel "Who is to Blame?"

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