Modernism is an ideological movement in literature and art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which is characterized by a departure from classical standards and the search for new, radical ones. literary forms and the creation of a completely new style of writing. This direction replaced realism and became the predecessor of postmodernism, the final stage of its development dates back to the 30s of the twentieth century.
The main feature of this direction is a complete change in the classical perception of the picture of the world: the authors are no longer bearers of absolute truth and ready-made concepts, but, on the contrary, demonstrate their relativity. The linearity of the narrative disappears, replaced by a chaotic, fragmentary plot, fragmented into parts and episodes, often presented on behalf of several characters at once, who may have completely opposite views on the events taking place.
Directions of modernism in literature
Modernism, in turn, branched into several directions, such as:
Symbolism
(Somov Konstantin Andreevich "Two ladies in the park")
It originated in France in the 70-80s of the 19th century and reached the peak of its development at the beginning of the 20th century, and was most widespread in France. Belgium and Russia. Symbolist authors embodied the main ideas of their works, using the multifaceted and polysemantic associative aesthetics of symbols and images; they were often full of mystery, enigma and understatement. Prominent representatives of this trend: Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Lautreamont (France), Maurice Maeterlinck, Emile Verhaerne (Belgium), Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok, Fyodor Sologub, Maximilian Voloshin, Andrei Bely, Konstantin Balmont (Russia).. .
Acmeism
(Alexander Bogomazov "Flour peddlers")
It emerged as a separate movement of modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia, Acmeist authors, in contrast to the Symbolists, insisted on clear materiality and objectivity of the themes and images described, defended the use of precise and clear words, and advocated distinct and definite images. Central figures Russian acmeism: Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilyov, Sergei Gorodetsky...
Futurism
(Fortunato Depero "Me and my wife")
An avant-garde movement that emerged in the 10-20s of the 20th century and developed in Russia and Italy. Main feature Futurist authors: interest is not so much in the content of the works, but more in the form of versification. For this purpose, new word forms were invented, vulgar, common vocabulary, professional jargon, and the language of documents, posters and posters were used. The founder of futurism is considered to be the Italian poet Filippo Marinetti, who wrote the poem “Red Sugar,” and his associates Balla, Boccioni, Carra, Severini and others. Russian futurists: Vladimir Mayakovsky, Velimir Khlebnikov, Boris Pasternak...
Imagism
(Georgy Bogdanovich Yakulov - set design for J. Offenbach's operetta "The Beautiful Helen")
It emerged as a literary movement of Russian poetry in 1918, its founders were Anatoly Mariengof, Vadim Shershenevich and Sergei Yesenin. The goal of the Imagists’ creativity was to create images, and the main means of expression was declared to be metaphor and metaphorical chains, with the help of which direct and figurative images were compared...
Expressionism
(Erich Heckel "Street Scene at the Bridge")
The current of modernism, which developed in Germany and Austria in the first decade of the twentieth century, as a painful reaction of society to the horrors of current events (revolutions, the First world war). This direction sought not so much to reproduce reality as to convey the emotional state of the author; images of pain and screams are very common in works. The following people worked in the style of expressionism: Alfred Döblin, Gottfried Benn, Ivan Goll, Albert Ehrenstein (Germany), Franz Kafka, Paul Adler (Czech Republic), T. Michinsky (Poland), L. Andreev (Russia)...
Surrealism
(Salvador Dali "The Persistence of Memory")
It emerged as a movement in literature and art in the 20s of the twentieth century. Surrealist works are distinguished by the use of allusions (stylistic figures that give a hint or indication of specific historical or mythological cult events) and the paradoxical combination of various forms. Founder of surrealism - French writer and the poet Andre Breton, famous writers of this movement - Paul Eluard and Louis Aragon...
Modernism in Russian literature of the twentieth century
The last decade of the 19th century was marked by the emergence of new trends in Russian literature, the task of which was a complete rethinking of old means of expression and the revival of poetic art. This period (1982-1922) went down in the history of literature under the name “ Silver Age"Russian poetry. Writers and poets united in various modernist groups and movements that played artistic culture a huge role at that time.
(Kandinsky Vasily Vasilievich "Winter Landscape")
Russian symbolism appeared at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, its founders were the poets Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Fyodor Sologub, Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov, later they were joined by Alexander Blok, Andrei Bely, Vyacheslav Ivanov. They publish the artistic and journalistic organ of the Symbolists, the magazine “Scales (1904-1909), and support idealistic philosophy Vladimir Solovyov about the Third Testament and the coming of Eternal Femininity. The works of symbolist poets are filled with complex, mystical images and associations, mystery and understatement, abstraction and irrationality.
Symbolism is being replaced by acmeism, which appeared in Russian literature in 1910, the founders of the trend: Nikolai Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova, Sergei Gorodetsky, this group of poets also included O. Mandelstam, M. Zenkevich, M. Kuzmin, M. Voloshin. The Acmeists, unlike the Symbolists, proclaimed the cult of real earthly life, a clear and confident view of reality, the affirmation of the aesthetic-hedonistic function of art, without affecting social problems. The poetry collection “Hyperborea”, released in 1912, announced the emergence of a new literary movement called acmeism (from “acme” - the highest degree of something, the time to flourish). The Acmeists tried to make the images concrete and objective, to get rid of the mystical confusion inherent in the Symbolist movement.
(Vladimir Mayakovsky "Roulette")
Futurism in Russian literature arose simultaneously with Acmeism in 1910-1912, like others literary trends in modernism it was full of internal contradictions. One of the most significant futurist groups called Cubo-Futurists included such outstanding poets of the Silver Age as V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, I. Severyanin, A. Kruchenykh, V. Kamensky and others. The Futurists proclaimed a revolution of forms, absolutely independent of content, freedom poetic word and rejection of old literary traditions. Interesting experiments were carried out in the field of words, new forms were created and outdated literary norms and rules were exposed. The first collection of futurist poets, “A Slap in the Face of Public Taste,” declared the basic concepts of futurism and established it as the only truthful exponent of its era.
(Kazimir Malevich "The Lady at the Tram Stop")
In the early 20s of the twentieth century, on the basis of futurism, a new modernist direction was formed - imagism. Its founders were the poets S. Yesenin, A. Mariengof, V. Shershenevich, R. Ivnev. In 1919, they held the first Imagist evening and created a declaration that proclaimed the main principles of Imagism: the primacy of the image “as such,” poetic expression through the use of metaphors and epithets, a poetic work should be a “catalog of images,” read the same as from the beginning, so from the end. Creative differences between the Imagists led to the division of the movement into left and right wings; after Sergei Yesenin left its ranks in 1924, the group gradually disintegrated.
Modernism in foreign literature of the twentieth century
(Gino Severini "Still Life")
Modernism as a literary movement began in the late 19th and early 19th centuries on the eve of the First World War, its heyday occurred in the 20-30s of the 20th century, it developed almost simultaneously in the countries of Europe and America and is an international phenomenon consisting of various literary movements, such as imagism, dadaism, expressionism, surrealism, etc.
Modernism arose in France, its prominent representatives belonging to the Symbolist movement were the poets Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Charles Baudelaire. Symbolism quickly became popular in other European countries, in England it was represented by Oscar Wilde, in Germany by Stefan George, in Belgium by Emil Verhaeren and Maurice Metterlinck, in Norway by Henrik Ibsen.
(Umberto Boccioni "The street enters the house")
Among the expressionists were G. Trakl and F. Kafka in Belgium, the French school - A. France, the German school - J. Becher. The founders of this modernist direction in literature as imagism, which existed since the beginning of the 20th century in English-speaking European countries, were the English poets Thomas Hume and Ezra Pound, they were later joined by the American poet Amy Lowell, a young English poet Herbert Reed, American John Fletcher.
The most famous writers The modernists of the early twentieth century are considered to be the Irish prose writer James Joyce, who created the immortal stream-of-consciousness novel Ulysses (1922), the French author of the seven-volume epic novel In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust, and the German-speaking master of modernism Franz Kafka, wrote the story “Metamorphosis” (1912), which became a classic of the absurdity of all world literature.
Modernism in the characteristics of Western literature of the twentieth century
Despite the fact that modernism is divided into a large number of movements, they common feature is the search for new forms and determination of man’s place in the world. The literature of modernism, which arose at the junction of two eras and between two world wars, in a society tired and exhausted of old ideas, is distinguished by its cosmopolitanism and expresses the feelings of authors lost in an ever-evolving, growing urban environment.
(Alfredo Gauro Ambrosi "Airportrait of the Duce")
Writers and poets who worked in in this direction, constantly experimented with new words, forms, techniques and techniques in order to create a new, fresh sound, although the themes remained old and eternal. Usually it was a theme about the loneliness of a person in a huge and colorful world, about the discrepancy between the rhythms of his life and the surrounding reality.
Modernism is a kind of literary revolution; writers and poets participated in it, declaring their complete denial of realistic verisimilitude and all cultural and literary traditions in general. They had to live and create in difficult times, when the values of traditional humanistic culture were outdated, when the concept of freedom in different countries had a very ambiguous meaning when the blood and horrors of the First World War devalued human life, and the surrounding world appeared before man in all its cruelty and coldness. Early modernism symbolized the time when faith in the power of reason was destroyed, and the time came for the triumph of irrationality, mysticism and the absurdity of all existence.
Modernism in literature originates on the eve of the First World War and reaches its peak in the twenties simultaneously in all countries Western Europe and in America. Modernism is an international phenomenon, consisting of different schools(Imagism, Dadaism, Expressionism, Constructivism, Surrealism, etc.). This is a revolution in literature, the participants of which announced a break not only with the tradition of realistic verisimilitude, but also with the Western cultural and literary tradition in general. Any previous movement in literature defined itself through its relationship to the classical tradition: it was possible to directly proclaim antiquity as a model artistic creativity, like the classicists, or prefer the Middle Ages to antiquity, like the romantics, but all cultural eras before modernism are today increasingly called “classical” because they developed in line with classical heritage European thought. Modernism is the first cultural and literary era, which put an end to this legacy and gave new answers to “eternal” questions. As the English poet S. Spender wrote in 1930: “It seems to me that the modernists are consciously striving to create an entirely new literature. This is a consequence of their feeling that our era is in many respects unprecedented and stands outside any conventions of past art and literature.” .
The generation of the first modernists acutely felt the exhaustion of the forms of realistic storytelling, their aesthetic fatigue. For modernists, the concept of “realism” meant the absence of effort to independently comprehend the world, the mechanical nature of creativity, superficiality, the boredom of vague descriptions - interest in the button on a character’s coat, and not in his state of mind. Modernists place above all else the value of an individual artistic vision of the world; the artistic worlds they create are uniquely different from each other, each bears the stamp of a bright creative individuality.
They happened to live in a period when the values of traditional humanistic culture collapsed - “freedom” meant very different things in Western democracies and in totalitarian states; The carnage of the First World War, in which weapons of mass destruction were used for the first time, revealed the true cost human life For modern world; The humanistic ban on pain and physical and spiritual violence was replaced by the practice of mass executions and concentration camps. Modernism is the art of a dehumanized era (the term of the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset); the attitude towards humanistic values in modernism is ambiguous, but the world of the modernists appears in a harsh, cold light. Using the metaphor of J. Conrad, we can say that the hero of the modernist work seemed to be staying overnight in an uncomfortable hotel at the end of the world, with very suspicious owners, in a shabby room, illuminated by the merciless light of a light bulb without a lampshade.
Modernists conceptualize human existence as a short, fragile moment; the subject may or may not be aware of the tragedy, frailty of our absurd world, and the artist’s job is to show the horror, greatness and beauty contained, despite everything, in the moments of earthly existence. Social issues, which played such an important role in the realism of the 19th century, are given indirectly in modernism, as an inseparable part of the holistic portrait of the individual. The main area of interest of modernists is the depiction of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious in a person, the mechanisms of his perceptions, and the whimsical work of memory. The modernist hero is taken, as a rule, in the entire integrity of his experiences, his subjective existence, although the very scale of his life may be small and insignificant. In modernism, the main line of development of literature of the New Age continues with a constant decline social status hero; the modernist hero is an “everyman,” any and every person. Modernists learned to describe such mental states of a person that literature had not previously noticed, and they did it with such convincingness that it seemed to bourgeois critics an insult to morality and a profanation of the art of words. Not only the content - the large role of intimate and sexual issues, the relativity of moral assessments, the emphasized apoliticality - but, first of all, the unusual forms of modernist storytelling caused especially sharp rejection. Today, when most masterpieces modernist literature entered into school and university curricula, it is difficult for us to sense the rebellious, anti-bourgeois character of early modernism, the harshness of the accusations and challenges posed to it.
Three major writers of modernism- Irishman James Joyce (1882-1943), Frenchman Marcel Proust (1871-1922), Franz Kafka (1883-1924). Each of them, in his own direction, reformed the art of speech of the twentieth century, each is considered a great pioneer of modernism. Let's look at James Joyce's novel Ulysses as an example.
Modernism in Russian literature “Silver Age” national culture XX centuryLate XIX - early XX centuries. - relatively short
but incredibly rich in public,
political and cultural events segment
Russian history. This time is also called
"silver" age", comparing with the "golden age"
- the era of the highest flowering of Russian literature
and art - XIX century. Comparatively
small geographical area of Moscow and
Petersburg at that time, the density of various
artistic talent was so high
that there are no corresponding examples for it not only in
Russian, but also in world history. Some poets -
great, large and simply significant - dozens.
Features of modernism in literature:
denial of classical artheritage;
recited discrepancy with theory and
practice of realism;
focus on the individual person,
not social;
increased attention to spiritual rather than
social sphere of human life;
focus on form at the expense of content.
Representatives of modernism in literature in Russia:
Borii s Leoniidovich Pasternai (January 29, 1890, Moscow - May 30, 1960,Peredelkino, Moscow region) -
Russian writer, poet, translator; one of
greatest poets of the 20th century.
In 1955, Pasternak wrote the novel
"Doctor Zhivago". Three years later the writer
was awarded the Nobel Prize for
literature, after this he was
subjected to bullying and persecution from outside
BLOCK
Alexander
Alexandrovich
Soviet
government.
, Russian poet. BUNIN Ivan Alekseevich (1870-1953), Russian writer and poet,
laureate Nobel Prize By
literature (1933).
AKHMATOVA (real name Gorenko)
Anna Andreevna (11 (23) June 1889
- March 5, 1966) Russian poetess,
translator and literary critic,
one of the most significant figures
Russian literature of the 20th century.
Nobel Prize nominee
according to literature. ESENIN Sergey Alexandrovich
(1895-1925), Russian poet,
representative of the new peasant
poetry and lyrics, and more
late period of creativity -
imagism.
MAYAKOVSKY Vladimir
Vladimirovich (7 (19) July 1893-
April 14, 1930), Russian poet,
one of the brightest representatives
avant-garde art of the 1910-1920s. One of the largest
poets of the 20th century.
In addition to poetry, he clearly showed himself
as a playwright, screenwriter,
film director, film actor,
artist, magazine editor. Gumilyov treated them the same way,
Khlebnikov, Klyuev, Severyanin, Bely,
Sologub, Balmont, Bryusov, Voloshin,
Ivanovs (Vyacheslav and Georgy), Kuzmin,
Tsvetaeva, Khodasevich, Gippius,
Mandelstam is just the most
noticeable, but not all of them.
The birth of modernism.
The first modernist periodical inRussia became the magazine "World of Art",
organized by young artists A.N. Benois,
K.A. Somov, L. S. Bakst, E. E. Lansere,
S.P. Diaghilev in 1899, writers (Zinaida
Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky) were
invited to lead the literary department of the magazine,
whose main purpose was to promote a new
painting. On the pages of the magazine "World of Art"
printed their first works Blok, Gippius,
Rozanov, Merezhkovsky, Bryusov, Bely, Sologub. IN
Korney Chukovsky acted as a critic.
The split of modernism.
Russian literature after the revolution of 1917divided tragic fate countries and
further developed in three directions:
Literature of Russian Abroad - I. Bunin,
V. Nabokov, I. Shmelev; literature, not
officially recognized in its time in the USSR
not published - M. Bulgakov, A. Akhmatova,
A. Platonov and others; Russian Soviet
literature (mostly
socialist realism) - M. Gorky,
V. Mayakovsky, M. Sholokhov.
Representatives of modernism in foreign literature:
Anne de Noailles (November 15, 1876- 30April 1933) - French
poetess, mistress of literary
salon
Paul Eluair (December 14, 1895-
November 18, 1952) - French
poet who has published more than a hundred
poetry collections. Guillois m Apollineir (26 August 1880
- November 9, 1918) - French
poet, one of the most
influential figures
European avant-garde of the early 20th century
century.
Jacques Prévert (4 February 1900- 11
April 1977) - French poet
and film playwright.
Modernism in the fine arts.
Modernism - a totality artistic directions Vsecond art half of the 19th century- mid-20th century.
The most significant modernist trends were
impressionism, expressionism, neo- and post-impressionism,
Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism. And also later movements -
abstract art, dadaism, surrealism. In the narrow sense
modernism is considered as an early stage of avant-gardeism,
start of revision classical traditions. Date of birth
Modernism is often referred to as 1863 - the year of its opening in Paris
“Salon of the Rejected”, where works of artists were accepted.
In a broad sense, modernism is “another art”, the main
whose purpose is to create original works,
based on inner freedom and a special vision of the world
author and carrying new means of expression
figurative language, often accompanied by shocking
and a certain challenge to established canons.
Directions of modernism.
Abstract expressionism is a special style of painting when the artistspends a minimum amount of time on his creativity, scatters
paint on the canvas, randomly touches the painting with brushes, randomly
applies strokes.
Dadaism - works of art in collage style, layout on
canvas of several fragments of the same theme. Images are usually
imbued with the idea of denial, a cynical approach to the topic. The style arose
immediately after the end of the First World War and became a reflection of the feeling
hopelessness reigning in society.
Cubism - chaotically arranged geometric shapes. The style itself
highly artistic, created true masterpieces in the style of cubism
Pablo Picasso. The artist Paul approached his work somewhat differently
Cezanne - his paintings are also included in the treasury of world art.
Post-Impressionism - rejection of visible reality and replacement of real
images decorative stylization. A style with great potential
but it was fully realized only by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.
Representatives of modernism in art:
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich–great Russian artist.
Painting styles: Avant-garde,
Cubism, Suprematism, etc. (11
February 1878 – May 15, 1935).
Kazimir Malevich is
an iconic figure not only in
Russian art, but also in
world history of painting. IN
in particular he was
the founder of a new species
art - Suprematism,
marking his appearance
a picture that is known in
all over the world as – Black
Square. Painting Black
Square was painted in 1915
year and called the real one
a sensation among connoisseurs and
critics. Existed "Black Square"
"An Englishman in Moscow" "Argentine polka"
Self-portrait "Laundry on the fence"
"Boulevard" Fu"lla Ludovit Slovak painter
"Boy in the Hat"
M. Pashteka: Artist and
sitters. M. A. Bazovsky: Farmers.
E. Shimerova: Still life with a newspaper.
Modernism in architecture.
Wide open spaces for modernist architectureopened as a result of the consequences of the Second World War.
Many European cities were destroyed. Was planned
the world of a new formation. A fundamental
the ability to design entire neighborhoods without special
connections to the “old” architectural ensemble of cities.
The largest buildings in the modernist style
occurred in cities with the greatest destruction -
Berlin and Le Havre. On these giant construction sites
large international teams worked
famous modernist architects - Hans Scharoun,
Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Oscar Niemeyer,
Pier Luigi Nervi, Marcel Breuer, Auguste Perret, Bernard
Zehrfuss and many others.
Basic principles of architectural modernism:
use of the most modernbuilding materials and structures,
rational approach to solution
internal spaces (functional
approach),
lack of decoration trends,
fundamental rejection of historical
reminiscences in the appearance of buildings,
their “international” character.
House of Vicens (1883-1888) Barcelona.
House of Vicens (18831888) Barcelona.Architect Antonio Gaudi
(1852-1926). House of Vicens
develops the theme of Arabic
fairy tales "A Thousand and One Nights".
Rounded towers, graceful
metal ornaments in
in the form of palm leaves
rhythmically alternating belts
arches, blind windows with wrought iron
bars... Creativity of A.
Gaudi threw
a kind of bridge from
Casa Batllo (1904-1906) Barcelona.
Casa Batllo (19041906) Barcelona.Bluish-green facade of the House
Batllo resembles something foamed
sea wave, then splashes
volcanic lava, then skin
strange animals.
Sagrada Familia (1883-1926) Barcelona.
Gaudi's main creation is the cathedralSagrada Familia (St.
family), which he did not have time
complete during your lifetime. By design
he was supposed to be
architectural embodiment
stories of the New Testament. Facade
The cathedral consists of three portals,
symbolizing Faith, Hope
and Love. Middle represents
a deep grotto of Bethlehem; He
House of Tassel (1892-1893) Luxembourg.
House of Tassel (18921893) Luxembourg.Architect Victor Orta. (1861-1947). "A perfect architect
art modernism" is called a Belgian architect
Victor Orta. Tassel's house is rightfully considered the first example of "
pure modernism", which brought worldwide fame and glory
aspiring architect.
Skyscrapers in Chicago, USA.
Architect LouisSullivan. (18561924).
Chicago architect Louis's first skyscraper
Sullivan in the city of St. Louis produced
a real revolution in architecture. Steel
frames with vertical structures,
stuffed with high-speed elevators and other
technology, clearly challenged the classics.
Museum of Modern Art, New York (1943-1959).
ArchitectFrank Lloyd
Wright.
Museum contemporary art in New York is one of the
the first museums of modern art in the world. Now this
the museum, located in Manhattan, enjoys
deserved fame and is very popular among visitors.
Residential buildings in the modernist style. France.
Architect LeCorbusier (18871965)
House of the Singer company (1902-1904) St. Petersburg.
House of the Singer Company (1902-1904) St. Petersburg.
Architect Pavel Yulievich Syuzor. In Russia one of the most
notable and typical monuments of Art Nouveau is the Company House
"Singer" (now "House of Books") on Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg. On the one hand, the building is not connected with its surroundings
ensemble, which is considered a town planning mistake, on the other hand
On the other hand, this is an example of successful planning in difficult conditions
Kazansky railway station building. Moscow. (1902-1904)
Kazansky buildingstation. Moscow. (19021904)
Architect A.V.
Shchusev
Modernist movements in the literature of the 20s expressed very significant facets of the worldview of the people of this era - that worldview that was in certain opposition to the prevailing political, social, and philosophical attitudes.
Modernism creates a different concept of man than in realism, designates the coordinates of his character differently and perceives reality differently. It is inappropriate to see in it only formal devices - non-life-like poetics, alogism of images, “abstractness”, etc. Behind the form lies new content: modernism offers different character motivations, perceives reality as fantastic and illogical. “Nowadays, the only fiction is yesterday’s life on strong whales,” wrote Evgeniy Zamyatin, one of the few writers who managed to literary situation 20s justify theoretical principles new art, which he called “synthetism.” - Today - The Apocalypse can be published as a daily newspaper; tomorrow - we will quite calmly buy a place in a sleeping car to Mars. Einstein tore the very space and time from their anchors. And art that has grown out of this, today’s reality, how can it not be fantastic, like a dream?”
Zamyatin saw the origins of the crisis of realistic art and the emergence next to it of modernism as a new artistic worldview not only in the fantastic nature of everyday life, but also in the new philosophical coordinate system in which the person of the 20th century found himself. “After the geometric-philosophical earthquake produced by Einstein, the old space and time finally perished,” states the writer. “We, read through Schopenhauer, Kant, Einstein, symbolism, know: the world, the thing in itself, reality is not at all what is seen.”
Having rejected the strict cause-and-effect conditionality of realistic aesthetics, the literature of modernism also rejected the fatal dependence of man on the environment, social or historical, affirmed by realism. This, if you like, was one of the attempts to preserve sovereignty human personality, her right to freedom from the circumstances of historical time, the aggressiveness of which in the 20th century in relation to privacy person became especially obvious. This need to defend the natural rights of the hero (and, therefore, real person) forced the non-realist artist to turn to the dystopian genre. E. Zamyatin’s novel “We” (1921) is one of the most famous dystopias of the 20th century. It shows what will happen to society if it destroys the personal, individual principle in people and turns them into absolutely interchangeable “numbers”. A community that has subjected its individuals to complete biological identification is depicted in Zamyatin’s novel.
In the literature of the 20s, two main trends are distinguishable: on the one hand, reckless acceptance of social transformations, on the other, doubt about their humanism and expediency. One of the most prominent “doubting” writers in the 20s was B. Pilnyak. In the novel “The Naked Year” (1921-1923), which became a landmark for new literature, Pilnyak demonstratively abandoned realistic poetics. As a result, the plot of his work lost its traditional organizing role for realism. In Pilnyak, its function is performed by leitmotifs, and different fragments of the narrative are held together by associative connections. The reader is presented with a series of such disparate descriptions of reality. The deliberate lack of structure of the composition is emphasized by the writer even in the titles of the chapters, which seem to be of a draft nature: “Chapter VII (last, untitled),” or “Last triptych (material, in essence).” Scattered pictures of reality, endlessly alternating, are designed to convey an existence that has not yet taken shape - broken by the revolution, but not settled, not having acquired internal logic, and therefore chaotic, absurd and random.
The “brokenness” and fragmentation of the composition of “The Naked Year” is due to the absence in the novel of such a point of view on what is happening that could connect the incompatible for Pilnyak: the leather jackets of the Bolsheviks (a household name for the literature of the 20s) and the revelry of the Russian freemen; China Town and village bathhouse; a heated carriage and a provincial merchant's house. Only the presence of such a compositional point of view, in which the “ideological center” of the work would be expressed, would be able to unite and explain the phenomena scattered by Pilnyak in the epic space of his novel.
Such an ideological center is suggested by the literature of socialist realism. Pilnyak in the 20s could not or did not want to find him. The absence of such an ideological center is, as it were, compensated by the presence in the novel of many points of view on what is happening, which are not possible to reduce and combine. Their abundance emphasizes the destruction big picture world, presented in "The Naked Year". The “Necessary Note” to the “Introduction” directly formulates the desire to connect the reality that is disintegrating before our eyes with several points of view - and the objective impossibility of doing this. “The Whites left in March - and it’s March for the plant. For the city (the city of Ordynin) - July, and for villages and towns - all year. However, to everyone - through his eyes, his instrumentation and his month. The city of Ordynin and the Taezhevsky factories are nearby and a thousand miles away from everywhere. “Donat Ratchin - killed by whites: everything about him.”
The short and seemingly completely meaningless “Necessary Note” expresses the essence of the writer’s concept of the world and man. The world is destroyed and contradictory: spatial relations reveal their inconsistency or, at best, relativity (the city and factories are nearby and a thousand miles away from everywhere); traditional logic, built on cause-and-effect relationships, is deliberately blown up. The solution is to offer each hero his own point of view on this crumpled and illogical world: “To each - through his eyes, his instrumentation and his month.” However, disparate points of view are not able to connect fragments of reality into a coherent picture. Many positions incompatible with each other in the artistic world of “The Naked Year” make up an insoluble compositional equation.
Therefore, the novel declares a refusal realistic principles typification, rejection of conditioned patterns. Circumstances are no longer capable of shaping character. They appear as not connected by any logical connection, as disparate fragments of reality.
Therefore, Pilnyak seeks character motivation not in the sphere of the hero’s social and interpersonal connections, but in his very personality. This explains the writer’s attraction to elements of naturalism. The rejection of the eschatological scale of the vision of the world (it was in such a globalist perspective that the revolution was understood in the early 20s) shakes off cultural, moral and other guidelines from a person, revealing “natural principles”, mainly gender. These are physiological instincts in the most obvious and undisguised form: they are practically uncontrollable social status person, culture, upbringing. Such instincts motivate Pilnyak’s behavior both of the hero and of entire masses of people.
And yet, in The Naked Year, Boris Pilnyak outlines at least a hypothetical possibility of synthesizing the fragments of reality split by the revolution. The point of view that provides such a perspective is the position of the Bolsheviks, although it is clearly incomprehensible to the writer. “In the Ordynins’ house, in the executive committee (there were no geraniums on the windows) - people in leather jackets, Bolsheviks, gathered upstairs. These here, in leather jackets, each one is tall, handsome leather, each one is strong, and the curls under the cap are ringed at the back of the head, each one has tightly drawn cheekbones, the folds of the lips, each one has ironed movements. From the loose, clumsy Russian people - selection. You won't get wet in leather jackets. So we know, so we want, so we set it - and that’s it.”
But Pilnyak’s famous “leather jackets” were also only an abstract image. The collective nature of the portrait, its deliberate, fundamental emphasis on appearance, emphasizing determination as the only dominant character could not make the point of view of the “leather jackets” the ideological center that would consolidate the narrative and synthesize disparate pictures of reality. If their point of view became dominant, then the conflict between them and ordinary people (private residents, men and women) would be covered in the same way as in Yu. Libedinsky’s “Week”. The absence of this ideological center in Pilnyak’s novel becomes the fundamental line that separates the aesthetics of socialist realism from modernism.
It is characteristic that admiration and fear of the unbending will of the Bolsheviks will appear not only in “The Naked Year”, but also in “The Tale unextinguished moon"(1927), which played a fatal role in the life of the writer. Its plot is based on true story killing the hero Civil War Frunze on the operating table: the operation to remove a long-healed stomach ulcer was performed, according to the rumors that were actively circulating at the time, on Stalin’s orders. Contemporaries easily recognized him in the image of a non-hunched Man, and in the unfortunate army commander Gavrilov they found features of the late Frunze. The powers that be were so frightened by the appearance of this story that the edition of Novy Mir, where it was published, was confiscated, and Voronsky, to whom Pilnyak dedicated his work, publicly refused the dedication.
It can be assumed that in “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon” Pilnyak makes an attempt to go beyond the boundaries of modernist aesthetics. This can be done by placing fragments of reality into a single outline, plot, system of events, that is, creating a kind of semantic center that explains reality. The image of a non-hunched Man appears as such an ideological center in the story. It is he, sitting in his office at night, who confronts living and natural life, “when thousands of people crowded into the cinema, theaters, variety shows, taverns and pubs, when crazy cars ate up street puddles with their lanterns, carving out crowds of bizarre people with these lanterns on the sidewalks.” in the lantern light of people - when in the theaters, confusing time, space and countries, unprecedented Greeks, Assyrians, Russian and Chinese workers, Republicans of America and the USSR, the actors in every way forced the audience to go wild and applaud.
This picture, painted with bright strokes superimposed on each other, is opposed to the world of sober affairs and calculation, the world of a non-hunching Man. Everything in this world is subject to a strict outline: “The milestones of his speech were - the USSR, America, England, - globe and the USSR, English sterling and Russian pounds of wheat, American heavy industry and Chinese workers. The man spoke loudly and firmly, and his every phrase was a formula.”
Let us note that in the two quotes given, Pilnyak deliberately juxtaposes the impressionistic and “contour” pictures of reality, living life and solid, sober calculation. The last one wins. Trying to introduce into his artistic world some kind of organizing principle, capable of collecting disparate pictures of existence into something holistic, Pilnyak almost fatally from leather jackets, in the affairs and plans of which he saw the prospect of overcoming chaos, comes to the image of a non-hunching Man. This hero, as if rising above the artistic world of the story, imposes a rigid outline on living life, as if immobilizing it, depriving it of internal, albeit chaotic, freedom. This conflict is expressed not only at the level of the plot, in the terrible fate of the commander Gavrilov - Frunze, but also at other levels of poetics: modernist incompleteness collides with the plot-scheme, multi-colored floating strokes - with a gray outline. Having found an organizing ideological center, Pilnyak was horrified by it, did not accept it, pushed it away, remaining in his subsequent works within the framework of modernism. Art world B. Pilnyak, with all its external amorphousness, fragmentation, and randomness, was a reflection of the flow of living life, disrupted by the tragic historical vicissitudes of Russian reality of the 10-20s.
Pilnyak was, in principle, unable to model reality, to show it not as it is, but as it should be - therefore, the introduction of any ideological center into compositional structure the work was basically impossible. The idea of obligation and normativity, characteristic of socialist realism, an orientation toward a certain ideal that will someday be realized, was interpreted by him in art as false and contrary to artistic truth.
Pilnyak did not organically tolerate lies. “I take newspapers and books, and the first thing that strikes me is lies everywhere, in work, in public life, V family relationships. Everyone lies: the communists, the bourgeois, the workers, and even the enemies of the revolution, the entire Russian nation.” The words spoken by one of the writer’s heroes accurately characterize the position of the author himself, who in the story “Spattered Time” (1924) defined both his place in art and the place of literature in the life of society: “I have had the bitter glory of being a person who goes to trouble. And I also had bitter glory - my duty is to be a Russian writer and to be honest with myself and with Russia.”
At the beginning of the twentieth century, traditional forms of art, such as realism and romanticism, could no longer convey all the realities of the new life. As the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset aptly put it, the new art was based on the “absolute negation of the old.” To designate this period of culture, as well as the totality of new movements in art that have existed since late XIX Art. and, at least until the 50-60s of the XX century, most researchers use the concept of “modernism”.
Modernism is a general name for literary trends and movements of the twentieth century, which are characterized by attempts to display new phenomena in the life of society using new artistic means.
Modernists, unlike realists, defended the special mission of the artist, capable of foreseeing the path of development new culture. Realistic means of expression are, in their opinion, outdated and not convincing enough to convey state of mind a person who finds himself alone with problems in this hostile world. At the same time, the American scientist John Miller emphasized that “modernism can be considered a rebellion against “realism,” but not against “reality.” Modernists proclaimed the value and self-sufficiency of the individual, looked for special artistic media to display the entire complex of contradictions of the twentieth century. They were not characterized by an appeal to existing reality, at the same time they rejected the romantic departure from the realities of life, they were not interested in the objective world, they were passionate about “creating a new reality,” and the more implausible it was, the more definite it appeared in the imagination of modernists .
In the works of modernism, reality found its embodiment with the help of new artistic techniques, for example, such as " stream of consciousness”, which directly conveys the process of the character’s inner speech during his collision with reality, or “montage”, which, as in cinema, is based on the combination of various themes, images and fragments and is a way of understanding the world.
Among the first representatives of modernism in world literature were the Irish James Joyce, French Marcel Proust and the Austrian Franz Kafka. They were responsible for a number of important creative discoveries, on the basis of which entire literary trends and movements later began to appear. Material from the site
In poetry of the first half of the twentieth century, the same changes occurred as in prose. Poetic experiments of a Spaniard Federico Garcia Lorca, French Fields of Eluard, Anglo-American Thomas Eliot, Austrians Georg Trakl And Rainer Maria Rilke, Czech Vitezslava Nezvala, Poles Juliana Tuwima And Galczynski constants, as well as many others, contributed to the changes artistic form lyrics. Under the influence of the synthesis of various types of arts, poetry became more and more elegant. As the embodiment of the long-standing dream of many poets, musicians and artists about the synthesis of arts, figurative (visual) poetry also appeared. French lyricist Guillaume Apollinaire I even came up with a special term for such texts “ calligram"(from Greek. callis - beautiful and gramma - writing). The poet declared: “Calligram is a comprehensive artistry, the advantage of which is that it creates a visual lyricism that has hitherto been almost unknown. This art is fraught with enormous possibilities; its pinnacle can be a synthesis of music, painting, and literature.” Such design of the text, in his opinion, is necessary “so that the reader perceives the entire poem at first glance, just as a conductor takes in the musical notes of the score at one glance.”
In an effort to penetrate the reader’s subconscious, modernist poets increasingly gravitated towards subjectivism, image-symbols, encryptedness, and actively used the free (without a specific meter or rhyme) form of the poem vers libre.
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- concept of modernism
- Briefly about modernism in literature.
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- modernism in Russian literature essay
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