As you already know, on turn of XIX-XX centuries, the aesthetic system of Russian realism was significantly updated. Traditional realism, as it had developed in the previous century, was gripped by crisis phenomena. But the crisis was in in this case fruitful, and realistic aesthetics emerged from it renewed. 20th century realism changed the traditional system of character motivation. The understanding of the environment that shapes personality has expanded extremely: history and global historical processes now act as typical circumstances. The man (and literary hero) now found himself face to face with history itself. This reflected the trust of realist artists in the individual. At the same time, in the process of artistic exploration of the changing world, the dangers facing the individual were revealed. The most important thing for a person was under threat: his private existence.
In the 20th century, the right to private existence was questioned. Man found himself drawn into the cycle of historical events by reality - often against his own will. History itself seemed to form typical circumstances, the aggressive influence of which the literary hero was subjected to.
IN XIX literature century, the right of private existence was declared as natural and inalienable: after all, it was asserted by one’s destiny and social behavior “ extra person", similar to Onegin or Pechorin; it was argued by Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, preferring the sofa in the house on Gorokhovaya Street to the prospect civil service; it was affirmed by Fyodor Ivanovich Lavretsky, who secluded himself in a noble nest from the adversity that befell him.
M. Gorky played a major role in the development of realism at the beginning of the 20th century. Perhaps for the first time in Russian literary history this writer deprived his literary hero of the right to be Robinson - to be in society and at the same time outside of society. Historical time became in Gorky's epic the most important factor affecting character. None of his heroes could avoid interaction with him - sometimes positive, sometimes destructive. Tolstoy also had characters who seemed not to notice their surroundings as they walked up the career ladder: the Bergs, the Drubetskys, Helen. But if the Bergs and Kuragins could isolate themselves within their social clan, Gorky no longer left his heroes such a right. His characters cannot escape reality, even if they really want to.
Klim Samgin, the hero of the four-volume epic “The Life of Klim Samgin,” experiences the oppressive force of social circumstances, the real violence of the historical process, war, revolution. But this historical “violence”, studied by the writer, became precisely the factor that modified realism, giving it new and very powerful impulses of self-renewal. Having survived the painful crisis of the turn of the century, realism did not at all lose its position in literature; on the contrary, it led to amazing artistic discoveries, without which not only Russian, but also European culture new century. But realism has become completely different from what it was in the last century. The renewal of realism manifested itself primarily in the interpretation of the original literary direction the question of the interaction of characters and circumstances.
This interaction becomes truly bidirectional. Now it is not only the character that is influenced by the environment: the possibility and even the necessity of a “reverse” influence is affirmed - the hero on the environment. A new concept of personality is being formed: a person who does not reflect, but creates, realizing himself not in the sphere of private intrigue, but in the public arena.
The prospects for a good re-creation of the world opened up for the hero and the artist. But these hopes were not always destined to be realized. Perhaps future historians of Russian literature will call the period of the 20-30s a period of unfulfilled hopes, the bitter disappointment of which occurred in the second half of the century. Affirming the rights of the individual to transform the world, new literature It also asserted the rights of individuals to violence in relation to this world - even if it was carried out for good purposes.
The point is that revolution was conceived as the most accessible and natural form of this transformation. The next logical step was to justify revolutionary violence not only in relation to another person, but also in relation to the general foundations of existence. Violence was justified by a lofty goal: on the ruins of the old unjust world it was supposed to create a new, ideal world, a world based on goodness and justice.
Such a change in realistic aesthetics was associated with an attempt by realism to adapt to the worldview of a person in the 20th century, to new philosophical, aesthetic, and simply everyday realities. And updated realism, as we will conventionally call it, coped with this task and became adequate to the thinking of a person of the 20th century. In the 30s he reached his artistic peak: the epics of M. Gorky “The Life of Klim Samgin”, M. Sholokhov “ Quiet Don", A. Tolstoy's "Walking in Torment", novels by L. Leonov, K. Fedin and other realists.
But next to the updated realism in the 20s, an aesthetics different from it emerged, genetically, however, also going back to realism. In the 20s, it did not yet dominate, but was actively developing, as if in the shadow of renewed realism, the emergence of which gave undoubted artistic results. But it was precisely the new direction that brought into literature, first of all, the anti-humanistic pathos of violence against the individual, society, the desire to destroy the entire world around oneself in the name of a revolutionary ideal.
Research functions, traditional for realism, give way to purely illustrative functions, when the mission of literature is seen in the creation of some ideal model of the social and natural world. Faith in the ideal of tomorrow is so strong that a person, struck by a utopian idea, is ready to sacrifice the past and present only because they do not correspond to the ideal of the future. The principles of artistic typification are changing: this is no longer a study of typical characters in their interaction with a realistic environment, but an affirmation of normative (must be from the standpoint of a certain social ideal) characters in normative circumstances. We will call this aesthetic system, which is fundamentally different from the new realism, normativism.
The paradox of the situation was that neither public consciousness, nor in literary-critical usage did these two trends differ. On the contrary, both renewed realism and normativism were conceptualized indivisibly - as a single Soviet literature. In 1934, this non-distinction was consolidated by the general term - socialist realism. Since then, two different aesthetic systems, normative and realistic, which in many ways opposed each other, were thought of as an ideological and aesthetic unity.
Moreover, sometimes they coexisted in the work of the same author or even in the same work. An example of the latter is A. Fadeev’s novel “Destruction” (1927).
Like Gorky’s Pavel Vlasov, Fadeev’s favorite characters travel the path of moral rebirth. Having seen only the bad and dirty in life, Morozka joined the partisan detachment, as he himself says, not for the sake of the commander’s beautiful eyes, but in order to build a better, righteous life. By the end of the novel, he gets rid of his inherent anarchism, and for the first time experiences an unexpected feeling of love for Varya. The team has become family to him, and Morozka, without hesitation, gives his life for his comrades, warning the squad about the danger. Scout Metelitsa, who believed that he was deeply indifferent to people, stands up for the shepherd boy and, before his death, discovers that he loves the people around him.
A. Fadeev entrusts the role of an active educator of the masses to the detachment commander Levinson, behind whose frail appearance he sees spiritual strength and conviction in the need to transform the world in a revolutionary way.
Quite traditionally for Russian realistic literature, A. Fadeev debunks the individualist Mechika. Mechik’s romantic maximalism, his hovering over reality, his constant search for the exceptional - whether in private life or in social life - lead him to deny real existence, show inattention to the essential, inability to appreciate it and see beauty. So he rejects Varya’s love in the name of the beautiful stranger in the photograph, rejects the friendship of ordinary partisans and ultimately remains in the splendid isolation of a romantic. In essence, the author punishes him with betrayal precisely for this (as well as for his social alienation from ordinary partisans).
It is characteristic that the strongest parts of the novel contain psychological analysis character behavior. It is no coincidence that criticism unanimously noted the influence of the traditions of L. Tolstoy on the young Soviet writer.
At the same time, the idea of “social humanism,” when in the name of a higher goal one can sacrifice a person, an individual, brings A. Fadeev’s novel closer to normativism.
If the revolution is being made on behalf of and for the working people, then why does the arrival of Levinson’s detachment promise the Korean peasant and his entire family starvation? Because the highest social necessity (to feed the detachment and continue the journey to their own) is more important than “abstract humanism”: the life of the members of the detachment means more than the life of one Korean (or even his entire family). Yes, there's arithmetic! - I want to exclaim after Raskolnikov.
Doctor Stashinsky and Levinson come to the idea of the need to finish off the wounded partisan Frolov. His death is inevitable: the wound is fatal, and it is impossible to carry him with you - this will slow down the movement of the squad and can kill everyone. Leave it - it will go to the Japanese and accept even more terrible death. Making the decision easier for his hero, Fadeev forces Frolov himself to take poison, which looks almost like suicide.
In this part of the novel, Fadeev broke with the humanistic tradition of Russian realism, declaring a fundamentally new ethical system based on a strictly rational attitude towards both man and the world as a whole.
The ending of the novel sounds no less ambiguous. Levinson will remain to live “and fulfill his duties.” In order to gather another detachment from the still distant people whom he sees after the death of the detachment, people working on the land, threshing bread. To Fadeev, Levinson’s idea “to make [these peasants] the same close people as those eighteen who silently rode behind” and lead them along the roads of the Civil War - to a new defeat, because in such a war there are no winners and the final common defeat is inevitable.
However, it is possible that the artist triumphed over Fadeev the politician. After all, the novel is called “Destruction”, not “Victory”.
If A. Fadeev’s book contains both features of true realism and normativism, then Yu. Libedinsky’s story “The Week” (1922) was written exclusively in the traditions of normativism and utopianism. One of its heroes, the Bolshevik Stelmakhov, pronounces the following confessional monologue: “I hated in the revolution before I loved... And then only after I was beaten for Bolshevik agitation, after I was in Moscow in October , stormed the Kremlin and shot cadets, when I was not yet a member of the party and did not understand anything politically, then in moments of fatigue I began to imagine a distant rest ahead, like the kingdom of heaven for a Christian, distant, but certainly promised, if not to me, then to the future people, my sons or grandchildren... This is what communism will be... I don’t know what it will be like...”
The heroes of the story devote all their strength to the service of a beautiful, but completely unclear mythical future. This idea gives them the strength to transcend natural human feelings, such as pity for a defeated enemy, disgust at cruelty, fear of murder: “But when I feel sick from fatigue or the work is not going well, or someone needs to be shot, then I will think in my mind my warm word is communism, and exactly who will wave a red handkerchief at me.”
Behind this monstrous confession, which the hero and the author perceive as sublimely romantic, there is a utopian worldview in its most terrible and cruel form. It was this that became the ideological justification for socialist realism.
Reality in the new aesthetics was perceived as a hostile, inert, conservative principle in need of radical alteration. Highest value For a writer of a new direction, the future turned out to be ideal and devoid of contradictions, existing, naturally, only in the project. This project was also poorly detailed, but it justified any violence against the present.
How did the formation of a new view of the world take place in socialist realism? First of all, it should be noted that in the literature of the 20s a new concept of personality emerged. The inclusion of a person in the historical process, the establishment of his direct contacts with the “macroenvironment” paradoxically devalues the hero, he seems to be deprived of self-worth and turns out to be significant only insofar as he contributes to historical movement forward. Such devaluation is possible due to the finalist concept of history, which is increasingly spreading in society. History in this interpretation receives meaning and significance only insofar as it moves towards a “golden age”, localized somewhere far ahead.
Moreover, the hero himself is aware of the absolute value of the future and the very relative value of his own personality, and is ready to consciously and completely calmly sacrifice himself. The extreme form of such an anti-humanistic position was embodied (quite sympathetic to the hero’s ideas) by the writer A. Tarasov-Rodionov in the story “Chocolate,” which tells how the Chekist Zudin decides to sacrifice his life, but not to cast even a shadow on the Cheka uniform. Accused of bribery, Zudin was sentenced to death. And for his comrades, who were confident in his innocence, but nevertheless passed a death sentence, and for himself, this decision seems to be the only correct one: it is better to sacrifice his life than to give even the slightest reason for philistine rumors.
The romanticization of the future, its sharp contrast to the present, and the eventual creation of the myth of the “golden age” is the most important feature of the aesthetics of socialist realism. In its most naked form, this idea was stated by A.V. Lunacharsky in the article “Socialist Realism.”
Only the future, from the point of view of a Marxist theorist, is the only worthy subject of depiction. “Imagine,” says A.V. Lunacharsky, as if justifying aesthetic principles"golden age" - that a house is being built, and when it is built, it will be a magnificent palace. But it is still unfinished, and you will draw it in this form and say: “Here is your socialism,” but there is no roof. You will, of course, be a realist, you will tell the truth: but it is immediately obvious that this truth is in fact not true. The socialist truth can only be told by those who understand what kind of house is being built, how it is built, who understands that it will have a roof. A person who does not understand development will never see the truth, because truth is not like itself, it does not sit still, truth flies, truth is development, truth is conflict, truth is struggle, truth is tomorrow, and you need to see it that way, and whoever doesn’t see it that way is a bourgeois realist, and therefore a pessimist, a whiner and often a swindler and falsifier, and in any case a voluntary or unwitting counter-revolutionary and saboteur.”
The above quote is very important for understanding the basic idea of socialist realism. First of all, new functions of art are established in comparison with traditional realism: not the study of real conflicts and contradictions of the time, but the creation of a model of an ideal future, a model of a “magnificent palace”. Research, cognitive function literature fades into the background or even into the background; the main function is to promote what a wonderful house will someday be built on the site of real, currently existing dwellings.
These ideas, immediately incorporated into the program of the new direction, awakening and developing more and more actively, turned out to be a kind of “cancer cells” of the new art. It was they who led to the degeneration of new realism into normative non-realistic aesthetics during the 20-50s. It is the order to see not reality, but a project, not what is, but what should be, that leads to loss realistic principles typification: the artist no longer explores characters, but creates them in accordance with the prescribed norm and thereby turns them into primitive social masks (enemy, friend, communist, layman, middle peasant, kulak, specialist, saboteur, etc.).
Normativity transforms the very concept of artistic truth. The monopoly on truth now belongs to those who can see the “truth” tomorrow" And those who cannot do this portray reality as it is - “often a swindler and falsifier, and in any case a voluntary or involuntary counter-revolutionary and saboteur.” Normativity is no longer interpreted only as an aesthetic, but also as a political requirement.
Thus, art turns out to be a tool for creating artistic myth capable of organizing society, distracting it from real problems life. Its goal is precisely defined: it is violence against reality with the aim of reconstructing it, “raising a new person,” for “art has not only the ability to orient, but also to form.” This provision would later, in 1934, be included in a modified form in the Charter of the Union of Writers of the USSR: the “task of ideological reworking and education of working people in the spirit of socialism” would be declared as the most important for socialist realism.
The question of the artist’s creative freedom occupied a special place in normative aesthetics. “Socialist realism provides artistic creativity with an exceptional opportunity to demonstrate creative initiative, to choose diverse forms, styles, and genres,” said the Charter of the Writers’ Union. It is characteristic that the artist’s freedom is localized only in the sphere of form - but not content. The content sphere is strictly regulated by ideas about the functions of art, which are seen in the creation of an idealized image of the future. Such a super task determines the style of a particular work, its entire poetics. The conflict and the ways to resolve it are determined in advance. The social roles of the heroes are pre-described: a leader, a specialist, a communist, a sneaking enemy, a woman gaining her human dignity...
Realism, as we know, appeared in Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century and throughout the century existed within the framework of its critical movement. However, symbolism, which declared itself in the 1890s, was the first modernist movement in Russian literature - sharply opposed himself to realism. Following symbolism, other non-realistic trends arose. This inevitably led to qualitative transformation of realism as a method of depicting reality.
Symbolists expressed the opinion that realism only skims the surface of life and is not able to penetrate to the essence of things. Their position was not infallible, but since then it began in Russian art confrontation and mutual influence of modernism and realism.
It is noteworthy that modernists and realists, while outwardly striving for demarcation, internally had a common desire for a deep, essential knowledge of the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that the writers of the turn of the century, who considered themselves realists, understood how narrow the framework of consistent realism was, and began to master syncretic forms of storytelling that allowed them to combine realistic objectivity with romantic, impressionistic and symbolist principles.
If the realists of the 19th century paid close attention social human nature, then realists of the twentieth century correlated this social nature with psychological, subconscious processes, expressed in the clash of reason and instinct, intellect and feeling. Simply put, the realism of the early twentieth century pointed to the complexity of human nature, which is by no means reducible only to his social existence. It is no coincidence that in Kuprin, and in Bunin, and in Gorky, the plan of events and the surrounding situation are barely outlined, but a sophisticated analysis is given mental life character. The author's gaze is always directed beyond the spatial and temporal existence of the heroes. Hence the emergence of folklore, biblical, cultural motifs and images, which made it possible to expand the boundaries of the narrative and attract the reader to co-creation.
At the beginning of the 20th century, within the framework of realism, four currents:
1) critical realism continues the traditions of the 19th century and assumes an emphasis on the social nature of phenomena (at the beginning of the 20th century these were the works of A.P. Chekhov and L.N. Tolstoy),
2) socialist realism - a term by Ivan Gronsky, denoting an image of reality in its historical and revolutionary development, an analysis of conflicts in the context of class struggle, and the actions of heroes - in the context of benefits for humanity ("Mother" by M. Gorky, and subsequently most of his works Soviet writers),
3) mythological realism took shape in ancient literature, but in the 20th century under M.R. began to understand the depiction and understanding of reality through the prism of well-known mythological plots (in foreign literature a shining example serves as the novel "Ulysses" by J. Joyce, and in Russian literature of the early 20th century - the story "Judas Iscariot" by L.N. Andreeva)
4) naturalism involves depicting reality with the utmost plausibility and detail, often unsightly ("The Pit" by A.I. Kuprin, "Sanin" by M.P. Artsybashev, "Notes of a Doctor" by V.V. Veresaev)
The listed features of Russian realism caused numerous disputes about the creative method of writers who remained faithful to realistic traditions.
Bitter begins with neo-romantic prose and comes to the creation of social plays and novels, becoming the founder of socialist realism.
Creation Andreeva was always in a borderline state: modernists considered him a “despicable realist,” and for realists, in turn, he was a “suspicious symbolist.” At the same time, it is generally accepted that his prose is realistic, and his dramaturgy gravitates toward modernism.
Zaitsev, showing interest in the microstates of the soul, created impressionistic prose.
Attempts by critics to define artistic method Bunina led to the writer himself comparing himself to a suitcase covered with a huge number of labels.
The complex worldview of realist writers and the multidirectional poetics of their works testified to the qualitative transformation of realism as an artistic method. Thanks to a common goal - the search for the highest truth - at the beginning of the 20th century there was a rapprochement between literature and philosophy, which began in the works of Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy.
19. THE MODERN ERA IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE. MAIN CURRENTS AND THEIR FEATURES...
Modernism is a single artistic stream. The branches of modernism: symbolism, acmeism and futurism - had their own characteristics.
In Russia, symbolism arose in the 90s. 19th century and at its initial stage (K. D. Balmont, early V. Ya. Bryusov and A. Dobrolyubov, and later B. Zaitsev, I. F. Annensky, Remizov) developed a style of decadent impressionism, similar to French symbolism.
Russian symbolists of the 1900s. (V. Ivanov, A. Bely, A. A. Blok, as well as D. S. Merezhkovsky, S. Solovyov and others), trying to overcome pessimism and passivity, proclaimed the slogan of effective art, the predominance of creativity over knowledge.
The material world is depicted by symbolists as a mask through which the otherworldly shines through. Dualism finds expression in the two-plane composition of novels, dramas and “symphonies”. The world of real phenomena, everyday life or conventional fiction is depicted grotesquely, discredited in the light of “transcendental irony”. Situations, images, their movement receive a double meaning: in terms of what is depicted and in terms of what is commemorated.
A symbol is a bundle of meanings that diverge in different directions. The symbol's task is to present matches.
Symbolism also creates its own words - symbols. First, high poetic words are used for such symbols, then simple ones. Symbolists believed that it was impossible to exhaust the meaning of a symbol.
Symbolism avoids the logical disclosure of the topic, turning to the symbolism of sensual forms, the elements of which receive a special semantic richness. Logically inexpressible “secret” meanings “shine through” the material world of art. By putting forward sensory elements, symbolism moves away at the same time from the impressionistic contemplation of scattered and self-sufficient sensory impressions, into the motley stream of which symbolization introduces a certain integrity, unity and continuity.
The task of the symbolists is to show that the world is full of secrets that cannot be discovered.
The lyrics of symbolism are often dramatized or acquire epic features, revealing the structure of “generally significant” symbols, rethinking the images of ancient and Christian mythology. The genre of religious poem, symbolically interpreted legend is being created (S. Solovyov, D. S. Merezhkovsky). The poem loses its intimacy and becomes like a sermon, a prophecy (V. Ivanov, A. Bely).
New modernist movement acmeism, appeared in Russian poetry in the 1910s. as a contrast to extreme symbolism. Translated from Greek, the word “akme” means the highest degree of something, blossoming, maturity. The Acmeists advocated the return of images and words to their original meaning, for art for art's sake, for the poeticization of human feelings. Refusal of mysticism was the main feature of the Acmeists.
For the Symbolists, the main thing is rhythm and music, the sound of the word, while for the Acmeists it is form and eternity, objectivity.
In 1912, poets S. Gorodetsky, N. Gumilyov, O. Mandelstam, V. Narbut, A. Akhmatova, M. Zenkevich and some others united in the “Workshop of Poets” circle.
The founders of Acmeism were N. Gumilyov and S. Gorodetsky. The Acmeists called their work the highest point in achieving artistic truth. They did not deny symbolism, but were against the fact that the symbolists paid so much attention to the world of the mysterious and unknown. The Acmeists pointed out that the unknowable, by the very meaning of the word, cannot be known. Hence the desire of the Acmeists to free literature from those obscurities that were cultivated by the symbolists, and to restore clarity and accessibility to it. The Acmeists tried with all their might to return literature to life, to things, to man, to nature. Thus, Gumilev turned to the description of exotic animals and nature, Zenkevich - to the prehistoric life of the earth and man, Narbut - to everyday life, Anna Akhmatova - to in-depth love experiences.
The desire for nature, for the “earth,” led the Acmeists to a naturalistic style, to concrete imagery, and objective realism, which determined a whole range of artistic techniques. In the poetry of the Acmeists, “heavy, weighty words” predominate; the number of nouns significantly exceeds the number of verbs.
Having carried out this reform, the Acmeists otherwise agreed with the Symbolists, declaring themselves their students. The other world for Acmeists remains the truth; only they do not make it the center of their poetry, although the latter is sometimes not alien to mystical elements. Gumilyov’s works “The Lost Tram” and “At the Gypsies” are completely permeated with mysticism, and in Akhmatova’s collections, like “The Rosary,” love-religious experiences predominate.
The Acmeists returned everyday scenes.
The Acmeists were by no means revolutionaries in relation to symbolism, and never considered themselves as such; They set as their main task only the smoothing out of contradictions and the introduction of amendments.
In the part where the Acmeists rebelled against the mysticism of symbolism, they did not oppose the latter to real real life. Having rejected mysticism as the main leitmotif of creativity, Acmeists began to fetishize things as such, unable to approach reality synthetically and understand its dynamics. For Acmeists, things in reality have meaning in themselves, in a static state. They admire individual objects of existence, and perceive them as they are, without criticism, without attempts to understand them in relationship, but directly, in an animal way.
Basic principles of Acmeism:
Refusal of symbolist calls for the ideal, mystical nebula;
Acceptance of the earthly world as it is, in all its color and diversity;
Returning a word to its original meaning;
A depiction of a person with his true feelings;
Poeticization of the world;
Incorporating associations with previous eras into poetry.
Acmeism did not last very long, but made a great contribution to the development of poetry.
Futurism(translated as future) is one of the movements of modernism that originated in the 1910s. It is most clearly represented in the literature of Italy and Russia. On February 20, 1909, the article “Manifesto of Futurism” by T. F. Marinetti appeared in the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro. Marinetti in his manifesto called for abandoning the spiritual and cultural values of the past and building a new art. The main task of futurists is to identify the gap between the present and the future, to destroy everything old and build a new one. Provocations were part of their lives. They opposed bourgeois society.
In Russia, Marinetti's article was published on March 8, 1909 and marked the beginning of the development of its own futurism. The founders of the new trend in Russian literature were the brothers D. and N. Burliuk, M. Larionov, N. Goncharova, A. Ekster, N. Kulbin. In 1910, one of the first futuristic poems by V. Khlebnikov, “The Spell of Laughter,” appeared in the collection “Impressionist Studio.” In the same year, a collection of futurist poets, “The Judges’ Tank,” was published. It contained poems by D. Burliuk, N. Burliuk, E. Guro, V. Khlebnikov, V. Kamensky.
Futurists experience a deformation of language and grammar. Words pile on top of each other, rushing to convey the author’s momentary feelings, so the work looks like a telegraph text. Futurists abandoned syntax and stanzas and came up with new words that, in their opinion, better and more fully reflected reality.
The futurists attached special significance to the seemingly meaningless title of the collection. For them, the fish tank symbolized the cage into which the poets were driven, and they called themselves the judges.
In 1910, the Cubo-Futurists united into a group. It included the Burliuk brothers, V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky, E. Guro, A. E. Kruchenykh. Cubo-futurists defended the word as such, “the word is higher than the meaning,” “the abstruse word.” Cubo-futurists destroyed Russian grammar, replacing phrases with combinations of sounds. They believed that the more disorder in a sentence, the better.
In 1911, I. Severyanin was one of the first in Russia to proclaim himself an ego-futurist. He added the word “ego” to the term “futurism.” Egofuturism can literally be translated as “I am the future.” A circle of followers of egofuturism rallied around I. Severyanin; in January 1912 they proclaimed themselves the “Academy of Ego Poetry.” Egofuturists have enriched their vocabulary with a large number of foreign words and new formations.
In 1912, the futurists united around the Petersburg Herald publishing house. The group included: D. Kryuchkov, I. Severyanin, K. Olimpov, P. Shirokov, R. Ivnev, V. Gnedov, V. Shershenevich.
In Russia, futurists called themselves “Budetlyans,” poets of the future. Futurists, captivated by dynamism, were no longer satisfied with the syntax and vocabulary of the previous era, when there were no cars, no telephones, no phonographs, no cinemas, no airplanes, no electric railways, no skyscrapers, no subways. The poet, filled with a new sense of the world, has a wireless imagination. The poet puts fleeting sensations into the accumulation of words.
Futurists were passionate about politics.
All these directions radically renew the language, the feeling that old literature cannot express the spirit of modernity.
Art Nouveau style is one of the early directions of such a global artistic trend as modernism in art. Thanks to modernism, the artist went beyond traditional realism, discovering something fundamentally new. Our modern culture owes much to such a concept as modernism in fine arts. Artists of the Art Nouveau era, for the most part, I’m not afraid of this word, are geniuses, and rightfully deserve their place in history. But first things first...
The Art Nouveau style in art arose at the end of the nineteenth century: then artists tried to create something original from disparate but generally accepted trends, to give their works some conventionality and abstraction. It is worth mentioning, however, that the term “modern” (French modern - new) is inherent only in Russian culture, since at the end of the nineteenth century Russia had its own modernity in art. In France this style was called Art Nouveau, in Germany and Scandinavia - Art Nouveau. The principles of modernism are based on the idea of the inability of the art of previous eras to fight unfreedom, inhumanity, social injustice, and the inability to capture all this. The main features of modernism are that the artist directs his subjective will to fight cruel reality, thereby erasing the boundaries of previous ideals.
Modernism in fine art is a cultural layer that covers many concepts, such as impressionism, expressionism, cubism, futurism. And also some later movements: surrealism, Dadaism and so on. The following labored in this field: famous artists Art Nouveau era, such as: Alphonse Mucha, Paul Gauguin, Edvard Munch and others. All these are pretty famous people are not simply associated with the concept of modernity in the fine arts, but are already synonymous with it.
Here we should turn directly to the work of Alphonse Mucha, a Czech by birth, who gained worldwide fame in France. The so-called “Mukha style”, equated to the official name Art Nouveau, served as an example to follow for a whole generation of designers.
In the center of his posters, Mucha placed an idealized image of a woman: smooth lines, closeness to natural forms, rejection of pointed corners - these characteristic signs of Art Nouveau left an indelible impression in the minds of recipients. The female image itself was then used for advertising purposes for the first time, but history has shown how successful this experience has become, and is still used to this day by specialists from leading countries in the advertising industry such as the United States. However, we must pay tribute to Mucha: it is difficult to find the slightest hint of sweetness in his works, which cannot be said about his modern analogues. Perhaps the fact that the aesthetics of the Czech artist was formed under the influence of medieval subjects and Celtic mythology. This, on the one hand, introduced a variety of symbolism into his creations, and, on the other hand, contributed to the ornamental complexity of many posters. To organize the consideration of the background of Mucha’s works, it is necessary to introduce a conditional classification:
Floral motifs
Ornament
Ornament using mythical creatures
Mythological symbolism
Floral motifs borrowed from oriental culture, became an integral attribute of the paintings of the Art Nouveau era for many artists: floating stems and pale petals fully corresponded to the Art Nouveau concept, not only with their forms, but also with a combination of colors that had not been combined before. In Mukha’s works one can find clear confirmation of this: pastel colors, exotic shapes, as if repeating the image of a beautiful lady located in the foreground with her flying unrealistically long hair, dressed in light clothes, akin to Greek tunics - all this created a unique harmony and unity , caused by the interpenetration of elements female figure and background.
Moving on to the consideration of ornament, it should be noted that the most commonly used geometric figure in Mukha’s works the circle appears as a symbol of endless repetition, circulation, and also as a symbol of the feminine principle. Even the advertising inscriptions behind the image of the beautiful lady were located in a semicircle with smoothly outlined letters.
Another motif is a symbolic image of a horseshoe in an enlarged form, with a painted ornament inside. Here again lies a reference to the pagan worldview, not to mention the background images using mythical creatures. Mucha’s creative concept was reflected in every detail of the paintings and posters he created: an emotionally executed figure filled with strength, occupying most of space, would be unfinished without an appropriate background, combining the features of pictorial and applied arts. Mucha consciously sought a compromise between the Byzantine and Eastern principles, between modernity and rich mythological subjects; he turned exquisite portraits of women into works of mass art and succeeded in this: daily life has already absorbed new forms.
20. IMAGE OF A MAN AT A SHARP HISTORICAL TURN IN THE NOVEL "QUIET FON"
“Quiet Don” by M. Sholokhov is an epic novel that reveals the fate of the people during the First World War and the Civil War. Russian reality has placed at the author's disposal conflicts of this kind that humanity has not yet known. The old world was completely destroyed by the revolution; it is being replaced by a new social system. All this led to a qualitatively new solution to such “eternal” issues as man and history, war and peace, personality and people. The last problem for of this work is especially relevant.
“Quiet Don” is a novel about the fate of the people at a turning point. M. Sholokhov truthfully expressed his view of the revolution not from one side, as was the case in most books of that time, but from both: the bitterness of the tragedy, thoughts and feelings of the whole people, universal to mankind. Dramatic fates of the main characters, the cruel lessons of the fate of Grigory Melekhov, the main character of the novel, as well as Aksinya and Natalya, form in M. Sholokhov the unity of the life truth of the people at a historical turning point.
The action in the novel develops on two levels - historical and everyday, personal. But both of these plans are given in indissoluble unity. The patriarchal idyll of Melekhov's youth is destroyed on a personal level - by his love for Aksinya, on a social level - by Gregory's clash with the cruel contradictions of historical reality. The denouement of the novel is also organic. In personal terms, this is the death of Aksinya. In socio-historical terms, this is the defeat of the White Cossack movement and the final triumph Soviet power on the Don.
At the center of the novel is a tragic character - Grigory Melekhov. He personifies the tragedy of the people: this is the tragedy of those who did not realize the meaning of the revolution and opposed it, and those who succumbed to deception, the tragedy of many Cossacks drawn into the Veshensky uprising in 1919, the tragedy of the defenders of the revolution dying for the people's cause.
Grigory Melekhov is a gifted son of the people. First of all, he is an honest man - even in his mistakes. He never sought his own benefit and did not succumb to the temptation of profit and career. Being mistaken, Grigory Melekhov shed a lot of blood. His guilt is undeniable. He himself is aware of it.
But Grigory Melekhov cannot be approached unambiguously. It is impossible not to notice that he has absorbed a whole series of folk traditions: here is the code of military honor, and intense peasant labor, and daring in folk games and festivities, and familiarization with the rich Cossack folklore. From generation to generation, cultivated courage and bravery, nobility and generosity towards the defeated, contempt for cowardice and cowardice determined the behavior of Grigory Melekhov in all life circumstances.
In the novel, Ilyinichna and Natalya are the embodiment of folk morality and unbreakable principles of life. Ilyinichna - guardian family life. She consoles her Children when they feel bad, but she also judges them harshly when they commit unrighteous acts. Natalya suffers from Grigory’s dislike, and her suffering is marked by high moral purity.
The novel "Quiet Don" shows the greatest social change
in the fate of the people. Not only the death of the Cossacks as a class is depicted in the book. The greatness of M. Sholokhov is that he traces the life of the entire nation, the national destiny. Two worlds of ideas and beliefs collided, and steep historical fault lines occurred. M. Sholokhov's heroes unite the fundamental contradictions of the era and embody national spiritual qualities. This is the strength of Sholokhov's realism.
"Quiet Don" is called an epic tragedy. And not only because the tragic character is placed in the center - Grigory Melekhov, but also because the novel is permeated from beginning to end by tragic motives. This is a tragedy both for those who did not realize the meaning of the revolution and opposed it, and for those who succumbed to deception. This is the tragedy of many Cossacks drawn into the Veshensky uprising in 1919, the tragedy of the defenders of the revolution dying for the people's cause. The people, their past, present and future, their happiness - this is the main theme of the writer’s thoughts.
“Melekhovsky yard is on the very edge of the farmstead” - this is how the epic novel begins, and throughout the entire narrative Sholokhov will tell us about its inhabitants. The line of defense runs through the Melekhovs’ yard; it is occupied by either the Reds or the Whites, but father's house forever remains the place where the closest people live, always ready to receive and warm. Their life appears from the pages of the epic in an interweaving of contradictions, attractions and struggles. One could say that the whole family found itself at the crossroads of major historical events and bloody clashes.
The Revolution and Civil War bring drastic changes to the established family and everyday life of the Melekhovs: familiar family ties are destroyed, new morals and morality are born. The author of "Quiet Don", like no one else, managed to reveal inner world a man of the people, recreate Russian national character era of revolutionary rupture. First of all, we meet the head of the family - Pantelei Prokofievich. “Pantelei Prokofievich began to grow heavy down the slope of the sliding years: he spread out in width, slightly stooped, but still looked like a well-built old man.
He was bone-dry, lame (in his youth he broke his leg at an imperial horse racing show), wore a silver crescent-shaped earring in his left ear, his raven beard and hair did not fade into old age, and in anger he reached the point of unconsciousness...” Panteley Prokofievich stands guarding the old Cossack foundations, sometimes showing traits of a tough character that does not tolerate disobedience, but at the same time, at heart he is kind and sensitive. He knows how to manage the household efficiently, he works from dawn to dusk. He, and even more so his son Gregory, bears the reflection of the noble and proud nature of his grandfather Prokofy, who once challenged the patriarchal mores of the Tatarsky farm. Despite the intra-family split, Panteley Prokofievich tries to unite the pieces of the old way of life into one whole, if only for the sake of his grandchildren and children. And the fact that he dies outside the home that he loved more than anything in the world is the tragedy of a man from whom time has taken away the most precious things - family and shelter.
The father passed on the same all-consuming love for his home to his sons. “His eldest, already married son Petro resembled his mother: big, snub-nosed, in a violent manner wheat color hair, brown eyes, and the youngest, Grigory, looked like his father: half a head taller than Peter, at least six years younger, the same as his father’s, a drooping vulture nose, in slightly slanting slits, blue almonds of hot eyes, sharp slabs of cheekbones covered in brown blushing skin. Grigory slouched in the same way as his father, even in their smile they both had something in common, a little beastly.”
With great skill M. Sholokhov portrayed complex character Grigory Melekhov. He is a gifted son of the people, a sincere person, even in his delusions. He never sought his own benefit and did not succumb to the temptation of profit and career. Mistaken, Gregory shed a lot of blood from those who claimed new life on earth, His guilt is undeniable. He himself is aware of it. However, he cannot be judged unambiguously: an enemy, and nothing more. With special insight, Sholokhov showed the difficult path of the main character. At the beginning of the epic, he is an eighteen-year-old guy - cheerful, strong, handsome. Gregory is an exceptionally integral, pure nature. Here is the code of Cossack honor, and intense peasant labor, and daring in folk games and festivities, and familiarization with the rich Cossack folklore, and the feeling of first love. From generation to generation, cultivated courage and bravery, nobility and generosity towards the defeated, contempt for cowardice and cowardice determined Gregory’s behavior in all life circumstances. During the troubled days of revolutionary events, he makes many mistakes. But on the path of searching for truth, the Cossack is sometimes unable to comprehend the iron logic of the revolution, its internal laws. Grigory Melekhov is a proud, freedom-loving person and at the same time a truth-seeking philosopher. For him, the greatness and inevitability of the revolution must be revealed and proven by the entire subsequent course of life. Melekhov dreams of a system of life in which a person would be rewarded according to the measure of his intelligence, work and talent.
What struck me most about the novel was female images: Ilyinichna, Aksinya and Natalya. These women are completely different, but they are united by sublime moral beauty. The image of old Ilyinichna in the novel is filled with charm, personifying the difficult lot of a Cossack woman, her tall moral qualities. Pantelei Melekhov’s wife, Vasilisa Ilyinichna, is a native Cossack of the Upper Don region. Life with her husband was not sweet: sometimes, having flared up, he severely beat her; she grew old early, gained weight, suffered from illnesses, but remained a caring, energetic housewife. The reader is captivated by the image of Natalya, a woman of high moral purity and feeling: “her eyes shone with a radiant, quivering warmth.” Strong in character, she put up with the position of an unloved wife for a long time and still hoped for better share. But he can decisively stand up for himself and his children, authoritatively declare his right to a bright, real life. She curses and loves Gregory endlessly. With unprecedented depth in last days her life reveals the strength of spirit and the captivating moral purity of this heroine. Her happiness came to her. The family was restored, and thanks to Natalya’s asceticism, harmony and love reigned in it. She gave birth to twins: a son and a daughter. Natalya turned out to be just as loving, devoted and caring a mother as she was a wife. This beautiful woman is the embodiment dramatic fate a strong, beautiful, selflessly loving nature that can sacrifice everything, even life, in the name of a high feeling.
Aksinya’s love for Gregory on the pages of the novel borders on feat. And even though we have before us a simple semi-literate Cossack woman, we cannot forget how beautiful the inner world of this woman with a difficult fate is.
The heroes of Sholokhov's epic entered our lives as real people, live with us and among us. Unfortunately, the Melekhov family still broke up, but its members were able to create a hearth where the flame of love, warmth and mutual understanding will always glimmer, which will never go out.
For Sholokhov, a person is the most valuable thing on our planet, and the most important thing that helps shape a person’s soul is, first of all, his family, the house in which he was born, grew up, where he will always be expected and loved, and where he will definitely go will return. Two worlds of ideas and beliefs collided, and steep historical fault lines occurred. The heroes of the epic are contemporaries and participants in the turning points of the era, each of whom faced the need to determine their place in a new life, to find their truth. Using the example of the Melekhov family in “Quiet Don”, the greatest social turning point in the fate of the entire people, in the life of the entire nation, is shown.
21. IMAGE OF THE COSSACKS IN SHOLOKHOV’S NOVEL “QUIET FON”
Epic novel by M.A. Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" is rightfully considered his most significant and serious work. The author managed to convey life and everyday life surprisingly well Don Cossacks, the very spirit of it and connect it all with specific historical events. The epic captures a series of great upheavals in Russia. The shocks described in the novel greatly affected the fate of the Don Cossacks. The life of the Cossacks in that difficult time could not be more clearly defined. historical period, which Sholokhov reflected in the novel, eternal values. Love for one’s native land, respect for the older generation, love for a woman, the need for freedom are the basic values without which a free Cossack cannot imagine himself.
Cossacks are warriors and grain growers at the same time. These two concepts define the life of the Cossacks. It must be said that historically the Cossacks developed on the borders of Russia, where enemy raids were frequent, so the Cossacks were forced to take up arms in defense of their land, which was particularly fertile and rewarded the labor invested in it a hundredfold. Later, already under the rule of the Russian Tsar, the Cossacks existed as a privileged military class, which largely determined the preservation of ancient customs and traditions among the Cossacks. Sholokhov shows the Cossacks as very traditional. For example, from an early age, Cossacks get used to a horse, which is not just a tool for them, but a faithful friend in battle and comrade (the description of the crying hero Christoni after Voronok, taken away by the Reds, touches the heart). All of them are brought up in respect for their elders and unquestioning submission to them (Panteley Prokofievich could punish Grigory even when the latter had hundreds and thousands of people under his command). The Cossacks are governed by an ataman, elected by the military Cossack Circle, where Sholokhov’s Panteley Prokofievich is heading.
Teme civil war, which unfolded on the Don land, is dedicated to M. A. Sholokhov’s novel “Quiet Don”. Here they found a deep and comprehensive reflection of the unique way of life of the Cossacks, and their traditions, culture, way of life, language, and the unique Don nature. The novel is populated by many heroes, full of events in socio-political life, and pictures of peaceful labor. The epic depicts the history of the Cossacks during the turbulent decade from 1912 to 1922. The beginning of the novel depicts the life and customs of the Cossack village on the eve of the First World War, introducing readers into the world of intimate, personal problems of the heroes. The two epigraphs that precede the novel reveal the author’s ideological and artistic intent. The words of an ancient Cossack song precede the story about bloody battles, about the class divisions of the inhabitants of the Tatarsky farm, about the intense search by the heroes for their place in the turbulent revolutionary reality, about their ineradicable attraction to simple human happiness, to peaceful peasant labor on the wet-nurse earth.
Sholokhov the artist defeated Sholokhov the politician, showing the Cossacks in the revolution. What Soviet literary critics saw as the ideological weakness of the novel turned out to be its highest achievement. The life reflected in the novel turned out to be much more complex, confusing, and contradictory. Her palette was by no means limited to two colors - red and white. And the brightest, strongest and most attractive hero of the novel - the “irresponsible” middle peasant Grigory Melekhov - deeply feels and understands this truth, but in the most difficult conditions he cannot find a way out of the moral impasse. This is what makes him a tragically complex person. His image went down in history Russian literature like Pushkin’s Onegin, Lermontov’s Pechorin, Turgenev’s Bazarov, for he combined the best typical qualities of the Don Cossacks during the years of wars and upheavals of the early 20th century. His fate reflected the tragedy of millions captured by the formidable revolutionary elements. Grigory Melekhov serves either the Reds or the Whites. So, at the end of January 1918, he fought against Kaledin in the ranks of the Red Guard, and then for six months he fought against the Reds as part of the All-Great Don Army, subordinate to General Krasnov, and at the end of the winter of 1920/21 he went to Fomin’s gang.
…for me, imagination has always beenabove existence, and the strongest loveI experienced it in a dream.
L.N. Andreev
Realism, as we know, appeared in Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century and throughout the century existed within the framework of its critical movement. However, symbolism, which made itself known in the 1890s - the first modernist movement in Russian literature - sharply contrasted itself with realism. Following symbolism, other non-realistic trends arose. This inevitably led to qualitative transformation of realism as a method of depicting reality.
Symbolists expressed the opinion that realism only skims the surface of life and is not able to penetrate to the essence of things. Their position was not infallible, but since then it began in Russian art confrontation and mutual influence of modernism and realism.
It is noteworthy that modernists and realists, while outwardly striving for demarcation, internally had a common desire for a deep, essential knowledge of the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that the writers of the turn of the century, who considered themselves realists, understood how narrow the framework of consistent realism was, and began to master syncretic forms of storytelling that allowed them to combine realistic objectivity with romantic, impressionistic and symbolist principles.
If the realists of the 19th century paid close attention social nature of man, then realists of the twentieth century correlated this social nature with psychological, subconscious processes, expressed in the clash of reason and instinct, intellect and feeling. Simply put, the realism of the early twentieth century pointed to the complexity of human nature, which is by no means reducible only to his social existence. It is no coincidence that in Kuprin, Bunin, and Gorky, the plan of events and the surrounding situation are barely outlined, but a sophisticated analysis of the character’s mental life is given. The author's gaze is always directed beyond the spatial and temporal existence of the heroes. Hence the emergence of folklore, biblical, cultural motifs and images, which made it possible to expand the boundaries of the narrative and attract the reader to co-creation.
At the beginning of the 20th century, within the framework of realism, four currents:
1) critical realism continues the traditions of the 19th century and assumes an emphasis on the social nature of phenomena (at the beginning of the 20th century these were the works of A.P. Chekhov and L.N. Tolstoy),
2) socialist realism - a term by Ivan Gronsky, denoting an image of reality in its historical and revolutionary development, an analysis of conflicts in the context of class struggle, and the actions of heroes in the context of benefits for humanity ("Mother" by M. Gorky, and subsequently most of the works of Soviet writers),
3) mythological realism took shape in ancient literature, but in the 20th century under M.R. began to understand the depiction and understanding of real reality through the prism of well-known mythological plots (in foreign literature, a striking example is the novel by J. Joyce “Ulysses”, and in Russian literature of the early 20th century - the story “Judas Iscariot” by L.N. Andreev)
4) naturalism involves depicting reality with the utmost plausibility and detail, often unsightly ("The Pit" by A.I. Kuprin, "Sanin" by M.P. Artsybashev, "Notes of a Doctor" by V.V. Veresaev)
The listed features of Russian realism caused numerous disputes about the creative method of writers who remained faithful to realistic traditions.
Bitter begins with neo-romantic prose and comes to the creation of social plays and novels, becoming the founder of socialist realism.
Creation Andreeva was always in a borderline state: modernists considered him a “despicable realist,” and for realists, in turn, he was a “suspicious symbolist.” At the same time, it is generally accepted that his prose is realistic, and his dramaturgy gravitates toward modernism.
Zaitsev, showing interest in the microstates of the soul, created impressionistic prose.
Attempts by critics to define artistic method Bunina led to the writer himself comparing himself to a suitcase covered with a huge number of labels.
The complex worldview of realist writers and the multidirectional poetics of their works testified to the qualitative transformation of realism as an artistic method. Thanks to a common goal - the search for the highest truth - at the beginning of the 20th century there was a rapprochement between literature and philosophy, which began in the works of Dostoevsky and L. Tolstoy.
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Modern realism is an improved, complicated, new realism. The means and techniques are becoming more complex, but the basic principle of realism will remain unchanged - display real person in real objective circumstances, the influence of these circumstances on the formation of the character and behavior of the hero.
Features of realism: objectivity, typification, consideration of reality in development (historicism), a view of art as a means of understanding reality, the educational function of art. Realism of the second half of the twentieth century. returns to the old classical hero, while postmodernism includes him in intellectual game. The classic hero in realism is placed in new circumstances, usually existential, and described using new technical techniques from the arsenal of modernism and postmodernism. Also in modern realism, new methods of plotting are used, for example, the intersection of different time plans (in Faulkner’s prose). Realistic literature of the twentieth century. It is distinguished by the diversity and complexity of its content and increased intelligence. In addition, there is an appeal to myth (for example, Christa Wolf’s novels “Cassandra”, “Medea”); to the subconscious spheres of the psyche; science, mysticism; the use of conventional techniques, allegory, parables, symbolism, etc. Modern realists strive to explore all possibilities human soul, all the contradictory states in which a person can exist in modern society. But the realistic text not only shows these states and actions, but also makes an attempt to explain them for the sake of a humanistic, educational goal, to promote the understanding of man by man.
The main themes of realistic literature, first of all, depend on the era that realists strive to objectively describe, but no less important are “ eternal themes", because realistic literature is associated with didactic goals:
1. personality as a “super-myth of the twentieth century”; 2. search for spiritual support; 3.movement for civil rights people, especially women and national minorities (in America - “Negro literature”);
Genres: Science fiction(Ray Bradbury and others); documentary genres (Norman Mailer); intellectual novel(Saul Bellow); a myth novel (John Updike's "Centaur"), a parable novel (William Faulkner's "Parable", 1954), a family novel (the novels of Herve Bazin).
In France - Herve Bazin, Robert Merle, Romain Gary.
In England - Graham Greene (with a predominance of postmodern aesthetics).
In Germany - Heinrich Bell, Siegfried Lenz.
In America - William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway.
In Japan - Kenzaburo Oe, Kobo Abe.
Neorealism. After World War II, neorealism appeared. In the narrowest understanding of the term, neorealism is a direction in Italian literature and art of the 40-50s. XX century New form critical realism, which arose as a reaction to fascist ideology. The influence of M. Gorky, American prose of the 30s. (Hemingway, Faulkner). Fate is at the center of “neorealism” common man. Style and language – simplicity, restraint, clarity. Ideas – the desire for social justice and democracy.
V. Korolenko, those who have won a name for themselves in previous years as masters of Russian literature.
New trends in the development of realism both as a movement in the Silver Age and as a literary movement appeared in the works of M. Gorky, I. Bunin, L. Andreev, A. Kuprin and others.
The creativity of this period is characterized by a mixture of directions (realism and). Even realistic works the writer to one degree or another reflect the features characteristic of romanticism (the unusual hero is a tramp, the contrast is both artistic technique– “Chelkash”, “Grandfather Arkhip and Lenka”, “Malva”, etc.). However, the writer gradually moves away from the image of the tramp as a rebel, from the idealization of tramping (“Rogue” ) . In 1899, Gorky published the novel « Foma Gordeev", which shows the change of generations in a bourgeois family. A theme that is also typical for European literature(“Buddenbrooks” by T. Mann). With the play, the author responds to the demands of our time - about the meaning of life, about truth and lies, about the purpose of man.
The fading of the old landowner way of life, the impoverishment of noble nests is one of the themes of the prose (“Baybaks”, “ Antonov apples", "Sukhodol"). Many of the writer’s stories are dedicated to the life of the village. And here Bunin is characterized by a sober, sharp look, which allows him not to admire the people or talk about the difficult life of the peasants. The ego is concerned about topics-problems: decay peasant family, inertia, patriarchy, life, sometimes devoid of meaning (“Village”, “Tanka”, “Pass”, “On the Farm”).
New topics are introduced by A. Kuprin. As you know, the writer tried many professions, which is why his stories are so full of the truth of life. This is the theme of the inhumanity of the bourgeois world order (“Moloch”), life circus performers(“At the Circus”, “Bad Pun”), the meaningless life of army officers (“Duel”), tragic force love that is higher than the surrounding world ( « Olesya").
The cruelty and abomination of life are contrasted with beautiful human characters, the beauty of simple human feelings and relationships ( « Gambrinus", "Listrigons"). Love and social inequality are revealed in a new way in the story “Garnet Bracelet” .
The theme of human transformation, manifestations in him best qualities, awareness of oneself as a person sounds in many works L. Andreeva. His early stories often called “Yuletide”, i.e. with realistic content in Andreev’s stories, a miracle of human transformation occurs ( « Bargamot and Geraska"), which enriches realism as a movement Silver Age. The simple, at first glance, plot of the story “Petka at the Dacha” (the arrival of a teenage craftsman at the dacha to his mother’s owners) partly explains the events of 1917 - the social abyss between the masters of life and those who work for them. The story “The Life of Vasily of Fiveysky” is a rebellion against the absurdly arranged human life, which condemns people to loss and suffering. The horror of war is shown in the story “Red Laughter”. The famous "Tale of the Seven Hanged Men" » allows the author not only to explore the theme of imminent death, anticipation of execution, not only to condemn the judicial system, but also to have a negative impact on terrorism as such, because the horror of death is not only for those who were going to be killed, but also for the one who was going to kill
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