Family and main characters of the novel. "Buddenbrooks", an artistic analysis of the novel by Thomas Mann

Thick volumes of the works of the German writer Thomas Mann stand on my bookshelf. Today I closed the last page of the first volume, where the writer’s “firstborn” novel was published- “Buddenbrooks”. Formally, it was for this novel that Thomas Mann received the Nobel Prize in 1929. But this is formal. After all, thirty years passed between the writing of this youth novel by Thomas Mann and receiving the prize for it. During this long period, Thomas Mann wrote several works, including the wise “The Magic Mountain,” which confirmed his title as an honored writer.

You close the book and feel sad. Of course, if the reading object was chosen correctly. So I felt sad in a good way, I wanted to part with the heroes of the novel in an unusual way, talking to them goodbye.

What is the novel "Buddenbrooks" about?

The writer himself answered this question in the subtitle of the novel “The Story of the Death of One Family.” A narrative about the world of old German cities using the example of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. The author transfers moments of his biography into the book, thereby making it very tangible and vivid. In the writer’s homeland, in the city of Lübeck, a museum has been opened, which is called the “House of Buddenbrooks”. You can see with your own eyes the place where the events of the novel took place.

Buddenbrook House Museum in Lübeck

Inside the Buddenbrow House Museum in Lübeck.

“Buddenbrooks” is a medical history of a burgher family. Burger is a German synonym for bourgeois, a wealthy city dweller. In Russia, merchants most closely corresponded to them. The bourgeois Budenbroks carried out commercial transactions not only in trade. They built their lives according to exactly the same rules. Isn't that what ruined them?

There is a lot in the book characters. But Antonia, the most living figure in the novel, found a warm response in my soul. Her energy is especially noticeable against the background of the measured everyday swamp of the rest of the family members. All her life, in fact, she remains a child, she does not want to take responsibility for her destiny. She remains a small child, even having a granddaughter. Therefore, it is natural that for all failures she blames others, not herself. She didn’t even fight for her true love, medical student Schwarzkopf. She chose to agree with the family’s choice, marrying the rogue Grunlich. And for the second time, before marrying Permaneder, she wants to receive reinforcement in the form of the consent and approval of the family. According to the same repeated pattern, she gives her daughter away in an arranged marriage.

But at the same time, Antonia wants to appear honest. She selflessly (it seemed to me that it was feigned and theatrical) trembles before the concept of “honor.” Sometimes he even invents his own dishonor. Her hatred of the “upstarts” Hagenström, which lasted throughout her life, was apparently caused precisely by the desire to preserve her fictitious dignity. Running away from her second husband Permaneder, Tony indignantly tells his brother that honor is not a ostentatious concept. That you need to defend your dignity. “In other words, the shame and dishonor is only what comes out and becomes public property? Oh no! Secret dishonor, which in silence gnaws at a person’s soul and makes him not respect himself, is much more terrible!” Needless to say, the words are correct. But spoken from the lips of a frivolous “child” they do not convince me. “And it’s no longer important for us to seem, and it’s no longer important for us to be...”

Can we read? Read not letters, but read fundamental thoughts and ideas embedded in the thickness of the book? Here is the final phrase from a review of “Buddenbrooks” by one young girl: “I learn from the mistakes of the main characters and hope not to lose what I have and gain what I strive for”.

Honor and praise to the young creature for the “feat” of reading a multi-page novel. But... Is the whole world really reduced to holding on to gains and fearing losses? Admiring the “luxurious drawing rooms of the new Buddenbrooks house, the family lavish celebrations and small talk,” will she maintain her “period of prosperity” at any cost? Can you say that the girl read the book? I think that she skimmed the surface of the plot, paying attention only to the aspects of life that interested her. For the most part, these are material nuances and “love” flowing into an oversweetened family idyll.

Degradation, degeneration, regression, physical and spiritual illness. This is the main idea that permeates the novel from the first to the last page. Members of a wealthy merchant family not only degenerate in a physiological sense (they do not leave offspring, go crazy, die), but they also do not hesitate to be moral monsters - go to prison for malfeasance, get involved with a courtesan, carouse in merchant clubs. Is there another scenario for life under capitalism? The author confidently makes it clear that the decline of this era is inevitable.

The very title of the novel shows that it describes the life of an entire family. The fate of the Buddenbrooks family is a story of gradual decline and decay. “The Decline of One Family” is the subtitle of the novel. The fall of Buddenbrooks is not a continuous process. Periods of stagnation are followed by periods of new growth, but still, on the whole, the family gradually weakens and dies.

Johann Buddenbrook Sr. is a typical 18th-century burgher, an optimistic and moderate freethinker who optimistically believes in the strength of bourgeois existence.

Johann Buddenbrook - the younger - is a man of a different type, his consciousness is shaken by the approach of the revolutionary events of 1848, he is overcome by anxiety and uncertainty, he seeks consolation in religion. With his ostentatious strictly patrician morality, he no longer manages to reconcile his commercial activities with purely human relations even with family members.

Thomas and Christian no longer feel like an integral part of their class, “the best part of the nation,” like their grandfather. Thomas, at the cost of terrible efforts of will, still forces himself to wear a mask of imaginary efficiency, imaginary self-confidence, but he no longer feels able to compete with entrepreneurs of the new predatory type. Behind his ostentatious restraint hides fatigue, a lack of understanding of the meaning and purpose own existence, fear of the future.

Christian is a devastated man, a renegade, a man capable only of buffoonery. The degeneration of the Buddenbrooks marks for Thomas Mann the death of that seemingly indestructible foundation on which the burgher culture was based. The origins of the destruction of the family are in the objective appearance among the German burghers of “grunders” - unprincipled predatory businessmen who abandoned the notorious conscientiousness in matters that broke solid, established business ties. The strength and thoroughness of the way of life give way to the insatiable thirst for wealth, the cruel grip of entrepreneurs of the new formation.

Drawing the story of the Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann simultaneously shows the history of bourgeois thought, its evolution from the philosophy of the Enlightenment to reactionary decadent views. The Voltairian Buddenbrook the elder is replaced by the bigot Buddenbrook the younger, and his son Thomas is interested in the philosophy of Schopenhauer (Timofeev 1983:254).

From generation to generation, the spiritual strength of the family dries up. The rudely good-natured founders of the dynasty are finally replaced by refined neuropathic creatures, whose fear of life kills their activity, making them inevitable victims of history. The last son of Hanno Buddenbrook - the son of Thomas - inherited from his mother a passion for music alien to his ancestors, imbued with disgust not only for his father’s prosaic activities, but also for everything that is not music or art. This crystallizes Mann's most important theme: sharp contrast all art of bourgeois reality, all mental activity - the base practice of the bourgeois.

Here there is a well-known influence on Thomas Mann by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Like the first, Mann believes that morbidity elevates a person above mediocrity, making his worldview sharper and deeper. The bearer of ill health - most often the artist - opposes the selfish and narcissistic world of the bourgeoisie. The pessimism of Schopenhauer, who praised the beauty of dying, seemed natural to Mann, who saw in the dying culture of the burghers the death of all-human culture.

Hanno, possessed by the “demon” of music, simultaneously symbolizes the spiritual rise of the Buddenbrook family and its tragic end. The novel is invaded by the decadent idea that art is associated with biological degeneration.

So, the novel "Buddenbrooks", published, marked a new phase in creative development Thomas Mann. It is based on a lot of autobiography. The writer carefully studied the family papers, got acquainted with the business correspondence of his father and grandfather, and delved into the details of the household environment and the home life of his ancestors. Mann's personal memories thus form the main outline of the novel, which gives it even greater concreteness.

The Buddenbrook family chronicle is an epic tale of the former prosperity and decline of the once powerful elite of the German merchant bourgeoisie. In this regard, the writer, on the one hand, continues the traditions of German realistic prose of the 70s of the last century, on the other hand, anticipates the emergence of the Western European, social chronicle novel of the 20th century. (Galsworthy - “The Forsyte Saga”, Roger Martin Du Gard - “The Thibault Family”). Thomas Mann begins the history of the Buddenbrook family in the mid-19th century. and traces her fate over three generations. The former economic power and spiritual greatness of this family are embodied in the image of old Johann Buddenbrook. His entire appearance, his spiritual physiognomy was formed in the atmosphere of the Enlightenment. Full of inexhaustible optimism in life, he is unshakably confident in his personal strengths and in the power of his class. His son, the consul Johann Buddenbrook, is already deprived of his father's optimism; mature years his lives are already taking place in different historical conditions, in a turning point, when the patriarchal burghers are being replaced by a new generation of capitalist entrepreneurs.

In the light of new social conditions The old Buddenbrook firm becomes for the consul Johann Buddenbrook, and after him for his son Thomas, not just a commercial enterprise, but a symbol of the greatness of the family, a kind of fetish to which the personal interests of each family member must be subordinated.

Representing the first generation, Johann Buddenbrook embodies the strength of the burgher way of life, which has not lost touch with the people's environment. He is energetic, assertive, proactive, and successful in business. His son, Consul Johann Buddenbrook, is a respectable and balanced man, does business well, but is less ambitious as a person. After the revolution of 1848, he is not so sure of the inviolability of traditional foundations. For representatives of the third generation, Thomas and Christian, the company becomes something internally alien. They develop a penchant for reflection - an unusual phenomenon in the Buddenbrook family. Senator Thomas Buddenbrook maintains a semblance of calm. But internally he is tired and broken. He tries to hide the decline of the company from those around him and from himself. Hanno, the only representative of the fourth generation, the son of Thomas, himself draws a line under his name in the family book as a sign that after him the family will cease to exist. The boy is in poor health, but he is musically gifted. Life fills him with horror and disgust.

"Buddenbrooks." In 1901, a work appeared in Germany that, in all the necessary parameters, corresponded to the type of those works that were needed. This is Buddenbrooks. This writer was the young Thomas Mann, who was 25 years old. This was his second major publication, and this novel immediately made him famous. But at 25, becoming a national genius is psychologically early and a big burden. And with the knowledge that he national genius. Thomas Mann lived the rest of his life, nothing stopped him from writing wonderful works. His relationship with his brother Heinrich Mann was difficult. Thomas had a rather talented son, Klaus Mann, he is a rather interesting novel... (?), which was filmed. The views and positions of life of the two brothers (Henry lived longer) differed on many points. I mention the name of Heinrich Mann because Thomas and Heinrich belonged to a generation of writers in a difficult time for Germany, life was difficult. Because Germany was in stagnation throughout the 2nd half of the 19th century (Small Principalities), and literature was also stagnant. This fragmentation, of course, greatly hinders the development of Germany: both economically and culturally. And therefore, already in the 20th century, the new generation had to solve the same problem: look for some principles, parameters for restoring the level German literature(17th-19th centuries). After the Romantics, German literature was moving towards a temporary decline, and young people were faced with the task of restoring the reputation of German literature. Consequently, here too the situation is when a person enters into creative life, begins to write, the first thing he does is begin to comprehend what is happening around him, what the literary situation is, “what path he should choose. And this rationalistic approach, characteristic of Galsworthy and Rolland, was also to the highest degree in the young Mann.

There was another historical moment here: from the mid-70s of the 19th century, Germany began to gather into a single country, new stage development of the state - a single state is formed, the development of the empire begins. And the whole ego is largely stimulating too. That is, the emergence of a new generation of writers is connected with this. But the first step they took was to comprehend this situation and the desire to restore the reputation of German literature, to give it the shine that it had at the beginning of the 19th century - leading to the fact that German writers begin to imitate and look for guidelines for creativity outside the national tradition. If Heinrich Mann chose as his ideal and example Balzac and tradition French literature(G. Mann’s interest in France was constant), and his first novels were generally built on the model of Balzac’s narrative, then Thomas Mann again found a reference point for himself in Russian literature. He was attracted by the scale of the narrative, the psychological depth of the research, but at the same time the still gloomy German genius T. Mann was fascinated by the ability, the desire of Russian literature to get to what was seen as roots of life, our desire to know life in all its fundamental principles. This is characteristic of both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

At the same time, Thomas Mann was a man of his time in a specific national situation. Why did the novel "Buddenbrooks" become so popular? Because the readers who opened this novel when it was published found in it an exploration of the main tendencies of national life. "Buddenbrooks" is a work that is also distinguished by its large-scale coverage of reality, and the life of the heroes, Buddenbrooks, is part of the life of the country. This is the same family chronicle, same epic novel, in front of us a story about the life of 4 generations of the Buddenbrook family. These are burghers from the city of Lubeck, a fairly rich family, and the time of the novel is most 19th century. Thomas Mann uses in the narrative some data and the realities of life of his family, which also came from the city of Lübeck. This is a Hansel (?) city, a big city. There was an economic union of independent cities (Lübeck, Hamburg) - these were seaside, free cities since the Middle Ages, not owned by dukes, which were governed by Senates, elected Councils, where the 3rd estate (burghers) felt like the 1st estate, the most powerful. The free burghers of the free cities entered into this trade union, traded among themselves all over the world, and the position and self-consciousness of the burgher in many ways resembled the self-consciousness of a nobleman. The very essence of the nobility, its worldview is a feeling, knowledge of its clan, its roots, traditions, continuity of its clan. Family nobility is a series of generations who knew about each other, the descendants knew the ancestors of a certain tribe (Pushkin’s “My Genealogy” is about this, there is continuity, behind him there is the time of his family). In the case of the Manns, they are descendants of this kind of free burghers, they carry within themselves this feeling of belonging to the clan. But in the case of the Manns, this tradition of the family was very abruptly cut off; their father married the daughter of his partner, and when he died, the mother (their stepmother) of 2 more daughters decided that her sons would do anything but trade. She sold the company, her sons were prepared in a modern way, for a different life, they were oriented towards writing books, they were taken to Italy and France from childhood. We will find all these biographical details in Buddenbrooks. The Manns received an excellent education.

Thomas Mann brought all this material about his family, including the situation with his brothers and sisters, into this novel in the 3rd generation, but this material undergoes changes in interpretation, something is added to it. Each representative of the Buddenbrooks family is a representative of his time: he carries his time within himself, and somehow tries to build his life in this time. Old Johann Buddenbrook, a typical representative of a turbulent time, a man of rare intelligence, very energetic, took over the company. What about your son? - a product of the era of the sacred union, a man who can only preserve what his father did. There is no such thing in it inner strength, but there is a commitment to the foundations. And finally, the 3rd generation. He is given more attention in the novel: Thomas Buddenbrook becomes the central figure. Thomas and his brothers and sisters experience the period of time when these dramatic changes begin to occur in German life. The family and the firm must cope with these changes, and it turns out that this adherence to tradition, this conscious burgherism of the Buddenbrooks is already becoming a kind of brake. Buddenbrock is more decent, perhaps, than speculators; they cannot quickly use new forms of relationships that arise in the market. It's the same within the family: adherence to tradition is a source of endless dram, which absorbed the burgher spirit. And no matter how we look at the life of the 3rd generation Buddenbrooks - they find themselves out of place in time, somehow in conflict with time, with the situation, and this leads to the decline of the family. The result of Hanno’s communication with other children is painful for him: his favorite place to live is under the piano in his mother’s living room, where he can listen to the music she plays, such a closed life. (The last representative of the Buddenbrooks is Thomas's son, little Hanno; this weak boy falls ill and dies.) Full title of the novel"Buddenbrooks, or the life story of one family."

This book is an analysis of a family chronicle, one of the first seminal chronicles, the impact of changing eras on people's destinies. And this was after a long break in German literature, the first work of such a scale, such a level, such a depth of analysis. That's why Thomas Mann became a genius at the age of 25.

But gradually, when the first impressions and delights subsided, it began to emerge that this book contains second bottom, second level. On the one hand, this a socio-historical chronicle telling about life in Germany in the 19th century. On the other hand, this work is built with other objectives. It was one of the first works of literature of the 20th century, designed for at least two reading levels. The second bottom, the second level is associated with the philosophical views of T. Mann, with the picture of the world that he creates for himself(Thomas Mann was interested in the highest level of understanding of reality). If we look at the history of the Buddenbrooks family from a different angle, we will see that just as important a role as time and socio-historical changes, certain constants play in their destinies. Mann's Buddenbrooks evolve from burgherism to artistry. Johann Buddenbrook Sr. is a 100% burgher. Ganno is 100% an artist.

For Mann, a burgher is not only a person of the 3rd estate, he is a person completely merged with the surrounding reality, living in an inextricable union with the outside world, deprived of what Thomas Mann denotes by the word "soul", but not in the canonical sense of the word “soulless”, and the burgher completely lacks the artistic principle according to T. Mann, but not in the sense that these people are illiterate, deaf to beauty. Old Johann is not only an educated man, but also lives by what he knows; but this is a man inextricably fused with the world in which he lives, who enjoys every minute of his existence, for him life on the physical plane is a great pleasure. All life plans. This is the type of people.

The opposite type are artists. This does not mean that these are people who paint pictures. This is the person who lives the life of the soul, for him, inner existence, spiritual life and the outer world seem to be separated from him by a stern, high barrier. This is a person for whom contact with this outside world is painful and unacceptable.

Very often geniuses, very creatively gifted - they are artists. But not always. There are creative individuals with the worldview of a burgher. II there are ordinary people with the worldview of an artist, as according to Thomas Mann. His first storybook(it is called after the name of one of the stories included in it) - “Little Mister Friedemann”. This little Mr. Friedemann is a typical everyman, but this little everyman With the soul of an artist who lives within himself, his life of spirit, he is completely in the power of this artistic principle, although he does not produce any artistic activity, it produces only the impossibility of existence in this world, a feeling of the impossibility of contact with other people. That is, for Thomas Mann these words “burgher” and “artist” have a very special meaning. And who does what professionally, whether he owns a company or not, it doesn’t matter. Whether he paints pictures or not is not important. Showing this transformation, tragedy, T. Mann also explains the death of the Buddenbrook family as a process of accumulation of artistic qualities in the souls of the Buddenbrooks. which makes their existence in the surrounding reality more and more difficult, and then painful for them and deprives them of the opportunity to live. As for their professional hobbies, this does not play a special role here. Thomas is engaged in trade and is elected to the Senate. And his brother leaves the family, declaring himself an artist in the literal sense of the word. The important thing is that they are both half “burgher” and “artist” in Mann’s sense of the word. And this half-heartedness prevents any of them from accomplishing anything in this life. The state of unstable balance in which both Thomas and his brother find themselves becomes painful. On the one hand, Thomas is captivated by books. But when reading them, something repels him - this is the burgher beginning. And going to the Senate, starting to deal with the affairs of the company, he cannot deal with them, since the artistic principle cannot stand all this. Throwing begins. Thomas married Gerda, a girl belonging to another world; he felt spirituality and artistic beginnings in her. Nothing worked out. Hanno’s son resides in his mother’s little world, and this separation from the world allows Hanno to exist within himself. T. Mann makes sure that Hanno falls ill with typhus, and a crisis ensues. It consists of 2 elements: on the one hand, it approaches the lowest point, but from the lowest point it can begin to fall down. And Thomas Mann confronts Hanno with a choice; the predetermination of the book comes to the fore, since neither Balzac, nor Dickens, nor Galsworthy could afford such arbitrary treatment. Hanno lies in bed in the bedroom, straw is laid out in front of the windows to prevent the carriages from rattling. He feels very bad, and he suddenly sees a ray of sunlight breaking through the curtains, hears the muffled, but still noise of these carts along the street. “And at this moment, if a person listens to the ringing, bright, slightly mocking call of the “voice of life,” if joy, love, energy, commitment to the motley and tough bustle awakens in him again, he will turn back and live. But if the voice life will make him shudder with fear and disgust, if in response to this cheerful, defiant cry he only shakes his head and waves it away, then it is clear to everyone - he will die." And so Hanno seems to be in this situation. This is not caused by the disease itself, the crisis, not the typhus itself, but by the fact that Hanno at some point becomes scared, when he hears this voice of life, his return to this bright, motley, cruel reality is painful. He does not want to experience touching the surrounding being again, and then he dies, not because the disease is incurable.

If we look at what is behind this concept of burgherism and artistry, we see that behind them is Schopenhauer, first of all with his concept of the world as will and representation. And indeed, T. Mann at this time was very interested in the philosophy of Schopenhauer. And hence this principle - they abandon the principle of objective evolution. In these philosophies (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer) there is an opposite tendency - the search for absolute swings. The world is built on certain absolute principles, they are very different, but the principle is the same. According to Schopenhauer's system, there are two: will and representation. The will generates dynamics, and the idea creates statics. And the opposition “artist - burgher” is, as it were, a derivative of Schopenhauer’s idea. These are also some absolutes that characterize internal quality human personality, they are not subject to time. Old Johann Buddenbrook is an absolute burgher, not because he lives in his time, but because that’s who he is. Ganno is an absolute artist, because that's what he is. It’s just that the qualities inherent in the human soul do not change, but the situation shown by T. Mann is internal changes that can occur; can also happen in the opposite direction. Then after that he wrote a whole series of stories about how a simple burgher turns into an artist. This transformation can also occur: from a burgher to an artist, from an artist to a burgher, whatever you like, but these are some absolutes that are realized in the human soul either completely or relatively, but they exist.

That is, the system of the universe thus acquires a certain static character. And from this point of view, the novel "Buddenbrooks" takes on a completely different quality - it is not so much a socio-historical chronicle, This is a work in which a specific philosophical idea is realized. And therefore, from this point of view, it is tempting to call T. Mann’s novel philosophical. But it cannot be called philosophical, since it is not a philosophical narrative. This is an intellectual novel (analysis of philosophical ideas).

This concerns the literary side. As for the place of this novel in the context of world literature, it is obvious that "Buddenbrooks" They open a new stage in literary development not only with the type and form of narration, but also open the next page of world literature, which begins to consciously build itself on philosophical absolutes when creating its picture of the world.

A group of writers appears, which bears within itself the features of the era of the end of the century, when the positivist, evolutionist approach is replaced by philosophical understanding the world by the process of searching, formulating certain absolutes, certain motionless principles that determine human existence. And on this ideological approach, a derivative of these philosophies, literature grows that creates such a picture of the world. This reflects another fundamental change of a purely historical and philosophical nature. New wave writers presents a different picture of the world. This is where something new begins literary movement, which went down in history under the name

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Introduction

Thomas Mann, a writer and thinker, went through a difficult path. He grew up in an environment of wealthy, conservative burghers; For a long time, philosophers of a reactionary, irrationalist type - Schopenhauer, Nietzsche - had considerable attractive force for him. First world war he perceived it in the light of nationalist ideas, this was reflected in his book of journalism “Reflections of an Apolitical.” In the 20s, Thomas Mann - not without difficulty - revised his old views; he contrasted the approaching fascist barbarism with a noble but abstract preaching of humanism and justice. During the period of Hitler's dictatorship, Thomas Mann, having left his country, became one of the most prominent representatives of the German anti-fascist intelligentsia.

Thomas Mann loved Russian literature since youth, she participated in his ideological and creative quests throughout his intellectual life for a decade. Among Western writers of the 20th century. Thomas Mann is one of the best experts and connoisseurs of Russian classics. His reading circle included Pushkin, Gogol Goncharov, Turgenev, Chekhov, and later Gorky, as well as a number of others writers of the 19th century and 20th centuries And above all - Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

The history of the creative development of Thomas Mann cannot be seriously understood if one does not take into account his deep affection for Russian literature. Several works have been written about Thomas Mann's attitude towards Russian writers. The most serious view of this issue is the famous Czech scientist Alois Hoffmann. In 1959, he published the book “Thomas Mann and Russia” in Czech, and in 1967 he published it in the GDR, on German, his extensive work “Thomas Mann and the World of Russian Literature.” Both of these books, controversial in certain or other particulars, are rich in factual material and valuable observations. However, the topic is not exhausted, especially since thanks to the posthumous publications of Thomas Mann's letters, we can penetrate deeper into the laboratory of his thought.

Thomas Mann's letters contain many interesting, generalizing judgments about how he felt about Russian literature, how much it meant to him.

Four years before his death, in 1951, Thomas Mann wrote to his Hungarian correspondent Jena Tamas Gemery: “I don’t know a word of Russian, and the German translations in which I read in my youth the great Russian authors of the 19th century were very weak. And yet I consider this reading to be one of the most important experiences that shaped my personality” (Doronin - p. - 58).

A few years earlier - on February 26, 1948 - Thomas Mann wrote to a friend from his school years, Hermann Lange: “You are right in assuming that I have long been devotedly grateful to Russian literature, which I called “Tonio Kröger” in my youthful short story “ holy Russian literature." At 23-24 years old, I would never have coped with the work on Buddenbrooks if I had not drawn strength and courage from constantly reading Tolstoy. Russian literature of the late 18th and 19th centuries. truly one of the wonders of spiritual culture, and I have always deeply regretted that Pushkin’s poetry remained almost inaccessible to me, since I did not have enough time and excess energy to learn the Russian language. However, Pushkin’s stories provide sufficient reason to admire him. It is needless to say how much I admire Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev. But I would like to mention Nikolai Leskov, who is not known, although he great master story, almost equal to Dostoevsky... You can find traces of Maxim Gorky in my essay on Goethe and Tolstoy, which perhaps someday caught your eye. I have written about Tolstoy several times, most recently in the preface to the American edition of Anna Karenina. I also wrote the preface to the edition of Dostoevsky’s stories, which was published in New York in 1945...”

Russian literature evoked responses of various kinds in the work of Thomas Mann, in his novels and essays. Thomas Mann sometimes mentally consulted with his favorite Russian classics, sometimes argued with them, relied on their experience and example - in different times in different ways - explaining their works to Western readers and drawing conclusions from these works that were relevant for himself and for others.

As we can see, we can say that Russian literature, in the person of its greatest masters, influenced Thomas Mann, based on his own testimony. He was a writer deeply German in spirit, traditions, and issues. And, of course, he - like all truly great writers - was an individually original artist. In an article written for the centenary of the birth of L.N. Tolstoy, he very subtly defined the nature of the influence that can have great writer on their brothers in other countries:

“The impressive power of his narrative art is incomparable; every contact with it infuses into the soul of a receptive talent (but there are no other talents) a life-giving stream of energy, freshness, primitive creative joy... This is not about imitation. And is it possible to imitate force? Under its influence, works can arise, both in spirit and in form, that are very dissimilar to each other, and, most importantly, completely different from the works of Tolstoy himself.”

The influence of Russian literature on Thomas Mann (and on many other foreign writers) cannot be measured and appreciated through the “chase of parallels,” as is often practiced in Western literary scholarship. The point is not at all to look for features of external similarity with Russian classics in Thomas Mann’s books, to find coincidences or similarities in individual episodes, figures, and details. Such coincidences sometimes actually exist and, so to speak, lie on the surface. But that's not the point. Our task is to, turning to the works of Thomas Mann, and to his statements and testimonies, find out what and how he used realistic elements.

The work of T. Mann is of interest for research, especially because it has not been studied in detail. There is a number of works dedicated to Mann, but the structure of his works and its connection with real events and elements have not been studied.

The purpose of this work is to study the realistic elements in “Buddenbrooks” by Thomas Mann.

1. identify the time and place where the work was written,

2. study the events that took place in Germany during the writing of the work,

3. explore realistic elements (place, time, etc.) that are present in the work.

This work consists of 3 chapters. Chapter 1 examined the time and place of writing the work of T. Mann. Chapter 2 explores historical events, which took place in Germany during the creation of T. Mann's "Buddenbrooks". Chapter 3 reveals the realistic elements present in the work, in particular, the place where the action takes place, the family, as part of the real world.

As mentioned above, this topic is of interest due to its lack of exploration. Therefore, today it is quite interesting material that will help to understand the essence of the events that occur in the novel through consideration of details.

The following were used in the work literary sources: History of foreign literature of the 20th century; History of German literature; Kalashnikov A.A.; Literature of German writers; World history; Motyleva T.L.; Starostin V.V.; Tolstoy L.N.; Fadeeva V.S.; Reader on foreign literature. As well as information from the sites: http://www.eduhmao.ru.; http:// www.litera.edu.ru.; http://www.cultinfo.ru.; http://www.bookz.ru.

1 . Time and place of writing the work "Buddenbrooks"

In the 1880s, when Thomas Mann and his older brother Heinrich were children, the reading public Western Europe I was just beginning to become widely acquainted with Russian literature. Crime and Punishment first appeared in German translation in 1882, War and Peace in 1885.

In the nineties, when the Mann brothers - each in their own way - took their first steps in literature, the names of the greatest Russian novelists were already known to everyone in the West educated person. Books by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, as well as Gogol, Goncharov, Turgenev appeared one after another, causing lively responses in the press.

All or almost all major German writers who entered conscious life at the end of the 19th or beginning of the 20th century knew Russian literature, were keenly interested in it, and studied from it in one form or another. Gerhart Hauptmann wrote his first famous realistic plays under the direct influence of Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness. Bernhard Kellerman in the novel “Der Tor” (“The Fool” or “The Idiot”) created the image of a strange and beautiful-hearted preacher, in many ways close to Prince Myshkin. Rainer Maria Rilke was drawn to Russian culture, tried to write poetry in Russian, and visited Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana. Leonhard Frank, who during the First World War created one of the first books of anti-militarist prose, “The Good Man,” considered Dostoevsky his teacher. However, we can safely say that Thomas Mann, in terms of the depth of his perception of Russian classical literature, in the completeness of his spiritual connections with her, surpassed all German writers of his generation.

Heinrich Mann, to whom Russian literature was much less close than his brother, wrote in his book of memoirs “Review of the Century” several vivid pages about how the books of Russian writers were perceived in Western European countries at the end of the last century. Heinrich Mann talks here about the interaction between literature and the liberation movement in Russia.

Russian literature XIX century, writes Heinrich Mann, “an event of incredible importance and such educational power that we, accustomed to the phenomena of decline and breakdown, can hardly believe that we were its contemporaries... How was Dostoevsky read, how was Tolstoy read?

They were read with awe. They were read - and the eyes opened wider to perceive all this abundance of images, all this abundance of thought, and tears flowed as a response. These novels, from Pushkin to Gorky, link by link in an impeccably welded chain, taught us to more deeply understand man, his weaknesses, his formidable power, his unfulfilled calling - and they were accepted as teaching.”

In another chapter of the same book, Heinrich Mann recalls how differently his and his brother Thomas' years of literary apprenticeship passed. “When my brother entered the twenties of his life, he was committed to Russian masters, and for me a good half of my existence was determined by French literature. We both learned to write in German - that’s why, I think.”

Heinrich and Thomas Mann both occupied an extremely important place in the history of their national culture. Both of them raised the art of German realistic prose to great heights, laid the foundations of the German novel of the 20th century, this became their common cause, one might even say a common creative feat. And at the same time, they were very different in their spiritual make-up - this was reflected in the choice of those artistic traditions which they followed. Heinrich Mann gravitated towards satire and at the same time - towards a concrete social study of Reality: he found a lot of value for himself in Voltaire, and in Balzac, and in Zola. Thomas Mann, as an artist, felt a penchant for psychological and philosophical prose; This is partly where his increased interest in the masters of the Russian novel stemmed (Motyleva 1982:12).

Heinrich Mann surpassed his brother in political radicalism; already in his youth he broke away from the burgher environment, its traditional views and morals. Thomas Mann remained closely associated with this environment for a long time.

Thomas Mann's early stories - "Disappointment", "Little Mister Friedemann", "Luischen", "Pagliacci", "Tobias Mindernickel" - studies on the theme of human suffering. They contain people who are offended by fate, physically or spiritually damaged, internally alienated from the world around them. From the very first creative steps, the young writer was attracted by acute psychological collisions: with their help, he revealed the hidden tragedy of bourgeois, bourgeois existence.

Already in the sketch story “Disappointment” (1896), a kind of “anti-hero” appears - an elderly lonely man: in a conversation with a casual acquaintance, he pours out his disgust for life, for society, for the “lofty words” with which people deceive each other.

A more clearly defined figure of the “anti-hero” appears in the story “Pagliacco” (1897). It is written in the first person, in that confessional manner that was first tried by Dostoevsky (in world literature of the 20th century, this manner was widely developed, but for the West of the late 19th century it was still completely new) (Samovalov 1981:166).

In the “clown’s” story about himself, buffoonery is combined with genuine anger, uncertainty with narcissism, arrogance with humiliation; Before us is the image of a split, torn consciousness.

The outlook of the “clown”, the entire range of his experiences in comparison with tragic hero“Notes from the Underground” is incomparably narrower. However, the story breathes with sincere hostility towards the world of successful “large-scale businessmen”: the restless “clown”, one way or another, is spiritually much higher than the environment from which he voluntarily broke away.

On the threshold of the new century, Thomas Mann was working on the novel “Buddenbrooks,” which was published in 1901. The book was originally conceived as the story of a burgher family, built on the material of household traditions - a novel about older relatives, nothing more. A beginner writer could not imagine that this book would mark the beginning of his world fame, and that the Nobel Prize (he received it in 1920) would be awarded to him precisely as the author of “Buddenbrooks” (Fadeeva 1982:154).

“Buddenbrooks” by T. Mann is written in the manner of a broad, leisurely narrative, with the mention of many details, with a detailed depiction of individual episodes, with many dialogues and internal monologues. The impetus for writing was my acquaintance with the Goncourt brothers’ novel “René Mauperin.” T. Mann was delighted with the elegance and structural clarity of this work, very small in volume, but full of significant psychological content. Previously, he believed that his genre was a short psychological novel, but now it seemed to him that he could try his hand at a psychological novel of the Goncourt type. However, from the idea of a small novel about modernity, about a “problematic” hero at the end of the century, weak and helpless in the face of a merciless life, a huge epic novel emerged, covering the fate of four generations (http://litera.edu.ru).

Many years later, in the essay “My Time,” Thomas Mann testified: “I really wrote a novel about my own family ... But in fact I myself did not realize that, in telling about the disintegration of one burgher family, I heralded much deeper processes of disintegration and dying, the beginning of a much more significant cultural and socio-historical breakdown.” The novel is based on Mann's observations of his family, friends, the morals of his hometown, and the decline of a family belonging to the hereditary middle class. Realistic in method and detail, the novel, in fact, symbolically depicts the relationship between the burgher world and the spiritual world.

Schopenhauer's pessimistic philosophy prompted the young writer to think about decay and dying as an inevitable fatal law of existence. But the sobriety of his artistic vision of life encouraged him to paint the decline of the Buddenbrooks family. in the light of specific, conditioned by the laws of history, destinies of the bourgeois, property-owning way of life.

When Mann was working on the novel, he was asked what he was writing about. “Ah, this is boring burgher matter,” he replied, “but it’s about decline, and that’s why it’s literary.” The idea of decline generalizes the entire vast everyday material of the novel. It traces fate of four generations of wealthy burghers, whose entrepreneurial activity and will to live weakens from generation to generation. At the same time, the picture of gradual economic impoverishment and biological degradation, unfolded using the example of one family, turns out to be “typical of the entire European burghers” - an obsolete, unviable class.

As the author himself admitted, in order for his work to take place, “he had to carefully study and master the techniques of a naturalistic novel, having won with hard work the right to use them.” An indicative incident from Mann’s life at that time was that one of his acquaintances once noticed that the writer was watching him through binoculars. This is how - as if with the help of a magnifying glass - Mann studied the life of the burghers, composing an epic canvas from precisely noticed little things.

When the novel Buddenbrooks appeared, Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was only 25 years old. Its success was so impressive that in 1929 it brought Mann the Nobel Prize (http://www.eduhmao.ru.).

In his 1947 article “On One Chapter from Buddenbrooks,” Thomas Mann recalls how he relied in his work on the experience of writers from other countries and not only Russians. “The influences that determined the appearance of this book as a work of art came from everywhere: from France, England, Russia, from the Scandinavian North - the young author absorbed them greedily, with the zealous zeal of a student, feeling that he would not be able to do without them in his work on the work , psychological in its innermost thoughts and intentions, for it sought to convey the psychology of those who are tired of living, to depict the complication of spiritual life and the heightened sensitivity to beauty that accompanies biological decline.”

And - on the same page - T. Mann clarifies his thought: “...a social-critical novel hidden under the guise of a family chronicle arose under my gaze...”. The motif of “biological decline” is ultimately overshadowed in Buddenbrooks by a larger social-critical theme.

It is worth considering another important testimony of Thomas Mann - from his book "Reflections of an Apolitical". There, the memory of “Buddenbrooks” pops up for an unexpected reason - in connection with the name of Nietzsche. Thomas Mann treated this philosopher, so influential in Kaiser Germany, with great respect and highly valued his literary gift. However, in “Reflections of an Apolitical” T. Mann partially dissociates himself from Nietzsche. He claims that he never, even in his youth, shared the cult of brute force and aestheticization of “brutal instincts” coming from Nietzsche. On the contrary, his artistic reference points were works generated by “highly moral, sacrificial and Christian-conscious natures.” Here it is called " Last Judgment Michelangelo, and then the novel Anna Karenina, “which gave me strength when I wrote Buddenbrooks.”

It can be assumed that Tolstoy’s work - both with its realism and its moral pathos - could “give strength” to the young Thomas Mann in his - not yet fully conscious - opposition to reactionary philosophical teachings.

Working on a story about the fate of one burgher family, Thomas Mann studied the rich experience of the European “family novel”. In this regard, he should have been attracted to Anna Karenina, a novel in which Tolstoy, according to in my own words, loved the “family thought.” He should have been attracted by the fact that in Anna Karenina the history of personal destinies, personal relationships of the heroes is inextricably linked with the history of society - and contains a strong charge of social criticism directed against the very foundations of the proprietary way of life.

Thomas Mann did not feel inclined towards satirical grotesquery, sharp sharpening of characters and situations. The closer he should have found Tolstoy's method of depiction - impeccably reliable and at the same time uncompromisingly sober. In "Buddenbrooks" he - like the author of "Anna Karenina" - depicts that class, that social environment that is vitally close to him. He loves his Buddenbrooks, he himself is their flesh. But at the same time, he is unpleasantly frank. Each of the main characters of the story is depicted in the “fluidity” of living inconsistency, the interweaving of good and bad (Mitrofanov 1987:301).

The Buddenbrook clan has its own cultural and moral foundations, its own strong ideas about decency and honesty, about what is possible and what is not. However, the novelist calmly, gently, without pressure, but essentially mercilessly demonstrates the underside of this Buddenbrookian morality - the latent antagonism that corrodes the relationships of parents and children, brothers and sisters, those common manifestations of selfishness, hypocrisy, self-interest that flow from the very essence of bourgeois-ness. proprietary relations.

In T. Mann's novel, the action begins in 1835 and continues until the end of the 19th century - four generations of Buddenbrooks pass before the reader. However, with the greatest author's attention close up the fate of the third generation is outlined - Thomas, Christian, Tony. The decline of their lives occurred in the years that followed the reunification of Germany. In the first years of the Hohenzollern Empire, as in post-reform Russia, everything “was turned upside down and is just getting back into shape.” No matter how different the social situations depicted in “Anna Karenina” and in the last parts of “Buddenbrooks” may be, both here and there are talking about the rapid breakdown of old social foundations. Tolstoy recreated the collapse of patriarchal-landlord Russia; Thomas Mann, using the material of his national reality, showed the collapse of the ancient foundations of the German patriarchal-burgher way of life. That fatigue of life, the feeling of doom from which Senator Thomas Buddenbrook, and then his fragile and gifted son Hanno, suffer, are explained not in some metaphysical laws of existence, but in the laws of German and world history.

Thomas Mann masterfully conveys in the last parts of the novel the atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty in which his characters live. Through the fates of his heroes, he senses and reproduces not only the collapse of the old burghers, the trading “patriciate” of the North German cities, but also something much more significant: the fragility of the rule of the bourgeoisie, the owners, the precariousness of the foundations on which capitalist society is built.

The theme of death comes up several times in Buddenbrooks. And here the creative connection between Thomas Mann and Tolstoy is very noticeable. Here we can recall not only “Anna Karenina” (and, in particular, the paintings of the dying of Nikolai Levin), but also “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”. Narrating the last weeks of the life of Senator Thomas Buddenbrook, T. Mann reveals the spiritual drama of this intelligent and energetic bourgeois, who faces near death new, painfully difficult questions arise for him about the meaning of existence, doubts grow about whether he lived his life correctly.

However, the content of “Buddenbrooks” is in no way reduced to either the theme of dying and decay, or to satirical motifs, which in some places, no matter how imperceptibly, are interspersed into the narrative. The artistic charm and originality of "Buddenbrooks" is to a large extent based on the fact that the author is mentally attached to his characters, to their life, their family traditions. For all his sobriety and irony, for all the social criticism that forms the ideological basis of the novel, the writer draws the passing Buddenbrook’s little world with sympathy and restrained sadness, “from the inside.”

“Buddenbrooks” showed the young novelist’s amazing ability to depict people and the circumstances of their lives clearly, visibly, with great artistic plasticity, in an abundance of aptly captured details. And in the colorfulness of everyday episodes, genre scenes, interiors, in the accuracy and richness of psychological characteristics, in the realistic full-bloodedness of the general family-group portrait of the Buddenbrooks, connected by a common family resemblance and yet so dissimilar from each other - in all this the original and mature talent of Thomas Mann.

The book was originally conceived as a history of a burgher family, based on the material of home traditions - a novel about older relatives, nothing more. A beginner writer could not imagine that this book would mark the beginning of his world fame, and that the Nobel Prize (he received it in 1920) would be awarded to him precisely as the author of “Buddenbrooks.

Through the fates of his heroes, he senses and reproduces not only the collapse of the old burghers, the trading “patriciate” of the North German cities, but also something much more significant: the fragility of the rule of the bourgeoisie, the owners, the precariousness of the foundations on which capitalist society is built.

2 . Historical events in Germany during the creation of "Buddenbrooks"

The collapse of attempts to suppress the labor movement and failures in foreign policy predetermined Bismarck's resignation (1890). Disagreements between Bismarck and the new German Emperor Wilhelm II (acceded to the throne in 1888) also played a significant role in this. Bismarck's successor as Reich Chancellor, L. Caprivi, began to move away from the policy of agrarian protectionism in the interests of industrial magnates. Agreements were concluded with a number of states trade agreements, which, thanks to the mutual reduction of duties, facilitated the sale of German industrial goods. This led to the penetration of foreign grain into the German market and caused strong discontent among the Junkers. In 1894, the post of chancellor was taken by H. Hohenlohe, who, like Bismarck, tried to use repression to stop the ongoing consolidation of the forces of the German proletariat.

An indicator of the maturity of German Social Democracy was its adoption in 1891 of the Erfurt Program, which was a step forward compared to the Gotha Program. This program contained provisions for the working class to seize political power and for the abolition of classes and class domination as the ultimate goal of the party. But even this program lacked even a mention of the dictatorship of the proletariat, or the demand for a democratic republic as the immediate goal. In 1893, the Social Democrats elected 44 deputies to the Reichstag, and in 1898 - 56 deputies. The labor movement has become a serious factor in the political life of the country. German Social Democracy played a leading role in the international labor movement at that time. But already at the end of the 19th century. The opportunists, led by E. Bernstein, made themselves known with a revision of Marxism. The support of opportunism was the labor aristocracy, with whom the bourgeoisie shared part of the profits, and people from the petty-bourgeois strata (World History 16:256-258).

Germany entered the 20th century as an imperialist power with a highly developed economy. In terms of industrial production, Germany advanced by the beginning of the 20th century. to 1st place in Europe, overtaking the recent “workshop of the world” Great Britain. Under the sign of militarism, a restructuring of the entire economic and political social structure Germany. The German imperialist bourgeoisie, which was late in its development, widely used dumping in the struggle for markets; at the same time, it sought to compensate for the “losses” by increasing prices on the domestic market. The dominant form of monopolistic associations in Germany were cartels; their number grew rapidly (in 1890 - 210, in 1911 - 550-600). Characteristic feature German imperialism had a wide coverage of monopolies throughout the country's economy. Large banks have become extremely important; this was explained by the primary role they played in the process of establishing monopolies. Therefore, the fusion of industrial and banking capital proceeded more intensively in Germany than in other countries. Along with this, in Germany, where the direct influence of the state on economic life was significant in previous decades, state-monopoly tendencies appeared early.

German imperialism was characterized by a class alliance between the Junkers and the big bourgeoisie. At the beginning of the 20th century. The export of capital in Germany intensified. In 1902, German investments abroad amounted to 12.5 billion francs, and in 1914 already 44 billion francs. The monopolies persistently pushed the government towards war to redistribute the world.

Imperialist Germany was continuously building up its armaments. From 1879 to 1914, military spending increased 5 times, exceeding 1,600 million marks, which amounted to more than half of the state budget. The size of the peacetime army increased every year; by 1914 it reached 800 thousand people; The German army was equipped with the most modern weapons of that time. Warship construction programs have been repeatedly revised upward. By the beginning of World War I, Germany had 41 battleships, including 15 super-powerful “dreadnoughts”. The ruling circles carried out intensive ideological indoctrination of the population in the spirit of chauvinism.

Early 20th century marked by a new upsurge in the labor movement. The Revolution of 1905-07 in Russia had a great influence on the German proletariat. In 1905-1906, over 800 thousand people took part in strikes in Germany, i.e. almost the same as in the previous 15 years. In Hamburg on January 17, 1906, the first mass political strike in the history of the German labor movement took place. The leaders of the left social democrats promoted the Russian revolutionary experience: R. Luxemburg, K. Liebknecht, K. Zetkin, F. Mehring and others. Right social democrats (E. Bernstein, K. Legin, G. Vollmar, F. Scheidemann , F. Ebert) promoted “class peace.” After the defeat of the Russian Revolution of 1905-07, the reactionary course in German politics intensified. In 1907, the Reichstag voted for loans to suppress the tribal uprising in South-West Africa and additional funds for the construction of the fleet. Under these conditions, enormous responsibility fell on the Social Democratic Party as a force that could prevent the onset of reaction and plans to start a world war. If at the beginning of the 20th century. German Social Democracy as a whole still stood in the position of class struggle, was “... ahead of everyone in its organization, in the integrity and cohesion of the movement,” then later right-wing opportunists gained more and more influence in its leadership. The centrist group led by K. Kautsky also caused enormous harm. Figures of the left wing of Social Democracy, to whom A. Bebel was close on a number of issues, defended the principles of Marxism, waged an active struggle against militarism, and exposed the opportunism of right-wing leaders. But even the left Social Democrats did not fully understand the tasks arising from the new conditions of the class struggle and did not dare to make an organizational break with the opportunists.

In the years preceding World War I, the labor movement began to grow again in Germany (in 1910-13, on average, 300-400 thousand workers went on strike per year). On March 6, 1910, in Berlin, under the slogan of introducing universal suffrage in Prussia, a mass workers’ demonstration took place, dispersed by mounted police (“German Bloody Sunday”). In September - October 1910, barricade battles between strikers and police broke out in the proletarian district of Berlin Moabit. In March 1912, a strike of 250 thousand Ruhr miners began; In the summer of 1913, large strikes took place in Hamburg, Kiel, Stettin, and Bremen. The indignation of the oppressed population of Alsace grew. A political crisis was brewing in Germany. However, the large Social Democratic Party (about 1 million people in 1912) and trade unions (over 2.5 million people in 1912-13) were unable to lead the working class to storm imperialism and launch an effective struggle against the threat of war.

In preparation for war, the German government sought to undermine the Franco-Russian alliance and isolate France (Wilhelm II concluded the Bjork Treaty of 1905 with Nicholas II), as well as to liquidate the Anglo-French agreement of 1904. But Germany was unable to tear either Russia or Great Britain away from France; in 1907 these three countries created the Entente, which opposed the Triple Alliance. Overestimating its military power and believing that Great Britain would not support Russia, imperialist Germany started World War I. As a pretext, she used the murder of the heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914 (the so-called Sarajevo murder) (http://www.cultinfo.ru).

Germany entered the 20th century as an imperialist power with a highly developed economy. A characteristic feature of German imperialism was the wide coverage of monopolies throughout the country's economy. Large banks have become extremely important; this was explained by the primary role they played in the process of establishing monopolies. Therefore, the fusion of industrial and banking capital proceeded more intensively in Germany than in other countries. Along with this, in Germany, where the direct influence of the state on economic life was significant in previous decades, state-monopoly tendencies appeared early.

Along with this, in Germany, where the direct influence of the state on economic life was significant in previous decades, state-monopoly tendencies appeared early.

3. Realistic elements in Buddenbrooks T. Manna

Family and main characters of the novel

"Buddenbrooks" is a work that raises great social problems, giving a vivid and truthful picture historical development bourgeoisie as a class from the 18th century (from the time of the Napoleonic wars) until the end of the 19th century. This is a novel about 4 generations of a bourgeois family. The materials in this book are inspired by the history of the Mann family. The gradual destruction of the material well-being of the Buddenbrooks, from generation to generation, is combined with their spiritual impoverishment (Starostin 1980:4.)

Johann Buddenbrook Sr. is a typical burgher of the 18th century, an optimistic and moderate freethinker who optimistically believes in the strength of bourgeois existence.

Johann Buddenbrook the Younger is a man of a different type, his consciousness is shaken by the approach of the revolutionary events of 1848, he is overcome by anxiety and uncertainty, he seeks consolation in religion. With his ostentatious strictly patrician morality, he no longer manages to reconcile his commercial activities with purely human relations even with family members.

Thomas and Christian no longer feel like an integral part of their class, “the best part of the nation,” like their grandfather. Thomas, at the cost of terrible efforts of will, still forces himself to wear a mask of imaginary efficiency, imaginary self-confidence, but he no longer feels able to compete with entrepreneurs of the new predatory type. Behind his ostentatious restraint lies fatigue, a lack of understanding of the meaning and purpose of his own existence, and fear of the future.

Christian is a devastated man, a renegade, a man capable only of buffoonery. The degeneration of the Buddenbrooks marks for Thomas Mann the death of that seemingly indestructible foundation on which the burgher culture was based. The origins of the destruction of the family are in the objective appearance among the German burghers of “Grunders” - unprincipled predatory businessmen who abandoned the notorious conscientiousness in matters that broke solid, established business ties. The strength and thoroughness of the way of life give way to the insatiable thirst for wealth, the cruel grip of entrepreneurs of the new formation.

From generation to generation, the spiritual strength of the family dries up. The rudely good-natured founders of the dynasty are finally replaced by refined neuropathic creatures, whose fear of life kills their activity, making them inevitable victims of history. The last offspring of Hanno Buddenbrook - the son of Thomas - inherited from his mother a passion for music alien to his ancestors, imbued with disgust not only for his father’s prosaic activities, but also for everything that is not music or art.
This is how Mann’s most important theme crystallizes: the sharp opposition of all art to bourgeois reality, all mental activity to the base practice of the bourgeois.

Here there is a well-known influence on Thomas Mann by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Like the first, Mann believes that morbidity elevates a person above mediocrity, making his worldview sharper and deeper. The bearer of ill health - most often an artist - opposes the selfish and narcissistic world of the bourgeoisie. The pessimism of Schopenhauer, who praised the beauty of dying, seemed natural to Mann, who saw in the dying culture of the burghers the death of all-human culture.

So, the published novel “Buddenbrooks” marked a new phase in the creative development of Thomas Mann. It is based on a lot of autobiography. The writer carefully studied the family papers, got acquainted with the business correspondence of his father and grandfather, and delved into the details of the household environment and the home life of his ancestors. Mann's personal memories thus form the main outline of the novel, which gives it even greater concreteness.

The Buddenbrook family chronicle is an epic tale of the former prosperity and decline of the once powerful elite of the German merchant bourgeoisie. In this regard, the writer, on the one hand, continues the traditions of German realistic prose of the 70s of the last century, on the other hand, anticipates the emergence of the Western European, social chronicle novel of the 20th century. (Galsworthy - “The Forsyte Saga”, Roger Martin Du Gard - “The Thibault Family”). Thomas Mann begins the history of the Buddenbrook family in the mid-19th century. and traces her fate over three generations. The former economic power and spiritual greatness of this family are embodied in the image of old Johann Buddenbrook. His entire appearance, his spiritual physiognomy was formed in the atmosphere of the Enlightenment. Full of inexhaustible optimism in life, he is unshakably confident in his personal strengths and in the power of his class. His son, the consul Johann Buddenbrook, is already deprived of his father's optimism; The mature years of his life are already taking place in different historical conditions, in a turning point when the patriarchal burghers are being replaced by a new generation of capitalist entrepreneurs.

In the light of new social conditions, the old Buddenbrook firm becomes for the consul Johann Buddenbrook, and after him for his son Thomas, not just a commercial enterprise, but a symbol of the greatness of the family, a kind of fetish to which the personal interests of each family member must be subordinated.

Setting of the novel

In the first chapters of the novel, both chiefs of the company, old Johann and his son, are depicted with truly epic breadth. The narrative flows smoothly, unhurriedly, lingering for a long time on the material world surrounding the Buddenbrooks. The description of their new home, rich furnishings, and decoration emphasizes the solid wealth and ponderous life of the top of the patrician bourgeoisie. The “gold-edged notebook with an embossed binding”, in which outstanding events in the history of the family were recorded, should, according to Mann’s plan, personify the importance historical role German commercial bourgeoisie.

The epic-genre description takes on a dramatic character only with the appearance of the consul's eldest daughter, Toni. The point, of course, is not about her. This cheerful young girl is infinitely devoted to her family and its traditions. An alarming beginning enters the novel along with Tony's fiancé, Mr. Grünlich, depicted by the author in a sharply grotesque tone. Yielding to the persuasion of people close to her, Tony makes a “profitable match”; she marries a man she dislikes, who in turn marries a rich bride to pay off his debts. Grunlich, this clever, unscrupulous businessman, who even indulges in falsifying the trade books of his office, undermines the former prestige of the Buddenbrooks company, destroys the aura of patriarchy that previously surrounded it.

IN emotional drama Tony weaves in another image that is completely opposite to Grünlich. This is Morten Schwarzkopf, the son of a pilot, a medical student. This simple and honest young man, alienated from the company of rich merchant sons, rises to a sharp protest against police-junker Germany. It is no coincidence that in his modest room in Göttingen, where he is studying medicine, he “puts” a policeman’s uniform on a skeleton. In conversations with Toni Morten, Schwarzkopf lifts the veil of a different life for the young girl, full of tireless work and struggle for existence. Morten calls Toni, whom he dearly loved, into this difficult but rich life. Tony returns the feeling. But the power of tradition is so great that the girl is unable to overcome it. She breaks up with Morten and marries someone who was a good match in the eyes of her family.

Tonya's tragic fate also sheds light on the personal drama of her brother, Consul Thomas. This cultured, enlightened, sensitive person sees the approaching collapse of the Buddenbrooks company. Trying to keep up with the times, Thomas rushes into speculation, but, not possessing the qualities necessary for a capitalist of the new formation, he is forced to give way to predatory businessmen like Hagenström.

Thomas's death has little aesthetic value. Leaving the office of an ignorant dentist, he dies in the street, falling face first into the mud, which drenches his snow-white gloves and immaculate muffler.

From the writer’s point of view, the ugly and sudden death of Consul Buddenbrook is the completion of that internal process the collapse to which his class, the class of the German patriarchal burghers, was doomed.

Thomas Mann perceives the death of the ancient burgher culture as the physical and spiritual degradation of the descendants of the patrician bourgeoisie. This degradation leads to a weakening of the will, a loss of optimism in life and, ultimately, to inevitable death. Consul Thomas and his son Hanno become the bearers of death in the novel. A painfully sophisticated, fragile young man, an esthete, a musician, far from real life, Hanno with all his appearance and its inner essence is associated with decadence. The stamp of decadence also lies on the last chapters of the novel. If the first part of the family chronicle is characterized by a deliberately old-fashioned style of epic writing, then last chapters The second parts are distinguished by a different style: convulsive impetuosity, a combination of lyricism and musicality, painful psychologizing, subtle grace of language (http://bookz.ru.).

The novel “Buddenbrooks” was of enormous importance for the entire further development of the problems of Thomas Mann. It contains, like a focal point, those vital problems for Mann, which he would then begin to develop in short stories about artists and in the novel “The Magic Mountain.” Thus, the image of the musician, esthete Hanno is the first link in a long chain of Mann’s artists, refined, decadent natures, painfully experiencing the tragedy of loneliness in the world.

In creating an image of reality, Mann is, in fact, realistic. Anyone who has read “Buddenbrooks,” when asked whether he can recognize the streets and houses described by the author in the novel, will answer this question positively. The author himself gives great value impression of the reality of the events described in the novel. For example, in the report, T. Mann recalls the words of one of his technical assistants in Munich: “Now I know how it all really happened!” T. Mann took this remark as a compliment. The idea of completeness and objectivity of the reality depicted in T. Mann’s novels is also inherent in many researchers of his work. Y. Bonke notes, for example, that “the accuracy of spatial and temporal characteristics in T. Mann... is supported by psychological observations, minute-by-minute depictions of gestures, clothes, speech patterns and typical habits of the characters, careful study of the “environment”, and the use of dialects...” The researcher emphasizes precisely the minute-by-minute , the thoroughness of the image, its, so to speak, naturalism (Kalashnikov 2000:29).

Lübeck's old town is located on an island, with several bridges leading there. Perhaps the most famous of them is the bridge in front of the Holstentor Gate. The two massive gate towers, built in the 15th century, have become the symbol of Lübeck. The old town in Lübeck is extremely complete, without any modern inserts, and all made of red brick.

Lübeck also has non-medieval attractions. More precisely, one main attraction is the Buddenbrooks House from Thomas Mann's famous novel "Buddenbrooks", which was actually the family home of Heinrich and Thomas Mann. It is now the Mann Family Museum.

For example, let's look at the image of a landscape room. In the spatial structure of the novel, landscape plays an extremely important role: after all, “according to the established order, the Buddenbrooks gathered together every second Thursday” here. Here they received guests, gave dinner parties, etc. The landscape room is thus the room where the idle life of the heroes takes place, devoid of the rigor and expediency to which their working, everyday life, the life of politicians and businessmen, should be subordinated. From the point of view of the completeness and reliability of the plot depiction of the events of the novel, the presentation of the characters' characters, it would be logical to assume the presence in the text of the novel of the same detailed descriptions those rooms in which the heroes work or spend hours of solitude. However, this is precisely what does not happen. In the text of the novel we find only references to the existence of office premises and private chambers of the heroes. From a quantitative point of view, the images of these premises are quite widely represented in the text, but in the absence of their more detailed description, they remain for the reader a kind of only marking signs of reality, a kind of mask, an external plan, the content of which is hidden and unclear. Office spaces and bedrooms are intentionally overlooked spaces.

An analysis of the plot of the novel also reveals the fact that the vast majority of events that are the key plot points of the story take place in the landscape room. The fateful visit of Grunlich for Tony Buddenbrook, who sought her hand in marriage, the revolutionary unrest of October 1848, and finally, the death of the old consul Johann Buddenbrook - all these important events are experienced by the heroes of the novel in this room. The rest of the space of the house (for example, office premises or bedrooms) is, as it were, pushed aside from the main axis of the plot development of the narrative, deprived of its independent meaning: Consul Buddenbrook even experiences the presence of his wife Elizabeth and newborn daughter from the room adjacent to the landscape room - the dining room, which forms a functional space in the novel. semantic as well as spatial unity with the landscape. The impression of impenetrability, unpreparedness for self-revelation of the repressed space privacy the heroes are strengthened in the novel by introducing the motif of curtains, which always separate, for example, the heroes’ bedroom from the outside world: “Johann Buddenbrook ... quietly rocked a cradle with green silk curtains, almost closely moved to the high bed under the canopy, on which the consulate lay”; “The green curtains on the open windows in Mrs. Grünlich’s bedroom fluttered slightly from easy breathing clear July night”, “the walls of this room were upholstered in dark fabric in large colors... Light barely penetrated through the closed curtains”, etc. From the point of view of understanding the plot material, these spaces turn out to be closed for the reader; by themselves, they do not tell us anything new either about the characters or about the events that happen to them. They are an objective image of reality, which the artist, according to Mann, is called upon to subject to “subjective deepening” (Kalashnikov 2000:34).

As the narrative acquires more and more realistic details (new characters appear, old ones leave, the narrative space associated with the family’s acquisition of a new house even partially changes), the symbolic content that organizes them into a certain semantic unity - unity - deepens. catastrophes, family deaths. The landscape image gradually acquires the ability to reorganize the meaning of the events depicted in the novel and predetermine the course of their development.

"Buddenbrooks" is a work that raises large social issues, giving a vivid and truthful picture of the historical development of the bourgeoisie as a class from the 18th to the end of the 19th century. This is a novel about 4 generations of a bourgeois family. The materials in this book are inspired by the history of the Mann family. The gradual destruction of the Buddenbrooks' material well-being, from generation to generation, is combined with their spiritual impoverishment.

From a quantitative point of view, images of premises that seem to be quite widely represented in the text, but in the absence of a more detailed description, they remain for the reader a kind of only marking signs of reality, a kind of mask, an external plan, the content of which is hidden and unclear. Office spaces and bedrooms are intentionally overlooked spaces. The space of the house is, as it were, pushed aside from the main axis of the plot development of the narrative, deprived of its independent meaning. But this only enhances the overall impression of realism.