It was written partly in response to Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.
Chernyshevsky wrote the novel while in solitary confinement of the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863. Since January 1863, the manuscript has been handed over in parts to the commission of inquiry on the Chernyshevsky case (the last part was handed over on April 6). The commission, and after it the censors, saw only a love line in the novel and gave permission for publication. The oversight of censorship was soon noticed, the responsible censor Beketov was removed from his post. However, the novel had already been published in the journal Sovremennik (1863, Nos. 3-5). Despite the fact that the issues of Sovremennik, in which the novel What Is to Be Done? were published, were banned, the text of the novel in handwritten copies was distributed throughout the country and caused a lot of imitation.
In 1867, the novel was published as a separate book in Geneva (in Russian) by Russian emigrants, then it was translated into Polish, Serbian, Hungarian, French, English, German, Italian, Swedish and Dutch. In Soviet times also into Finnish and Tajik (Farsi). The influence of Chernyshevsky's novel is felt by Emil Zola ("Lady's happiness"), Strindberg ("Utopias in reality"), the figure of the Bulgarian national revival Lyuben Karvelov ("Is fate to blame", written in Serbian).
What Is to Be Done, like Fathers and Sons, spawned the so-called anti-nihilistic novel. In particular, "On Knives" by Leskov, where the motifs of Chernyshevsky's work are parodied.
The ban on the publication of the novel What Is to Be Done? was removed only in 1905. In 1906, the novel was first published in Russia as a separate edition.
In the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “What to do?” aluminum is mentioned. In the "naive utopia" of Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream, it is called the metal of the future. Aluminum reached the "big future" by the middle of the 20th century.
The "lady in mourning" that appears at the end of the work is Olga Sokratovna Chernyshevskaya, the writer's wife. At the end of the novel, we are talking about the release of Chernyshevsky from the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was at the time of writing the novel. He did not wait for release: on February 7, 1864, he was sentenced to 14 years of hard labor, followed by a settlement in Siberia.
The main characters with the surname Kirsanov are also found in Ivan Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons", but the researchers refuse to connect the heroes of Chernyshevsky and Turgenev's novels with each other.
F. M. Dostoevsky argues with the ideas of Chernyshevsky, in particular with his thoughts about the future of mankind, in Notes from the Underground, thanks to which the image of the “crystal palace” has become a common motif of world literature of the 20th century.
"What to do?"- a novel by the Russian philosopher, journalist and literary critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky, written in December 1862 - April 1863, while imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress of St. Petersburg. The novel was written partly in response to Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.
History of creation and publication
Chernyshevsky wrote the novel while in the solitary confinement of the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863. Since January 1863, the manuscript has been handed over in parts to the commission of inquiry on the Chernyshevsky case (the last part was handed over on April 6). The commission, and after it the censors, saw only a love line in the novel and gave permission for publication. The oversight of censorship was soon noticed, the responsible censor Beketov was removed from his post. However, the novel had already been published in the journal Sovremennik (1863, Nos. 3-5). Despite the fact that the issues of Sovremennik, in which the novel What Is to Be Done? were published, were banned, the text of the novel in handwritten copies was distributed throughout the country and caused a lot of imitation.
“Chernyshevsky’s novel was not talked about in a whisper, not quietly, but at the top of his lungs in the halls, at the entrances, at the table of Mrs. Milbret and in the basement pub of the Shtenbokov passage. They shouted: “disgusting”, “charm”, “abomination”, etc. - all in different tones.
P. A. Kropotkin:
“For the Russian youth of that time, it [the book“ What is to be done? ”] was a kind of revelation and turned into a program, became a kind of banner.”
In 1867, the novel was published as a separate book in Geneva (in Russian) by Russian emigrants, then it was translated into Polish, Serbian, Hungarian, French, English, German, Italian, Swedish, Dutch.
The ban on the publication of the novel What Is to Be Done? was removed only in 1905. In 1906, the novel was first published in Russia as a separate edition.
Plot
The central character of the novel is Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya. To avoid marriage, imposed by a selfish mother, the girl enters into a fictitious marriage with medical student Dmitry Lopukhov (teacher of Fedya's younger brother). Marriage allows her to leave her parental home and manage her life on her own. Vera studies, tries to find her place in life, and finally opens a “new type” sewing workshop - this is a commune where there are no hired workers and owners, and all the girls are equally interested in the well-being of the joint venture.
The family life of the Lopukhovs is also unusual for its time, its main principles are mutual respect, equality and personal freedom. Gradually, a real feeling arises between Vera and Dmitry, based on trust and affection. However, it happens that Vera Pavlovna falls in love with her husband's best friend, doctor Alexander Kirsanov, with whom she has much more in common than with her husband. This love is mutual. Vera and Kirsanov begin to avoid each other, hoping to hide their feelings, primarily from each other. However, Lopukhov guesses everything and forces them to confess.
To give his wife freedom, Lopukhov fakes suicide (the novel begins with an episode of imaginary suicide), he himself leaves for America in order to study industrial production in practice. After some time, Lopukhov, under the name of Charles Beaumont, returns to Russia. He is an agent of an English firm and arrived on her behalf to purchase a stearin plant from the industrialist Polozov. Delving into the affairs of the plant, Lopukhov visits Polozov's house, where he meets his daughter Ekaterina. Young people fall in love with each other and soon get married, after which Lopukhov-Beumont announces his return to the Kirsanovs. A close friendship is established between families, they settle in the same house, and a society of “new people” is expanding around them - those who want to arrange their own and social life “in a new way”.
One of the most significant heroes of the novel is the revolutionary Rakhmetov, a friend of Kirsanov and Lopukhov, whom they once introduced to the teachings of the utopian socialists. A short digression is devoted to Rakhmetov in chapter 29 (“A Special Person”). This is a hero of the second plan, only episodically connected with the main storyline of the novel (brings Vera Pavlovna a letter from Dmitry Lopukhov explaining the circumstances of his imaginary suicide). However, Rakhmetov plays a special role in the ideological outline of the novel. What it consists of, Chernyshevsky explains in detail in the XXXI part of chapter 3 (“Conversation with an insightful reader and his expulsion”):
Artistic originality
“The novel“ What is to be done? ”I was just deeply plowed. This is a thing that gives a charge for a lifetime.” (Lenin)The emphatically entertaining, adventurous, melodramatic beginning of the novel was supposed not only to confuse censorship, but also to attract the broad masses of readers. The external plot of the novel is a love story, but it reflects the new economic, philosophical and social ideas of the time. The novel is riddled with allusions to the coming revolution.
L. Yu. Brik recalled Mayakovsky: “One of the books closest to him was Chernyshevsky's What to Do? He kept coming back to her. The life described in it echoed ours. Mayakovsky, as it were, consulted with Chernyshevsky about his personal affairs, found support in him. What to Do? was the last book he read before he died.”
- In the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “What to do?” aluminum is mentioned. In the "naive utopia" of Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream, it is called the metal of the future. And this great future to date (ser. XX - XXI century) aluminum has already reached.
- The "lady in mourning" that appears at the end of the work is Olga Sokratovna Chernyshevskaya, the writer's wife. At the end of the novel, we are talking about the release of Chernyshevsky from the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was at the time of writing the novel. He did not wait for release: on February 7, 1864, he was sentenced to 14 years of hard labor, followed by a settlement in Siberia.
- The main characters with the surname Kirsanov are also found in Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons.
Screen adaptations
- "What to do? "- a three-part teleplay (directors: Nadezhda Marusalova, Pavel Reznikov), 1971.
On July 11, 1856, a note left by a strange guest is found in the room of one of the large St. Petersburg hotels. The note says that its author will soon be heard on the Liteiny Bridge and that no one should be suspected. The circumstances are clarified very soon: at night, a man is shooting at Liteiny Bridge. His shot cap is fished out of the water.
On the same morning, a young lady sits and sews in a dacha on Kamenny Island, singing a lively and bold French song about working people who will be set free by knowledge. Her name is Vera Pavlovna. The maid brings her a letter, after reading which Vera Pavlovna sobs, covering her face with her hands. The young man who entered tries to calm her down, but Vera Pavlovna is inconsolable. She pushes the young man away with the words: “You are in the blood! You have his blood on you! It’s not your fault - I’m alone ... ”The letter received by Vera Pavlovna says that the person who writes it leaves the stage because he loves“ both of you ”too much ...
The tragic denouement is preceded by the life story of Vera Pavlovna. She spent her childhood in St. Petersburg, in a multi-storey building on Gorokhovaya, between Sadovaya and Semyonovsky bridges. Her father, Pavel Konstantinovich Rozalsky, is the manager of the house, her mother gives money on bail. The only concern of the mother, Marya Alekseevna, in relation to Verochka: to marry her as soon as possible to a rich man. A narrow-minded and evil woman does everything possible for this: she invites a music teacher to her daughter, dresses her up and even takes her to the theater. Soon the beautiful swarthy girl is noticed by the master's son, officer Storeshnikov, and immediately decides to seduce her. Hoping to force Storeshnikov to marry, Marya Alekseevna demands that her daughter be favorable to him, while Verochka refuses this in every possible way, understanding the true intentions of the womanizer. She manages to somehow deceive her mother, pretending that she is luring her boyfriend, but this cannot last long. Vera's position in the house becomes completely unbearable. It is resolved in an unexpected way.
A teacher, a graduate medical student, Dmitry Sergeevich Lopukhov, was invited to Verochka's brother Fedya. At first, young people are wary of each other, but then they begin to talk about books, about music, about a fair way of thinking, and soon they feel affection for each other. Having learned about the plight of the girl, Lopukhov tries to help her. He is looking for a governess position for her, which would give Verochka the opportunity to live separately from her parents. But the search turns out to be unsuccessful: no one wants to take responsibility for the fate of the girl if she runs away from home. Then the student in love finds another way out: shortly before the end of the course, in order to have enough money, he leaves his studies and, taking up private lessons and translating a geography textbook, makes an offer to Verochka. At this time, Verochka has her first dream: she sees herself released from a damp and dark basement and talking with an amazing beauty who calls herself love for people. Verochka promises the beauty that she will always let other girls out of the cellars, locked up just like she was locked up.
Young people rent an apartment, and their life is going well. True, their relationship seems strange to the landlady: "cute" and "cute" sleep in different rooms, enter each other only after knocking, do not show each other undressed, etc. Verochka hardly manages to explain to the hostess that they should be a relationship between spouses if they do not want to annoy each other.
Vera Pavlovna reads books, gives private lessons, and runs the household. Soon she starts her own enterprise - a sewing workshop. The girls work in the workshop self-employed, but are its co-owners and receive their share of the income, like Vera Pavlovna. They not only work together, but spend their free time together: go on picnics, talk. In her second dream, Vera Pavlovna sees a field on which ears of corn grow. She also sees dirt on this field - or rather, two dirt: fantastic and real. The real dirt is taking care of the most necessary things (such that Vera Pavlovna's mother was always burdened), and ears of corn can grow out of it. Fantastic dirt - caring for the superfluous and unnecessary; nothing worthwhile grows out of it.
The Lopukhov spouses often have Dmitry Sergeevich's best friend, his former classmate and spiritually close person to him - Alexander Matveevich Kirsanov. Both of them "chest, without connections, without acquaintances, made their way." Kirsanov is a strong-willed, courageous person, capable of both a decisive act and a subtle feeling. He brightens up the loneliness of Vera Pavlovna with conversations, when Lopukhov is busy, he takes her to the Opera, which they both love. However, soon, without explaining the reasons, Kirsanov ceases to visit his friend, which greatly offends both him and Vera Pavlovna. They do not know the true reason for his "cooling": Kirsanov is in love with his friend's wife. He reappears in the house only when Lopukhov falls ill: Kirsanov is a doctor, he treats Lopukhov and helps Vera Pavlovna take care of him. Vera Pavlovna is in complete turmoil: she feels that she is in love with her husband's friend. She has a third dream. In this dream, Vera Pavlovna, with the help of some unknown woman, reads the pages of her own diary, which says that she feels gratitude for her husband, and not that quiet, tender feeling, the need for which is so great in her.
The situation in which three smart and decent "new people" have fallen into seems insoluble. Finally, Lopukhov finds a way out - a shot on the Liteiny Bridge. On the day this news was received, an old acquaintance of Kirsanov and Lopukhov, Rakhmetov, "a special person" comes to Vera Pavlovna. The “higher nature” was awakened in him at one time by Kirsanov, who introduced the student Rakhmetov to books “that need to be read.” Coming from a wealthy family, Rakhmetov sold the estate, distributed money to his fellows and now leads a harsh lifestyle: partly because he considers it impossible for himself to have what a simple person does not have, partly out of a desire to educate his character. So, one day he decides to sleep on nails to test his physical abilities. He doesn't drink wine, he doesn't touch women. Rakhmetov is often called Nikitushka Lomov - for the fact that he walked along the Volga with barge haulers in order to get closer to the people and gain the love and respect of ordinary people. Rakhmetov's life is shrouded in a veil of mystery of a clearly revolutionary persuasion. He has a lot to do, but none of it is his personal business. He travels around Europe, intending to return to Russia in three years, when he "needs" to be there. This "specimen of a very rare breed" differs from just "honest and kind people" in that it is "the engine of engines, the salt of the salt of the earth."
Rakhmetov brings Vera Pavlovna a note from Lopukhov, after reading which she becomes calm and even cheerful. In addition, Rakhmetov explains to Vera Pavlovna that the dissimilarity of her character with the character of Lopukhov was too great, which is why she reached out to Kirsanov. Having calmed down after a conversation with Rakhmetov, Vera Pavlovna leaves for Novgorod, where she marries Kirsanov a few weeks later.
The dissimilarity between the characters of Lopukhov and Vera Pavlovna is also mentioned in a letter that she soon receives from Berlin. he had a penchant for solitude, which was in no way possible during his life with the sociable Vera Pavlovna. Thus, love affairs are arranged to the general pleasure. The Kirsanov family has approximately the same lifestyle as the Lopukhov family before. Alexander Matveyevich works hard, Vera Pavlovna eats cream, takes baths and is engaged in sewing workshops: she now has two of them. Similarly, there are neutral and non-neutral rooms in the house, and spouses can enter non-neutral rooms only after knocking. But Vera Pavlovna notices that Kirsanov not only allows her to lead the lifestyle that she likes, and is not only ready to lend a shoulder to her in difficult times, but is also keenly interested in her life. He understands her desire to engage in some business, "which cannot be postponed." With the help of Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna begins to study medicine.
Soon she has a fourth dream. Nature in this dream "pours aroma and song, love and bliss into the chest." The poet, whose forehead and thought are illuminated by inspiration, sings a song about the meaning of history. Before Vera Pavlovna are pictures of the life of women in different millennia. First, the slave woman obeys her master among the tents of the nomads, then the Athenians worship the woman, still not recognizing her as their equal. Then the image of a beautiful lady arises, for the sake of which a knight fights in a tournament. But he loves her only until she becomes his wife, that is, a slave. Then Vera Pavlovna sees her own face instead of the face of the goddess. Its features are far from perfect, but it is illuminated by the radiance of love. The great woman, familiar to her from her first dream, explains to Vera Pavlovna what is the meaning of women's equality and freedom. This woman also shows Vera Pavlovna pictures of the future: the citizens of New Russia live in a beautiful house made of cast iron, crystal and aluminum. In the morning they work, in the evening they have fun, and "whoever has not worked out enough, he has not prepared the nerve to feel the fullness of fun." The guidebook explains to Vera Pavlovna that this future should be loved, that one should work for it and transfer from it to the present everything that can be transferred.
The Kirsanovs have a lot of young people, like-minded people: “This type has recently appeared and is quickly spreading.” All these people are decent, hardworking, having unshakable life principles and possessing "cold-blooded practicality." The Beaumont family soon appears among them. Ekaterina Vasilievna Beaumont, nee Polozova, was one of the richest brides in St. Petersburg. Kirsanov once helped her with smart advice: with his help, Polozova figured out that the person she was in love with was not worthy of her. Then Ekaterina Vasilievna marries a man who calls himself an agent of an English firm, Charles Beaumont. He speaks excellent Russian - because he allegedly lived in Russia until the age of twenty. His romance with Polozova develops calmly: both of them are people who "do not rage for no reason." When Beaumont meets Kirsanov, it becomes clear that this person is Lopukhov. The Kirsanov and Beaumont families feel such a spiritual closeness that they soon settle in the same house, receive guests together. Ekaterina Vasilievna also arranges a sewing workshop, and the circle of “new people” is thus becoming wider and wider.
retold
Publication of the novel "What to do?" in the 3rd, 4th and 5th issues of Sovremennik in 1863 literally shocked reading Russia. The camp of direct and hidden serf-owners, the reactionary and liberal press took the novel extremely unfriendly. The reactionary Severnaya Pchela, Moskovskie Vedomosti, Domashnaya Talk, the Slavophile Den, as well as other protective publications, in different ways, but with the same degree of rejection and hatred, attacked the novel and its author.
Progressive-minded circles, especially young people, read the novel with intense attention and delight.
Against slanderous attacks on What Is To Be Done? V. Kurochkin, D. Pisarev, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. Herzen and other prominent figures of Russian literature spoke. “Chernyshevsky created a highly original and extremely remarkable work,” noted D. Pisarev. M. Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote: “...“ What to do? - a serious novel, pursuing the idea of the need for new life foundations.
Even the enemies were forced to recognize the novel as an extraordinary phenomenon. Censor Beketov, removed from his post for such a rude viewing, testified: "He got up about his sodoms when they saw that something extraordinary was happening between young people of both sexes under the influence of this work."
Issues of Sovremennik with Chernyshevsky's novel were strictly prohibited by the government. But a significant part of the circulation has already been distributed throughout the country. Hundreds of copies of What Is to Be Done? rewritten by hand. Not a single work of art in Russia in the 19th century had such a public resonance, did not have such a direct impact on the formation of revolutionary generations. This was emphasized by the prominent Narodniks P. Kropotkin and P. Tkachev. G. Plekhanov wrote about this emotionally and excitedly: “Who has not read and re-read this famous work? Who was not carried away by him, who did not become cleaner, better, more cheerful and bolder under his beneficial influence? Who was not struck by the moral purity of the main characters? Who, after reading this novel, has not thought about his own life, has not subjected his own aspirations and inclinations to a strict test? We all drew from him both moral strength and faith in a better future.”
Soon after the resounding success in Russia, Chernyshevsky's novel was translated into English, French, German, Italian and many other languages of the world, published and read widely, recruiting more and more volunteers for the revolutionary cause away from Russia.
The influence of Chernyshevsky and his novel What Is to Be Done? recognized by such well-known figures of the international liberation and workers' movement as A. Bebel, X. Botev, J. Ged, G. Dimitrov, V. Kolarov, K. Zetkin. The founders of scientific communism, K. Marx and F. Engels, highly valued the revolutionary and literary feat of Nikolai Gavrilovich, calling him the great Russian writer, the socialist Lessing.
What is the secret of the unfading longevity of N. G. Chernyshevsky's book? Why does each new generation of socialists and revolutionaries see again and again in the novel What Is to Be Done? "an old but formidable weapon"? Why do we, the people of the end of the 20th century, the period of developed socialism, read it with such excitement?
Perhaps, first of all, because N. G. Chernyshevsky was the first in the history of world literature to show that the high ideas of socialism and the enlightened morality of the future golden age are not the lot of celestials and supermen, but the daily life of quite understandable, tangible "ordinary new people", whom he saw in life and whose characters he made the subject of artistic research.
The indisputable merit of the writer is the naturalness of that ascent to the heights of the human spirit and action - from the dirt and immobility of the philistine world of "old people" - which he makes the reader-friend step by step go through with his heroine Vera Rozalskaya - Vera Pavlovna Lopukhova-Kirsanova.
Let us recall the very beginning of his unexpected “Foreword”, which boldly invaded the semi-detective beginning of the novel: “The content of the story is love, the main person is a woman ...
I. It’s true, I say, ”the author claims.
Yes it's true! The novel "What to do?" a book about the love of people and about love for people, which inevitably comes, which must be established on earth.
Vera Pavlovna’s love for the “new man” Lopukhov gradually led her to the idea that “all people need to be happy, and that it is necessary to help this come sooner ... this is one and natural, one and human ... " G. Chernyshevsky was deeply convinced that among the "new people", whose main features he considered activity, human decency, courage and confidence in achieving the lofty goal once chosen, the ethics of socialism and revolution can and should grow out of relationships in love, in family, in a circle of associates, like-minded people.
He left evidence of this conviction to us not only in the novel, masterfully showing in it the development and enrichment (from the particular to the general) of Vera Pavlovna's living feeling. In one of his letters to his sons from far Siberia, many years later, he wrote: “No one can think about millions, tens, hundreds of millions of people as well as they should. And you can't. But all the same, part of the rational thoughts inspired by your love for your father inevitably expands to many, many other people. And at least a little bit these thoughts are transferred to the concept of “man” - to everyone, to all people.
Many pages of the novel are a true hymn to the love of "new people", which is the result and crown of the moral development of mankind. Only the real equality of lovers, only their joint service to a beautiful goal will help to enter the realm of the “Bright Beauty” - that is, the realm of such Love, which is a hundred times greater than the love of the times of Astarte, Aphrodite, the Queen of Immaculateness.
These pages were read by many in Russia and abroad. For example, I. E. Repin wrote about them with enthusiasm in his book of memoirs “Far Close”. They were singled out from the whole novel by August Bebel, “... a pearl among all the episodes seems to me a comparative description of love in different historical eras ... This comparison is perhaps the best that the 19th century has so far said about love,” he emphasized.
It is also true that, being a love story, What Is to Be Done? - a book about the revolution, about its moral principles, about ways to achieve a better future for mankind. With the whole structure of his work, the concrete life of his specific heroes, Chernyshevsky showed that a wonderful future cannot come by itself, that a stubborn and long struggle is needed for it. The dark forces of evil, which are so concretized "humanized" in the characters of "old people" - from Marya Alekseevna, Storeshnikov and the "perceptive reader" many-sided in his vile vulgarity to the barely marked persecutors of Vera Pavlovna's workshop, behind whom police ranks, prohibition, prisons and the entire arsenal of violence accumulated over the centuries, are not at all going to voluntarily give way to the future.
A world hostile to true morality and love must be swept away by the spring flood of revolutionary renewal, which must be expected, but which must be actively prepared. It is precisely for this that Chernyshevsky puts forward life and reveals himself to the reader as a "special person." Creating the image of Rakhmetov - a professional revolutionary, conspirator, herald, and possibly the leader of a future popular uprising - is a literary feat of Nikolai Gavrilovich. The art of the novelist and the heights of the “Aesopian possibilities” of the author, who was able to “educate real revolutionaries” even under censored conditions, allowed him to say much more about Rakhmetov than was said in the heading “A Special Person”.
Once found and awakened to a new life by Kirsanov, Rakhmetov actively influences the inner world of all the main characters: Lopukhov, Kirsanov, Vera Pavlovna, and their friends. He is the catalyst and the inner spring of their actions, as, indeed, the inner spring of the novel itself. This is not seen and cannot be seen by the “astute reader”. But the author constantly invites the like-minded reader to take part in this non-plot line of the novel.
Rakhmetov is really a special person, one of those few who, according to the author, are “salt of the salt of the earth”, “motors of engines”. He is a knight of what was conceived, a knight of that Bright beauty that appears in the beautiful dreams of Vera Pavlovna. But no matter how the author Rakhmetov differs from his other favorite heroes, he still does not separate them with an impenetrable abyss. And at times he makes it clear that under certain circumstances, "ordinary decent people" can be melted into "special" people. This happened in the time of Chernyshevsky, and we meet even more examples in the subsequent history, when the modest soldiers of the revolution became its true knights, the leaders of millions of misses.
Volumes have been written about the famous dreams of Vera Pavlovna, about retrospective allegories and insights into the future in them during the existence of the novel. It hardly needs further interpretation. Of course, concrete pictures of the socialist far away, a kind of utopia painted with the bold brush of the author of What Is To Be Done?, seem naive to us today, but they made a strong impression on the reader of the last century. By the way, N. G. Chernyshevsky himself was skeptical about the possibility of “clearly describing for others, or at least imagining to himself a different social structure, which would have a higher ideal as its basis.”
But even today's reader of the novel cannot but be captivated by that quivering faith, that inescapable conviction, that historical optimism with which more than one hundred and twenty years ago a prisoner from the “eleventh number” of the Peter and Paul Fortress looked into the future of his people and humanity. Without waiting for the verdict that the world of autocracy and serfdom, the world of “old people” already doomed by history, was preparing for him, N. G. Chernyshevsky himself pronounced his verdict on this world, prophetically proclaiming the inevitability of the onset of the world of socialism and labor.
Chernyshevsky finished "What is to be done?" shortly before his 35th birthday. He came to literature as a man of all-round erudition, a solid materialistic worldview, serious life experience and almost incredible knowledge in the field of philology. Nikolai Gavrilovich was aware of this himself. In one of the variants of the preface to the novel "Tales in the Story", written shortly after the publication of "Chto Delat?" to be a great poet." It is hardly necessary to give here other arguments about his possible place in literature as a novelist. They, as the reader of What Is to Be Done well remember, are full of ironic self-criticism, but, by and large, they have a restrained assessment of their capabilities, without self-abasement.
Of course, the enormous talent of Chernyshevsky as a fiction writer could not be revealed in full force. The heavy press of censorship and the ban even on his very name from 1863 almost until the revolution of 1905 is one of the most vile crimes of tsarism against the Russian people and world literature. The reader of the 19th century practically did not recognize a single new work of a writer buried alive. However, "What is to be done?", the incomparable literary fate of N. G. Chernyshevsky's first novel, gives a convincing idea of the scope and depth of his fiction talent.
The noticeable influence of Chernyshevsky's novel on the further fate of Russian literature is generally recognized in Soviet literary criticism. It can be traced even in the work of such outstanding artists as JI. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, N. Leskov, who could not avoid the impact of many ideas of "What is to be done?" - even when they built some of their works taking into account their rejection or direct polemics with them.
Chernyshevsky's book "What to do?" brought to literature not only an immense world of ideas, not only a new genre of the intellectual novel. Having absorbed much from the innumerable treasures of the literary arsenal, the author enriched them, reworked them with the power of his talent, and sometimes he himself made discoveries both in the field of content and in terms of equipment with literary devices, plot moves, the looseness of the visible authorial participation in the fabric itself, the architectonics of the work .
Researchers rightly point out, for example, that the origins of such a literary device as the dreams of Vera Pavlovna should be seen in Radishchev's Pravvzor from the chapter "Spasskaya cavity" of the famous "Journey ...". “The sister of her sisters and the bride of her suitors” is a talented continuation of the image of the one who, at the behest of Alexander Radishchev, removed the thorn in the eyes, seeing the reality of true life. Of course, Chernyshevsky took into account the experience of "Eugene Onegin" and "Dead Souls", when he boldly introduced into the novel not just individual author's digressions, lyrical reflections, but the author himself but the flesh, character, strength of sarcasm or respect for the many-sided reader, who himself often turns out to be a hero and part of the story.
Ln Chernyshevsky’s ability to create visible, “culturally tangible types of “old people” - such as Vera’s parents, or the hopelessly stupid Storeshnikov with the stupid maman, mired in class snares, or the monstrously bloated noble spider Chaplin from the “Prologue” - perhaps do we not see the gift of Shchedrin's or Swift's strength?
In the light of what has been said, it seems really absurd, now refuted by more than a century of life, “What is to be done?”, which arose even in the first fight around the novel, reasoning
about his ineptitude. Unfortunately, this vile version proved tenacious. Apparently, it is not in vain that the enemies of revolutionary literature have worked so hard around it for so long.
It is very significant that the disputes that once thundered around the work of N. G. Chernyshevsky, around the novel What Is To Be Done? did not recede into the field of archival literary criticism. First subsiding, then flaring up again, they did not stop either in the years preceding the Great October Revolution, or in the middle of the twentieth century, or today. Fearing the impact of a revolutionary novel on the reading public, wanting to downplay the human feat of its author at all costs, bourgeois ideologists of all stripes, from Russian white émigrés to their current ideological followers - literary critics-Sovietologists, and to this day, as if with a living, continue to fight with Chernyshevsky.
In this sense, the picture of the "study" of Chernyshevsky's work in the USA is of considerable interest. Some revival that emerged in the study of Russian revolutionary thought during the Second World War and the first post-war years was replaced by a lull. For a long time Chernyshevsky's name only occasionally appeared on the pages of American literary publications. In the 1960s and 1970s, for a number of reasons: exacerbation of social contradictions, crisis phenomena in the economy, the growth of anti-war sentiment in the United States, the success of the USSR's peace initiatives, the turn towards international detente, interest in our country and its history began to grow. Certain intellectual circles in the United States sought to take a different look at the "Russian question" and its origins. It was at this time that the attention of American researchers to the Russian revolutionary democrats, and especially to Chernyshevsky, increased.
New processes in the socio-political and intellectual atmosphere of those years were manifested to a large extent, for example, in the serious work of F. B. Randall - the first American monograph on Chernyshevsky, published in 1967. According to the author's own statement, he set the task of discovering for the Western reader a new name in Russian literature of the 19th century. He believes, and it is hard to disagree with this, that the previous works of his colleagues did not give even an approximate idea of the true scope and significance of Chernyshevsky in the history of literature and social thought in Russia.
Randall very convincingly shows the reader the stereotypes-"myths" that have developed in American and Western literature in general about Chernyshevsky. One of them is the "myth" about Chernyshevsky as a primitive utilitarian in the field of aesthetics and morality. Another "myth" is about the Russian thinker as an uncritical popularizer of crude vulgar materialistic theories borrowed from the West. The third "myth" -
about Chernyshevsky as a boring, ponderous writer, allegedly of no interest to the modern reader. Randall considers all these "myths" to be the product of incompetence, scientific dishonesty and even ignorance of scientific specialists, of whom, in his opinion, only one in two read "What is to be done?" and at most one in twenty took the trouble to get acquainted with the other works of the Russian author.
Well, the assessment is harsh, but, perhaps, not without reason. Randall showed an enviable familiarity not only with the works of N. G. Chernyshevsky, but also with world (including Soviet) literature on these issues. For him, reading Chernyshevsky - the novel "What is to be done?" and other works - not at all boring. It gives "pleasure and genuine pleasure." In his opinion, Chernyshevsky is a witty polemicist, possessing exceptional merits of style, integrity, unity of form and content. The American researcher is captivated by the high degree of persuasiveness of Chernyshevsky's works, his faith in the bright future of mankind, in the correctness of his views. At the same time, he admits with frank sadness and regret that such qualities are absent in the ideologists of the modern Western world.
Noting the undoubted merits and personal courage of Randall, who shouldered the heavy burden of "rehabilitating" Chernyshevsky before the American reader, it should be said that this role is not always maintained by him. The burden of bourgeois "myths" is digging in too heavily. The author himself is sometimes engaged in myth-making, accusing either Soviet researchers or Chernyshevsky himself of various kinds of sins. There is no shortage of contradictory arguments in the book, evidence of the influence of stereotypes of Western propaganda and bourgeois thinking, but nevertheless the appearance of such a monograph is an undoubted step by an American scientist along the path of comprehending the true Chernyshevsky, along the path of constructiveness and scientific conscientiousness.
A continuation of the emerging trend of serious interest in the life and work of Chernyshevsky in American scientific literature should be considered the monograph of Professor William Wurlin "Chernyshevsky - a man and a journalist", published in Hell and Harvard University in 1971. And this author freely uses both the works of Chernyshevsky himself, and the literature about him of his predecessors in the West, and a wide range of names of Soviet researchers. The book contains many correct conclusions and observations about the personality, philosophical, economic views of Chernyshevsky. In assessing his aesthetics and literary positions, Wörlin remains in the snares of commonplace bourgeois ideas. He could not understand the dialectical depth of the aesthetic views of the great democrat, he also assesses the novel What Is To Be Done quite primitively. According to Wörlin, Chernyshevsky "salted his novel with heroes who embody abstract vices and virtues." But the author does not deny the wide popularity of the novel and the fact that the "new people" were perceived by Russian youth as an example to follow, and Rakhmetov became "a model of a professional revolutionary" for many years.
However, even timid inclinations towards truth and objectivity in matters of the study of Russian literature and the history of social thought alarmed the guardians of the "orthodox" bourgeois mores from science. Sovietologists of all stripes tried to "play back." Randall's unusual book did not go unnoticed. In the very first review by a certain C. A. Moser, it was criticized for breaking with "generally accepted" concepts. N. G. Pereira, first in articles, and then in a special monograph, hastened not only to restore the old "myths", but also to go further than others in his slanderous accusations against Chernyshevsky.
In 1975, new names joined the war against Chernyshevsky. Among them, the professor of Columbia (New York) University Rufus Mathewson especially “distinguished himself”. He came out with a libelous book called "The Good Hero in Russian Literature"2. One of the numerous chapters, entitled "Salt of the Salt of the Earth", is specially devoted to Chernyshevsky, his aesthetics and literary practice. Nikolai Gavrilovich is directly accused (which for some reason seems terrible to the aesthetic professor) that “he created a consistent and integral doctrine of literature for the service of society” and thereby became the theoretical herald of Soviet literature so hated by Mathewson. "The full extent of his (Chernyshevsky. - Yu. M.) influence on Soviet thought has yet to be assessed," the bellicose professor warns menacingly. After all, the positive hero of Soviet literature "agrees to all sorts of restrictions on his vital needs in order to become, like Rakhmetov in Chernyshevsky, an instrument of history."
For a bourgeois researcher, the very idea that art is a reflection of life's reality seems blasphemous. What does this bourgeois bourgeois not ascribe to Chernyshevsky: both the fact that he “completely denies the creative functions of the artist”, and that he wrote “What is to be done?” from a “radical utilitarian position”, and what “denies the artistic imagination”, and, finally, even what the Soviet five-year plans foresaw.
"What to do?" causes literally pathological hatred of Mathewson, since the novel is the realization of the aesthetic principles developed by Chernyshevsky in his dissertation. He sees many sins in the novel and is even ready to forgive the author’s inexperience and supposedly his indifference to literary traditions, but he cannot forgive the worst thing for him - “mistakes arising from the basic doctrines of radical literature, formulated then and still valid now.” Mathewson "criticizes" Chernyshevsky precisely from the position of a bourgeois, frightened by the possibility of an organized struggle of the working people for their future. He is clearly not satisfied with the call of the author "What to do?" to the reader - to see a better future and fight for it. He tries to reject the wonderful novel, to condemn it precisely for its effectiveness, for its revolutionary meaning.
Reading and thinking about this today, one cannot help but be surprised at how far-sighted Chernyshevsky was when, on December 14, 1862, he conceived a work that carries an intellectual charge of such explosive power, against which the ideological defenders of the passing world are waving their hands so unsuccessfully to this day. old people."
More than a century of active work of Chernyshevsky's novel What Is to Be Done? on the bright field of the struggle for socialism, he even more clearly shows the undoubted correctness of V. I. Lenin, who placed Chernyshevsky himself so highly, the artistic and ideological and political merits of his novel What Is To Be Done? Already in the post-war years, additional materials about this became known from the book of memoirs of the former Menshevik N. Valentinov "Meetings with Lenin". Such a stroke is characteristic. When in 1904, during a conversation between Lenin and Vorovsky and Valentinov, the latter began to slander the novel What Is to Be Done?, Vladimir Ilyich warmly stood up for Chernyshevsky. “Are you aware of what you are saying? - he threw at me. - How can a monstrous, absurd idea come to mind to call the work of Chernyshevsky, the greatest and talented representative of socialism before Marx, primitive, mediocre? .. I declare: it is unacceptable to call “What is to be done?” primitive and mediocre. Under his influence, hundreds of people became revolutionaries. Could this have happened if Chernyshevsky had written mediocre and primitive? For example, he captivated my brother, he captivated me too. He plowed me deep. When did you read "What to do?"? It is useless to read it if the milk on the lips has not dried up. Chernyshevsky's novel is too complex, full of thoughts to be understood and appreciated at an early age. I myself tried to read it, I think at the age of 14. It was a worthless, superficial read. But after my brother's execution, knowing that Chernyshevsky's novel was one of his most beloved works, I took up real reading and sat over it not for several days, but for weeks. Only then did I understand the depth. This is a thing that gives a charge for a lifetime.”
In 1928, during the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chernyshevsky, A. V. Lunacharsky said with considerable irony: “The following attitude was established towards Chernyshevsky: he, of course, is a weak artist; his fictional works are something like a fable, morality is important in them ... ”Lunacharsky ridiculed such reasoning, showed their superficiality and complete failure, he emphasized that in order to educate young people, it is fundamentally important to acquaint them with Chernyshevsky’s novels. He called on literary science to study these works more deeply and rightly believed that studying the experience of the great democrat could help the development of young Soviet literature. More than half a century has passed since then. Much has changed in our ideas about Chernyshevsky, we have learned a lot about him and his work. But the conclusions and advice of Lunacharsky on the significance of human and literary achievement II. G. Chernyshevsky, about the importance of the distribution of his books for our life and literature seem to be very relevant today.
In October 1862, during the birth of the idea “What is to be done?”, Nikolai Gavrilovich wrote such proud and prophetic lines to Olga Sokratovna: “... our life belongs to history; hundreds of years will pass, and our names will still be dear to people; and they will remember us with gratitude when they have already forgotten almost everyone who lived at the same time with us. So it is necessary for us not to lower ourselves from the side of cheerfulness of character in front of people who will study our life.
And Chernyshevsky did not drop himself either during the civil execution, or in the Nerchinsk mines, or in the monstrous Vilyui exile. With more than three years of fortress, penal servitude, exile for each year of work in Sovremennik, tsarism took revenge on its dangerous enemy. But his will was unshakable. When in 1874, with promises of close freedom, the authorities tried to persuade the exhausted prisoner to submit a request for pardon to the “highest name”, a short and firm answer followed: “I read it. I refuse to apply. Nikolay Chernyshevsky.
"Relief" occurred only in 1883, when, almost under the Arctic Circle, Chernyshevsky was secretly transferred to the semi-desert hell of the then Astrakhan. At the end of June 1889, after long troubles of the family, Chernyshevsky moved to Saratov. A wonderful but short meeting with relatives. The health of the great fighter and martyr was undermined. October 29, 1889 Chernyshevsky died.
A century and a half has passed since the day when the great democrat and writer was born in a modest Saratov house on the high bank of the Volga. Life has changed on the banks of his beloved river, the wind of the revolutionary storm he predicted has turned the history of Russia sharply. Already more than a third of humanity and pillboxes are on the path of building a new, socialist world. Guided by the truth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the progressive people of the world today know what to do to save and beautify planet Earth. And in all this - a considerable share of work, talent, courage and pores of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who loved people and wanted them to be happy.
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1863, "Contemporary"
1867 (Geneva), 1906 (Russia)
"What to do?"- a novel by the Russian philosopher, journalist and literary critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky, written in December - April, while imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress of St. Petersburg. The novel was written partly in response to Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.
History of creation and publication
Chernyshevsky wrote the novel while in solitary confinement of the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863. Since January 1863, the manuscript has been handed over in parts to the commission of inquiry on the Chernyshevsky case (the last part was handed over on April 6). The commission, and after it the censors, saw only a love line in the novel and gave permission for publication. The oversight of censorship was soon noticed, the responsible censor Beketov was removed from his post. However, the novel had already been published in The Contemporary (1863, No. 3-5). Despite the fact that the issues of Sovremennik, in which the novel What Is to Be Done? were published, were banned, the text of the novel in handwritten copies was distributed throughout the country and caused a lot of imitation.
“Chernyshevsky’s novel was not talked about in a whisper, not quietly, but at the top of his lungs in the halls, at the entrances, at the table of Mrs. Milbret and in the basement pub of the Shtenbokov passage. They shouted: “disgusting”, “charm”, “abomination”, etc. - all in different tones.
“For the Russian youth of that time, it [the book“ What is to be done? ”] was a kind of revelation and turned into a program, became a kind of banner.”
The emphatically entertaining, adventurous, melodramatic beginning of the novel was supposed not only to confuse censorship, but also to attract the broad masses of readers. The external plot of the novel is a love story, but it reflects the new economic, philosophical and social ideas of the time. The novel is riddled with allusions to the coming revolution.
- In the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “What to do?” aluminum is mentioned. In the "naive utopia" of Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream, it is called the metal of the future. And this great future to date (ser. XX - XXI century) aluminum has already reached.
- The "lady in mourning" that appears at the end of the work is Olga Sokratovna Chernyshevskaya, the writer's wife. At the end of the novel, we are talking about the release of Chernyshevsky from the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was at the time of writing the novel. He did not wait for release: on February 7, 1864, he was sentenced to 14 years of hard labor, followed by a settlement in Siberia.
- The main characters with the surname Kirsanov are also found in Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons.
Literature
- Nikolaev P. Revolutionary novel // Chernyshevsky N. G. What to do? M., 1985
Screen adaptations
- 1971: Three-part teleplay (directors: Nadezhda Marusalova, Pavel Reznikov)
Notes
see also
Links
Categories:
- Literary works alphabetically
- Nikolay Chernyshevsky
- political novels
- Novels of 1863
- Novels in Russian
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