What to do? “What to do?”, analysis of the novel by Chernyshevsky Briefly about the novel What to do

1863, "Contemporary"

1867 (Geneva), 1906 (Russia)

"What to do?"- a novel by Russian philosopher, journalist and literary critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky, written in December - April, during his imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress of St. Petersburg. The novel was written partly in response to Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons.

History of creation and publication

Chernyshevsky wrote the novel while in solitary confinement in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863. Since January 1863, the manuscript has been transferred in parts to the investigative commission in the Chernyshevsky case (the last part was transferred on April 6). The commission, and after it the censors, saw only a love story in the novel and gave permission for publication. The censorship oversight was soon noticed, and the responsible censor, Beketov, was removed from office. However, the novel had already been published in the magazine Sovremennik (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 imitations.

“They talked about Chernyshevsky’s novel not in a whisper, not in a low voice, but at the top of their lungs in the halls, on the entrances, at Madame Milbret’s table and in the basement pub of the Stenbokov Passage. They shouted: “disgusting,” “charming,” “abomination,” etc. - all in different tones.”

“For 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 to not only confuse the censors, but also attract a wide mass of readers. The external plot of the novel is a love story, but it reflects new economic, philosophical and social ideas of the time. The novel is permeated with hints of 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 By now (mid XX - XXI centuries) aluminum has already reached.
• The “lady in mourning” who 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 liberation of Chernyshevsky from the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was while writing the novel. He never received his release: on February 7, 1864, he was sentenced to 14 years of hard labor followed by 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

Film adaptations

• 1971: Three-part teleplay (directors: Nadezhda Marusalova, Pavel Reznikov)

Notes

see also

Links

Categories:

• Literary works in alphabetical order
• Nikolai Chernyshevsky
• Political novels
• Novels of 1863
• Novels in Russian

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See what “What to do? (novel)” is in other dictionaries:

- "What to do?" the philosophical question of various thinkers, religious figures, prophets, as well as literary works with this title: “What to do?” novel by Nikolai Chernyshevsky, his main work. "What to do?" book... ...Wikipedia

The name of the famous socio-political novel (1863) by Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828 1889). The main question that in the 60s and 70s. XIX century was discussed in youth circles, there was, as the revolutionary P. N. Tkachev writes, “the question that ... ... Dictionary of popular words and expressions

Date of birth: June 16, 1965 Place of birth: Makeevka, Ukrainian SSR, USSR ... Wikipedia

"What to do?"- a novel by Russian philosopher, journalist and literary critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky, written in December 1862 - April 1863, during his imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress of St. Petersburg. The novel was written partly in response to Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons.

History of creation and publication

Chernyshevsky wrote the novel while in solitary confinement in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863. Since January 1863, the manuscript has been transferred in parts to the investigative commission in the Chernyshevsky case (the last part was transferred on April 6). The commission, and after it the censors, saw only a love story in the novel and gave permission for publication. The censorship oversight was soon noticed, and the responsible censor, Beketov, was removed from office. However, the novel had already been published in the Sovremennik magazine (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 imitations.

“They talked about Chernyshevsky’s novel not in a whisper, not in a low voice, but at the top of their lungs in the halls, on the entrances, at Madame Milbret’s table and in the basement pub of the Stenbokov Passage. They shouted: “disgusting,” “charming,” “abomination,” etc. - all in different tones.”

P. A. Kropotkin:

“For 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, and Dutch.

Ban on publication of the novel “What is to be done?” was only removed 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 parents' home and manage her own life. Vera studies, tries to find her place in life, and finally opens a sewing workshop of a “new type” - 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 enterprise.

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 based on trust and affection arises between Vera and Dmitry. 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 stages suicide (the novel begins with an episode of an imaginary suicide), and he himself leaves for America 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 company and arrived on its 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. The young people fall in love with each other and soon get married, after which Lopukhov-Beaumont announces his return to the Kirsanovs. A close friendship develops between the families, they settle in the same house and a society of “new people” - those who want to arrange their own and social life in a “new way” - expands around them.

One of the most significant characters in 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 supporting character, only incidentally connected with the main storyline of the novel (he brings Vera Pavlovna a letter from Dmitry Lopukhov explaining the circumstances of his imaginary suicide). However, in the ideological outline of the novel, Rakhmetov plays a special role. What it is, Chernyshevsky explains in detail in Part XXXI of Chapter 3 (“Conversation with an insightful reader and his expulsion”):

Artistic originality

The emphatically entertaining, adventurous, melodramatic beginning of the novel was supposed to not only confuse the censors, but also attract a wide mass of readers. The external plot of the novel is a love story, but it reflects new economic, philosophical and social ideas of the time. The novel is permeated with hints of the coming revolution.

L. Yu. Brik recalled Mayakovsky: “One of the books closest to him was “What is to be done?” by Chernyshevsky. He kept coming back to her. The life described in it echoed ours. Mayakovsky seemed to consult with Chernyshevsky about his personal affairs and found support in him. “What to do?” was the last book he read before his death.”

• 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 By now (mid XX - XXI centuries) aluminum has already reached.
• The “lady in mourning” who 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 liberation of Chernyshevsky from the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was while writing the novel. He never received his release: on February 7, 1864, he was sentenced to 14 years of hard labor followed by settlement in Siberia.
• The main characters with the surname Kirsanov are also found in Ivan Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons.”

Film adaptations

• "What to do? "- three-part television play (directors: Nadezhda Marusalova, Pavel Reznikov), 1971.

In St. Petersburg in the summer of 1856, a note from a guest is found in a hotel room: they say, I ask you not to blame anyone for anything, soon they will hear about me on the Liteiny Bridge. Typical suicide note!

And in fact, soon a man shoots himself on the Liteiny Bridge - in any case, a bullet-ridden cap was caught from the water.

At a dacha on a stone island, a young lady who sews while singing a revolutionary French song receives a letter from her maid that makes her cry. The young man tries to console her, but the lady blames him for the death of the one who sent this posthumous letter: this man leaves the stage because he loves Vera and his friend too much.

Therefore, the young lady's name is Vera. Her father is the manager of a large apartment building, her mother is a usurer and pawnbroker (gives money on collateral). High ideals are alien to Mama, she is stupid, evil and thinks only about profit. And her only goal is to marry Vera to a rich man. You need to lure suitors! For this purpose, Vera is dressed up, taught music, and taken to the theater.

When the son of the owner of the house begins to court a girl, the mother pushes her in every possible way to meet him.

Although the dissolute young man is not at all going to marry a pretty dark girl with beautiful black hair and expressive black eyes. He dreams of an ordinary affair, but Verochka pushes him away. The girl is determined and very independent: from the age of fourteen she takes care of the whole family, and from the age of sixteen she gives lessons at the boarding school where she herself studied. However, life with her mother is unbearable, and in those days it was impossible for a girl to leave home without parental permission.

And then fate comes to the aid of the freedom-loving girl: a teacher, medical student Dmitry Lopukhov, is hired to work with her brother Fedya. Verochka is shy at first, but then conversations about books and music, about what justice is, help them become friendly. Lopukhov is trying to find her a position as a governess, but not a single family wants to take responsibility for a girl who does not want to live at home. Then Lopukhov proposes a fictitious marriage to Verochka. She happily agrees.

To save Verochka, Lopukhov even quits the course shortly before its completion and earns extra money by giving private lessons and translations. This is how he manages to rent decent housing.

Here Verochka has a dream. This is no ordinary dream—like the other four dreams, it is important to the structure of the novel. The girl sees that she has been released from a damp and cramped basement. She is met by a beautiful woman - the embodiment of love for people. Vera Pavlovna promises to help her release other girls from the basements.

The mother is furious, but she can’t do anything: her daughter is married!

The young people live in different rooms and do not come to each other without knocking. This is great companionship, but not marital love. Vera Pavlovna does not sit on her savior’s neck: she gives private lessons and runs the household. And now, finally, he opens his own sewing workshop. This is very important - this is how she fulfills her promise made in a dream. The girls don't just get paid for their work: they get a share of the income. In addition, the workers are very friendly: they spend their free time together and go on picnics.

Vera Pavlovna sees a second dream: about a field on which ears of corn grow. Besides the ears of grain, there are two types of dirt on the field: real and fantastic. Real dirt can give rise to something necessary and useful, but nothing worthwhile will come from fantastic dirt. This dream helps Vera Pavlovna understand and forgive her mother, whom only the circumstances of her life made so embittered and selfish. However, her worries about the “real dirt” helped Verochka learn and stand on her own feet.

Alexander Kirsanov begins to visit the Lopukhov family often. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine, a man who paved the way for himself in life.

Kirsanov entertains Vera Pavlovna when Lopukhov is busy, taking her to the opera, which they love very much.

Vera Pavlovna feels some anxiety. She tries to make her relationship with her husband more passionate - but the anxiety does not leave her. Kirsanov, without explaining anything, stops visiting the Lopukhovs. He fell in love with his friend’s wife - and is trying to overcome his feeling: “out of sight, out of mind.” However, soon Kirsanov still has to visit the Lopukhovs: Dmitry fell ill, and Alexander begins to treat him.

Vera Pavlovna realizes that she herself is in love with Kirsanov. This helps her understand the third dream: a certain woman, somewhat similar to the opera singer Bosio, helps Verochka read the pages of her diary, which she actually never kept. Verochka is afraid to read the last pages of the diary, but Bosio reads them out loud to her: yes, the feeling that the heroine feels for her husband is just gratitude.

Smart, decent, “new” people are unable to find a way out of the situation, and in the end Lopukhov decides on a trick: a shot on the Liteiny Bridge.

Vera Pavlovna is in despair. But then Rakhmetov appears to her with a letter from Lopukhov. It turns out that Lopukhov did not commit suicide at all - he simply decided not to interfere with his wife and friend connecting their lives.

Rakhmetov is a “special” person. Once upon a time, Kirsanov recognized in him a “higher nature” and taught him to read “the right books.” Rakhmetov was very rich, but he sold his estate, appointed his own special scholarships, and he himself lives the life of an ascetic. He doesn't drink wine and doesn't touch women.

Once I even slept for a while, like a yogi, on nails to test my willpower. He has a nickname: Nikitushka Lomovoy. This is due to the fact that he walked with barge haulers along the Volga in order to better know the life of the people.

Chernyshevsky only hints at the main work of Rakhmetov’s life, but a quick-witted reader will realize that he is a revolutionary, “the engine of engines, the salt of the earth.”

Having received an explanation of what happened from Rakhmetov, Vera Pavlovna leaves for Novgorod, where a few weeks later she gets married to Kirsanov.

After some time, they receive greetings from abroad - Lopukhov reports that he is quite happy with life, since he has long wanted to live in solitude.

The Kirsanovs live a busy life and work a lot. Vera Pavlovna now has two workshops. With the help of Kirsanov, she begins to study medicine. In her husband, the heroine found both support and a loving friend who was not indifferent to her interests.

Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream. this is a historical gallery of female types from different times and peoples: a slave woman, a beautiful lady - also essentially a toy of the imagination of a knight in love...

Vera Pavlovna sees herself: her facial features are illuminated by the light of love. The woman of the future is equal and free. She also sees the structure of the future society: huge houses made of crystal and aluminum, everyone is happy with free labor. We need to work for this wonderful future now.

The Kirsanovs gather a society of “new people” - decent, hardworking and professing the principles of “reasonable selfishness.” The Beaumont family soon fits into the circle of these people. Once upon a time, Ekaterina, then still Polozova, received sensible advice from Kirsanov about relations with a suitor for her hand: the richest bride in St. Petersburg almost married a scoundrel. But now she is happily married to “agent of an English firm” Charles Beaumont. However, he speaks excellent Russian - he allegedly lived in Russia until he was twenty, where he returned again.

The astute reader has already guessed that this is, of course, Lopukhov. The families soon became so friendly that they began to live in the same house, and Ekaterina Beaumont also set up a workshop, although she had enough money of her own. However, she wants to be useful to people and society, to build her life according to the laws of creative labor.

The circle of “new people” is expanding, and faith in a happy future for Russia is growing stronger.

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 received the novel extremely unkindly. The reactionary “Northern Bee”, “Moskovskie Vedomosti”, “Home Conversation”, the Slavophile “Den”, as well as other protective publications, attacked the novel and its author in different ways, but with the same degree of rejection and hatred.

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, conveying the idea of ​​the need for new life foundations."

Even enemies were forced to admit that the novel was an extraordinary phenomenon. Censor Beketov, removed from his post for such a rude review, testified: “I rose up in dismay when they saw that something extraordinary was happening between young people of both sexes under the impression of this work.”

Issues of Sovremennik containing 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 to do?” copied by hand. Not a single work of art in Russia in the 19th century had such a public resonance or had such a direct impact on the formation of revolutionary generations. This was emphasized by prominent populists P. Kropotkin and P. Tkachev. G. Plekhanov wrote about this emotionally and excitedly: “Who has not read and re-read this famous work? Who has not been carried away by it, who has not become purer, better, more cheerful and courageous under its beneficial influence? Who hasn’t been 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 examination? We all drew from him moral strength and faith in a better future.”

Soon after its 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 far from Russia.

The influence of Chernyshevsky and his novel “What is to be done?” recognized by such famous figures of the international liberation and labor movement as A. Bebel, X. Botev, J. Guesde, 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 a great Russian writer, a 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, people of the late 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 everyday life of completely understandable, tangible “ordinary new people”, whom he saw in life and whose characters he made the subject of artistic research.

The undeniable 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 bourgeois world of “old people” - which he forces the reader-friend to go through step by step along with his heroine Verochka Rozalskaya - Vera Pavlovna Lopukhova-Kirsanova.

Let us remember the very beginning of his unexpected “Preface,” which boldly invaded the semi-detective beginning of the novel: “The content of the story is love, the main character is a woman...

I. It’s true, I say,” the author states.

Yes it's true! The novel “What to do?” a book about the love of people and about the love for people that 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 we need to help this come sooner... this is one thing natural, one thing humane...” N G. Chernyshevsky was deeply convinced that among the “new people”, whose main features he considered activity, human decency, courage and confidence in achieving a once chosen high goal, the ethics of socialism and revolution can and should grow from relationships in love, in family, in a circle of associates, like-minded people.

He left evidence of this conviction for 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 feelings. In one of his letters to his sons from far away in 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 still, part of the rational thoughts inspired in you by love for your father inevitably extends 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 humanity. Only real equality of lovers, only their joint service to a beautiful goal will help us enter the kingdom of the “Bright Beauty” - that is, into the kingdom of such Love that a hundred times exceeds the love of the times of Astarte, Aphrodite, the Queen of Purity.

These pages were read by many in Russia and abroad. For example, I. E. Repin wrote about them with delight in his book of memoirs “Distant Close”. They were singled out from the entire novel by August Bebel, “... the pearl among all the episodes seems to me to be the 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 novel about love, “What is to be done?” - a book about the revolution, about its moral principles, about ways to achieve a better future for humanity. With the entire structure of his work, the specific lives of his specific heroes, Chernyshevsky showed that a wonderful future cannot come by itself, that a persistent and long struggle is needed for it. The dark forces of evil, which are so concretely “humanized” in the characters of “old people” - from Marya Alekseevna, Storeshnikov and the “insightful reader”, many-faced in his vile vulgarity, to the barely identified persecutors of Vera Pavlovna’s workshop, behind whom one can discern police ranks, prohibition, prisons and the entire arsenal of violence accumulated over 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 for this purpose that life puts forward and reveals to the reader Chernyshevsky 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 height of the “Aesopian possibilities” of the author, who knew how to “educate real revolutionaries” even under censored conditions, allowed him to say a lot more about Rakhmetov than was said in the chapter “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 inner spring of their actions, as, indeed, the inner spring of the novel itself. The “discerning reader” does not and cannot see this. But the author constantly invites the like-minded reader to take part in this extra-plot line of the novel.

Rakhmetov is truly a special person, one of those few who, according to the author, are “the salt of the earth,” “the engines of the engines.” He is the knight of the plan, the knight of that Bright beauty who appears in Vera Pavlovna’s beautiful dreams. But no matter how the author distinguishes Rakhmetov from his other favorite heroes, he still does not separate them with an impassable abyss. And at times he makes it clear that under certain circumstances “ordinary decent people” can turn into “special” people. This happened in the time of Chernyshevsky, and we see even more examples in subsequent history, when modest soldiers of the revolution became its true knights, leaders of millions of misses.”

Volumes have been written about the famous dreams of Vera Pavlovna, about the retrospective allegories and insights into the future in them during the existence of the novel. Additional interpretations are hardly needed. Of course, specific pictures of the socialist distance, a kind of utopia painted with a bold brush by 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 for oneself, a different social structure that would be based on a higher ideal.”

But today’s reader of the novel cannot help but be captivated by that reverent faith, that inescapable conviction, that historical optimism with which more than one hundred and twenty years ago the prisoner from “number eleven” 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 to do?” shortly before his 35th birthday. He came to literature as a man of comprehensive erudition, a strong 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 versions of the preface to the novel “Tales within a Tale,” written shortly after the publication of “What is to be done?”, he says: “I have thought so much about life, read so much and thought about what I read, that even a little poetic talent is enough for me to to be a wonderful poet." It is hardly necessary to give here other considerations about his possible place in literature as a novelist. They, as the reader of “What is to be done?” remembers well, are full of ironic self-criticism, but, by and large, they contain a restrained assessment of their capabilities, without self-deprecation.

Of course, Chernyshevsky’s enormous talent as a fiction writer could not reveal itself to its full potential. The heavy pressure of censorship and the ban on even 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 never recognized a single new work by 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 literary talent.

The noticeable influence of Chernyshevsky’s novel on the future fate of Russian literature is generally recognized in Soviet literary criticism. It can be traced even in the works of such outstanding artists as JI. Tolstoy, F. Dostoevsky, N. Leskov, who could not avoid the power of influence of many ideas “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 the vast world of ideas, not only a new genre of 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 the sense of equipping with literary devices, plot devices, the relaxedness of the visible author's participation in the fabric itself, the architectonics of the work .

Researchers rightly note, for example, that the origins of such a literary device as Vera Pavlovna’s dreams should be seen in Radishchev’s Pryamovzor from the chapter “Spasskaya Cavity” of the famous “Travel...”. “The sister of her sisters and the bride of her grooms” is a talented continuation of the image of the one who, by the will of Alexander Radishchev, removed the eyesore from 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 in flesh, character, the power of sarcasm or respect for the many-sided reader, who himself often turns out to be a hero and a participant in the story.

L n Chernyshevsky’s ability to create visible, “culturally tangible types of “old people” - such as Verochka’s parents, or the hopelessly stupid Storeshnikov with the stupid maman, mired in class snares, or the monstrously bloated noble spider Chaplin from “Prologue” - is it Don’t we see the talent of Shchedrin’s or Swift’s strength?

In the light of what has been said, the “What to do?” arguments that have now been refuted by more than a century of life and that arose in the first battle around the novel seem truly absurd.

about his lack of artistry. Unfortunately, this vile version turned out to be tenacious. Apparently, it was not in vain that the enemies of revolutionary literature worked so hard around it.

It is very significant that the controversy that once raged around the work of N. G. Chernyshevsky, around the novel “What is to be done?” have not been relegated to the field of archival literary criticism. Either dying down, 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 in our days. Fearing the impact of a revolutionary novel on the reading public, wanting at all costs to belittle the human feat of its author, bourgeois ideologists of all stripes, from Russian White emigrants to their today's ideological followers - literary scholars and Sovietologists, continue to fight to this day, as if with a living person. 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 gave way to calm. For a long time, the name of Chernyshevsky only occasionally appeared on the pages of American literary publications. In the 60-70s, due to a number of reasons: the aggravation of social contradictions, crisis phenomena in the economy, the growth of anti-war sentiment in the United States, the success of the peace initiatives of the USSR, the turn to international détente - interest in our country and its history began to grow. Certain intellectual circles in the United States sought to look at the “Russian question” and its origins with different eyes. It was at this time that the attention of American researchers to 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 a new name in Russian literature of the 19th century for Western readers. He believes, and it is difficult to disagree with this, that the previous works of his colleagues did not give even an approximate idea of ​​the true scale 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 generally Western literature about Chernyshevsky. One of them is the “myth” of 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, supposedly 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 every second person has barely read “What is to be done?” and at most one in twenty took the trouble to become acquainted with other works of the Russian author.

Well, the assessment is harsh, but perhaps not without foundation. 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’s novel “What is to be done?” and other works - not a boring task at all. It gives “pleasure and genuine pleasure.” In his opinion, Chernyshevsky is a witty polemicist with exceptional advantages 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 humanity, in the correctness of his views. He admits with frank sadness and regret that such qualities are absent among the ideologists of the modern Western world.

Noting the undoubted merits and personal courage of Randall, who took upon himself the difficult burden of “rehabilitating” Chernyshevsky before the American reader, it should be said that he does not always fulfill this role. The burden of bourgeois “myths” is too heavy. The author himself sometimes engages 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 still 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 integrity.

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 by Professor William Werlin, “Chernyshevsky - a Man and a Journalist,” published at Harvard University in 1971. And this author freely uses the works of Chernyshevsky himself, 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, and economic views of Chernyshevsky. But in assessing his aesthetics and literary positions, Werlin remains in the snares of popular bourgeois ideas. He was unable to understand the dialectical depth of the aesthetic views of the great democrat; his assessment of the novel “What is to be done?” is rather primitive. According to Werlin, 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 “an example of a professional revolutionary” for many years.

However, even timid inclinations towards truth and objectivity in matters of studying Russian literature and the history of social thought alarmed the guardians of the “true” bourgeois mores from science. Sovietologists of all stripes tried to “win 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 former “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, Rufus Mathewson, a professor at Columbia (New York) University, particularly “distinguished himself.” He came out with a libelous book called “A Positive Hero in Russian Literature”2. One of the many chapters, entitled “The Salt of the Salt of the Earth,” is specifically devoted to Chernyshevsky, his aesthetics and literary practice. Nikolai Gavrilovich is directly charged (which for some reason seems terrible to the aesthetic professor) that “he created a consistent and integral doctrine of literature in the service of society” and thereby became the theoretical forerunner of the 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 threateningly. After all, the positive hero of Soviet literature “agrees to all sorts of restrictions on his life’s needs in order to become, like Chernyshevsky’s Rakhmetov, an instrument of history.”

For a bourgeois researcher, the very idea that art is a reflection of life’s reality seems blasphemous. What this bourgeois philistine does not attribute to Chernyshevsky: both the fact that he “completely denies the creative functions of the artist” and the fact that he wrote “What is to be done?” from a “radical utilitarian position”, and what “denies artistic imagination”, and, finally, even what the Soviet five-year plans foresaw.

"What to do?" arouses Mathewson's literally pathological hatred, since the novel is the implementation of the aesthetic principles developed by Chernyshevsky in his dissertation. He sees many sins in the novel and is even ready to forgive both the author’s inexperience and his supposed indifference to literary traditions, but he cannot forgive what is most terrible for him - “errors stemming from the basic doctrines of radical literature, formulated then and still in effect now.” Mathewson “criticizes” Chernyshevsky precisely from the position of a bourgeois, frightened by the possibility of an organized struggle of working people for their future. He is clearly not satisfied with the author’s call “What to do?” to the reader - to see a better future and fight for it. He is trying to reject a 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 to this day the ideological defenders of the passing world so unsuccessfully wave their hands. old people."

For more than a century of active work, Chernyshevsky’s novel “What is to be done?” in the bright field of the struggle for socialism, shows even more clearly the undoubted rightness of V.I. Lenin, who so highly regarded Chernyshevsky himself, and the artistic and ideological-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 typical. When in 1904, during Lenin’s conversation with Vorovsky and Valentinov, the latter began to denounce the novel “What is to be done?”, Vladimir Ilyich ardently stood up for Chernyshevsky. “Are you aware of what you are saying? - he asked me. “How can a monstrous, absurd idea come into one’s head to call the work of Chernyshevsky, the greatest and most 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 incompetently and primitively? For example, he captivated my brother, and he captivated me too. He plowed me all deep. When did you read What to Do? It is useless to read it if the milk on your lips has not dried. Chernyshevsky's novel is too complex and full of thoughts to be understood and appreciated at an early age. I tried to read it myself, I think, at the age of 14. It was a worthless, superficial reading. 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 something that gives you a charge for life.”

In 1928, during the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Chernyshevsky’s birth, A.V. Lunacharsky said with considerable irony: “The following attitude has been established towards Chernyshevsky: he is, of course, 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 inconsistency, he emphasized that for the purpose of communist education of young people, it is fundamentally important to acquaint them with Chernyshevsky’s novels. He called on literary scholarship 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 Lunacharsky’s conclusions and advice on the significance of human and literary feats II. G. Chernyshevsky, about the importance of distributing his books for our life and literature seem very relevant today.

In October 1862, during the birth of the idea “What to do?”, Nikolai Gavrilovich wrote to Olga Sokratovna the following proud and prophetic lines: “...our life with you 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 as us. So we must not lose ourselves in terms of cheerfulness of character in front of people who will study our life.”

And Chernyshevsky did not lose himself either during the civil execution, or in the Nerchinsk mines, or in the monstrous Vilyui exile. With more than three years of fortress, hard labor, and exile for every year of work at Sovremennik, tsarism took revenge on its dangerous enemy. But his will was unyielding. When in 1874, with promises of imminent freedom, the authorities tried to persuade an exhausted prisoner to submit a request for pardon to the “highest name,” a short and firm answer followed: “I read. I refuse to submit the petition. Nikolai Chernyshevsky.

“Relief” occurred only in 1883, when, almost under the Arctic Circle, Chernyshevsky was secretly transferred to the semi-desert heat of the then Astrakhan. At the end of June 1889, after much trouble with the family, Chernyshevsky moved to Saratov. The meeting with my family was wonderful, but short. The health of the great fighter and martyr was undermined. On October 29, 1889, Chernyshevsky passed away.

A century and a half has passed since the day when the great democrat and writer was born in a modest house in Saratov, on the high bank of the Volga. Life on the banks of his beloved river changed, the wind of the revolutionary storm he predicted turned the history of Russia sharply. Already more than a third of humanity and pillboxes are on the way to building a new, socialist world. Guided by the truth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, progressive people of the world know today what to do to save and decorate planet Earth. And in all this there is a considerable share of the work, talent, courage and time of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, who loved people and wanted them to be happy.

Useful material on the topic

A complete analysis of the novel “What is to be done?”

The novel was written from the end of 1862 to April 1863, that is, written in 3.5 months in the 35th year of the author’s life. divided readers into two opposing camps. Supporters of the book were Pisarev, Shchedrin, Plekhanov, Lenin. But artists like , Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Leskov believed that the novel was devoid of true artistry. To answer the question “What to do?” raises and resolves the following burning problems from a revolutionary and socialist position:

1. The socio-political problem of reorganizing society in a revolutionary way, that is, through a physical collision of two worlds. This problem is hinted at in the life story and in the last, 6th chapter “Change of scenery”. Due to censorship, Chernyshevsky was unable to expand on this problem in detail.

2. Moral and psychological. This is a question about the internal restructuring of a person who, in the process of fighting the old with the power of his mind, can cultivate new moral qualities. The author traces this process from its initial forms (the struggle against family despotism) to the preparation for a change of scenery, that is, for revolution. This problem is revealed in relation to Lopukhov and Kirsanov, in the theory of reasonable egoism, as well as in the author’s conversations with readers and characters. This problem also includes a detailed story about sewing workshops, that is, about the importance of work in people’s lives.

3. The problem of women's emancipation, as well as the norms of new family morality. This moral problem is revealed in the life story of Vera Pavlovna, in the relationships of the participants in the love triangle (Lopukhov, Vera Pavlovna, ), as well as in the first 3 dreams of Vera Pavlovna.

4. Social-utopian. The problem of the future socialist society. It is unfolded in Vera Pavlovna’s 4th dream as a dream of a beautiful and bright life. This also includes liberation of labor, i.e., technical and machine equipment of production.

The main pathos of the book is the passionate and enthusiastic propaganda of the idea of ​​​​a revolutionary transformation of the world.

The main desire of the author was the desire to convince the reader that everyone, if they work on themselves, can become a “new person”, the desire to expand the circle of like-minded people. The main task was to develop a new methodology for educating revolutionary consciousness and “honest feelings.” The novel was intended to become a textbook of life for every thinking person. The main mood of the book is the acute joyful anticipation of a revolutionary upheaval and the thirst to take part in it.

What reader is the novel addressed to?

Chernyshevsky was an educator who believed in the struggle of the masses themselves, so the novel is addressed to broad layers of the mixed-democratic intelligentsia, which became the leading force in the liberation movement in Russia in the 60s.

Artistic techniques with which the author conveys his thoughts to the reader:

1st technique: the title of each chapter is given a family-everyday character with a primary interest in love intrigue, which quite accurately conveys the plot plot, but hides the true content. For example, chapter one “The Life of Vera Pavlovna in the Family of Parents”, chapter two “First Love and Legal Marriage”, chapter three “Marriage and Second Love”, chapter four “Second Marriage”, etc. These names reek of traditionalism and imperceptibly what is truly new, namely the new nature of people's relationships.

Method 2: using plot inversion - moving 2 introductory chapters from the center to the beginning of the book. The scene of Lopukhov’s mysterious, almost detective-like disappearance distracted the censor’s attention from the true ideological orientation of the novel, i.e., from what the author’s main attention was subsequently paid to.

3rd technique: the use of numerous hints and allegories, called Aesopian speech.

Examples: “golden age”, “new order” - this is socialism; “work” is revolutionary work; a “special person” is a person of revolutionary convictions; “scene” is life; “change of scenery” - new life after the victory of the revolution; "bride" is a revolution; “bright beauty” is freedom. All these techniques are designed for the intuition and intelligence of the reader.