Literary movements at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Educational portal

One of the most striking and mysterious pages of Russian culture is the beginning of the century. Today this period is called the “silver age” of Russian literature, following the “golden” XIX, when Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy reigned. But it would be more correct to call the “Silver Age” not all literature, but primarily poetry, as the participants in the literary movement of that era did. Poetry, which was actively looking for new ways of development, for the first time after Pushkin’s era at the beginning of the 20th century. came to the forefront of the literary process.

However, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Literature developed under different historical conditions than before. If you look for a word that characterizes the most important features of the period under consideration, it will be the word crisis. Great scientific discoveries shook the classical ideas about the structure of the world and led to the paradoxical conclusion: “matter has disappeared.” As E. Zamyatin wrote in the early 20s, “exact science blew up the very reality of matter”, “life itself today has ceased to be flat-real: it is projected not onto the previous stationary, but onto dynamic coordinates”, and the most famous things in this new projection they seem unfamiliar, familiar, fantastic. This means, the writer continues, that new beacons have loomed before literature: from the depiction of everyday life - to existence, to philosophy, to the fusion of reality and fiction, from the analysis of phenomena - to their synthesis. Zamyatin’s conclusion that “realism has no roots” is fair, although unusual at first glance, if by realism we mean “one bare image of everyday life.” A new vision of the world, thus, will determine the new face of realism of the 20th century, which will differ significantly from the classical realism of its predecessors in its “modernity” (definition by I. Bunin). The emerging trend towards the renewal of realism at the end of the 19th century. V.V. astutely noted Rozanov. “...After naturalism, the reflection of reality, it is natural to expect idealism, insight into its meaning... The centuries-old trends of history and philosophy - this is what will probably become in the near future the favorite subject of our study... Politics in the high sense of the word, in the sense of penetration into the course of history and influence on it, and Philosophy as the need of a perishing soul greedily grasping for salvation - this is the goal that irresistibly attracts us to itself...” wrote V.V. Rozanov (my italics - L. T.).
The crisis of faith had devastating consequences for the human spirit (“God is dead!” exclaimed Nietzsche). This led to the fact that a person of the 20th century. He began to increasingly experience the influence of irreligious and immoral ideas, for, as Dostoevsky predicted, if there is no God, then “everything is permissible.” The cult of sensual pleasures, the apology of Evil and death, the glorification of the self-will of the individual, the recognition of the right to violence, which turned into terror - all these features, testifying to the deepest crisis of consciousness, will be characteristic not only of the poetry of modernists. At the beginning of the 20th century. Russia was shaken by acute social conflicts: the war with Japan, the First World War, internal contradictions and, as a result, the scope of the popular movement and revolution. The clash of ideas intensified, and polyethics were formed.

“Atlantis” - such a prophetic name will be given to the ship on which the drama of life and death will unfold, I. Bunin in the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco”, emphasizing the tragic overtones of the work with a description of the Devil watching over people's destinies.

Each literary era has its own system of values, a center (philosophers call it axiological, value-centered), to which all paths of artistic creativity somehow converge. Such a center, which determined many of the distinctive features of Russian literature of the 20th century, was History with its unprecedented socio-historical and spiritual cataclysms, which drew everyone into its orbit - from a specific person to the people and the state. If V.G. Belinsky called his 19th century predominantly historical; this definition is even more true in relation to the 20th century with its new worldview, the basis of which was the idea of ​​an ever-accelerating historical movement. Time itself once again brought to the fore the problem of Russia’s historical path and forced us to look for an answer to Pushkin’s prophetic question: “Where are you galloping, proud horse, And where will you land your hooves?” The beginning of the 20th century was filled with predictions of “unprecedented riots” and “unheard of fires”, a premonition of “retribution,” as A. Blok prophetically said in his unfinished poem of the same name. B. Zaitsev’s idea is known that everyone was hurt (“wounded”) by revolutionism, regardless of their political attitude to the events. “Through the revolution as a state of mind” - this is how a modern researcher defined one of the characteristic features of a person’s “well-being” of that time. The future of Russia and the Russian people, the fate of moral values ​​in a turning point in history, the connection of man with real history, the incomprehensible “variegation” of national character - not a single artist could escape answering these “damned questions” of Russian thought. Thus, in the literature of the beginning of the century, not only did the traditional interest in history for Russian art manifest itself, but a special quality of artistic consciousness was formed, which can be defined as historical consciousness. At the same time, it is absolutely not necessary to look for direct references to specific events, problems, conflicts, and heroes in all works. History for literature is, first of all, its “secret thought”; it is important for writers as an impetus for thinking about the mysteries of existence, for comprehending the psychology and life of the spirit of “historical man”. But the Russian writer would hardly have considered himself to have fulfilled his destiny if he had not searched for himself (sometimes difficultly, even painfully) and offered his understanding of a way out to a person in a crisis era.
Without the sun we would be dark slaves, beyond understanding that there is a radiant day. A person who has lost integrity, in a situation of a global crisis of spirit, consciousness, culture, social order, and the search for a way out of this crisis, the desire for an ideal, harmony - this is how one can define the most important directions of artistic thought of the border era.

Literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries. - a phenomenon that is extremely complex, acutely conflicting, but also fundamentally united, since all directions of Russian art developed in a common social and cultural atmosphere and in their own way answered the same difficult questions raised by time. For example, not only the works of V. Mayakovsky or M. Gorky, who saw a way out of the crisis in social transformations, are imbued with the idea of ​​​​rejection of the surrounding world, but also the poems of one of the founders of Russian symbolism, D. Merezhkovsky: So life in insignificance is terrible,
And not even struggle, not torment, But only endless boredom and full of quiet horror. The lyrical hero of A. Blok expressed the confusion of a person leaving the world of familiar, established values ​​“into the damp night”, having lost faith in life itself:
Night, street, lantern, pharmacy, senseless and dim light. Live for at least another quarter of a century - Everything will be like this. There is no outcome.
How scary everything is! How wild! - Give me your hand, Comrade, friend! Let's forget ourselves again!

If the artists were mostly unanimous in their assessment of the present, contemporary writers answered the question about the future and ways to achieve it differently. The symbolists went into the “Palace of Beauty” created by the creative imagination, into mystical “other worlds”, into the music of verse. M. Gorky placed hope in the mind, talent, and active principles of man, who sang the power of Man in his works. The dream of human harmony with the natural world, of the healing power of art, religion, love and doubts about the possibility of realizing this dream permeate the books of I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, L. Andreev. The lyrical hero of V. Mayakovsky felt himself to be the “voice of the street without language,” having taken on his shoulders the entire burden of rebellion against the foundations of the universe (“down with it!”). The ideal of Rus' is “the country of birch chintz”, the idea of ​​​​the unity of all living things is heard in the poems of S. Yesenin. Proletarian poets came out with faith in the possibility of social reconstruction of life and a call to forge the “keys of happiness” with their own hands. Naturally, literature did not give its answers in a logical form, although the journalistic statements of writers, their diaries, and memoirs are also extremely interesting, without which it is impossible to imagine Russian culture at the beginning of the century. A feature of the era was the parallel existence and struggle of literary trends, uniting writers with similar ideas about the role of creativity, the most important principles of understanding the world, approaches to depicting personality, preferences in the choice of genres, styles, and forms of storytelling. Aesthetic diversity and a sharp demarcation of literary forces became a characteristic feature of the literature of the beginning of the century.

The coexistence of different directions at the same time is characteristic. Modernism, realism together. New within the old. The same themes are heard in the works of writers of different directions. Questions about life and death, faith, the meaning of life, good and evil. At the turn of the 20th century there were apocalyptic moods. And next to this is a hymn to man. 1903 ᴦ. Bitter. Prose poem ʼʼManʼʼ. Nietzsche is an idol for Gorky, Kuprin and others.
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It raises questions about self-respect, dignity and personal worth. Kuprin "Duel" Interesting Freud, interest in the subconscious. ʼʼMan - ϶ᴛᴏ sounds proudʼʼ. Attention to the person. Sologub, on the contrary, pays attention to the little person. Andreev made the ordinary average person perceive the thoughts of a proud Man and led him to the realization of the impossibility of life. The problem of personality. Search, questions about life and death on equal terms. The motif of death is in almost every poem. The search for meaning and support in man, then the question of faith and unbelief arose. They turn to the devil no less than to God. An attempt to understand what is greater: the devilish or the divine. But the beginning of the century is still an era of prosperity. High level of word art. Realists: Tolstoy, Chekhov, Kuprin, Bunin.

The writers counted on a thinking reader. The open sound of the author's voice in Gorky, Blok, Kuprin, Andreev. The motive of leaving, breaking with home, environment, family among Znanievo residents.

Publishing house ʼʼZnanieʼʼ. It was fundamentally oriented towards realistic literature. There is a “community of literate people”. Οʜᴎ are engaged in spreading literacy. Pyatnitsky works there. In 1898, the publishing house “Znanie” was separated from this society on his initiative. First, scientific works are published. General education literature.

All publishing houses published realistic works. “World of Art” is the first modernist publishing house. 1898 ᴦ. And the magazine of the same name. The organizer of the issue is Diaghilev. There were symbolists here until 1903, and then they had the magazine “New Way”. ʼʼScorpioʼʼ (ʼʼLibraʼʼ) in St. Petersburg, ʼʼGrifʼʼ (ʼʼGolden Fleeceʼʼ) in Moscow.

ʼʼSatyriconʼʼ and ʼʼNew Satyriconʼʼ. Averchenko, Teffi, Sasha Cherny, Bukhov.

General characteristics of the literature of the beginning of the century. (more details, please read)

Late XIX - early XX centuries. became a time of bright flourishing of Russian culture, its “silver age” (the “golden age” was called Pushkin’s time). In science, literature, and art, new talents appeared one after another, bold innovations were born, and different directions, groups, and styles competed. At the same time, the culture of the “Silver Age” was characterized by deep contradictions that were characteristic of all Russian life of that time.

Russia's rapid breakthrough in development and the clash of different ways of life and cultures changed the self-awareness of the creative intelligentsia. Many were no longer satisfied with the description and study of visible reality, or the analysis of social problems. I was attracted by deep, eternal questions - about the essence of life and death, good and evil, human nature. Interest in religion revived; The religious theme had a strong influence on the development of Russian culture at the beginning of the 20th century.

At the same time, the turning point not only enriched literature and art: it constantly reminded writers, artists and poets of impending social explosions, of the fact that the entire familiar way of life, the entire old culture, could perish. Some awaited these changes with joy, others with melancholy and horror, which brought pessimism and anguish into their work.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. literature developed under different historical conditions than before. If you look for a word that characterizes the most important features of the period under consideration, it will be the word “crisis”. Great scientific discoveries shook the classical ideas about the structure of the world and led to the paradoxical conclusion: “matter has disappeared.” A new vision of the world, thus, will determine the new face of realism of the 20th century, which will differ significantly from the classical realism of its predecessors. The crisis of faith also had devastating consequences for the human spirit (“God is dead!” exclaimed Nietzsche). This led to the fact that the person of the 20th century began to increasingly experience the influence of irreligious ideas. The cult of sensual pleasures, the apology for evil and death, the glorification of the self-will of the individual, the recognition of the right to violence, which turned into terror - all these features indicate a deep crisis of consciousness.

In Russian literature of the early 20th century, a crisis of old ideas about art and a feeling of exhaustion of past development will be felt, and a revaluation of values ​​will take shape.

The renewal of literature and its modernization will cause the emergence of new trends and schools. The rethinking of old means of expression and the revival of poetry will mark the advent of the “Silver Age” of Russian literature. This term is associated with the name of N. Berdyaev, who used it in one of his speeches in the salon of D. Merezhkovsky. Later, the art critic and editor of Apollo S. Makovsky consolidated this phrase, calling his book about Russian culture at the turn of the century “On Parnassus of the Silver Age.” Several decades will pass and A. Akhmatova will write “...the silver month is bright / Cold over the silver age.”

The chronological framework of the period defined by this metaphor can be designated as follows: 1892 - exit from the era of timelessness, the beginning of social upsurge in the country, manifesto and collection "Symbols" by D. Merezhkovsky, the first stories of M. Gorky, etc.) - 1917. According to another point of view, the chronological end of this period can be considered 1921-1922 (the collapse of former illusions, the mass emigration of Russian cultural figures from Russia that began after the death of A. Blok and N. Gumilyov, the expulsion of a group of writers, philosophers and historians from countries).

Russian literature of the 20th century was represented by three main literary movements: realism, modernism, and the literary avant-garde.

Representatives of literary movements

Senior Symbolists: V.Ya. Bryusov, K.D. Balmont, D.S. Merezhkovsky, Z.N. Gippius, F.K. Sologub et al.

Mystics- God-seekers: D.S. Merezhkovsky, Z.N. Gippius, N. Minsky.

Decadents-individualists: V.Ya. Bryusov, K.D. Balmont, F.K. Sologub.

Junior Symbolists: A.A. Blok, Andrey Bely (B.N. Bugaev), V.I. Ivanov and others.

Acmeism: N.S. Gumilev, A.A. Akhmatova, S.M. Gorodetsky, O.E. Mandelstam, M.A. Zenkevich, V.I. Narbut.

Cubo-futurists(poets of "Gilea"): D.D. Burlyuk, V.V. Khlebnikov, V.V. Kamensky, V.V. Mayakovsky, A.E. Twisted.

Egofuturists: I. Severyanin, I. Ignatiev, K. Olimpov, V. Gnedov.

Group "Mezzanine of Poetry": V. Shershenevich, Khrisanf, R. Ivnev and others.

Association "Centrifuge"": B.L. Pasternak, N.N. Aseev, S.P. Bobrov and others.

One of the most interesting phenomena in the art of the first decades of the 20th century was the revival of romantic forms, largely forgotten since the beginning of the last century.

Realistic publishing houses:

Knowledge (production of general education literature - Kuprin, Bunin, Andreev, Veresaev); collections; social Issues

Rosehip (St. Petersburg) collections and almaci

Slovo (Moscow) collections and almanacs

Gorky publishes the literary and political magazine ʼʼLetopisʼʼ (Parus publishing house)

ʼʼWorld of Artʼʼ (modernist. Art; magazine of the same name) - Diaghilev founder

“New Path”, “Scorpio”, “Vulture” - symbolist.

ʼʼSatyriconʼʼ, ʼʼNew Satyriconʼʼ - satire (Averchenko, S. Cherny)

1 Literary theory. Composition. Architectonics, plot and plot. Composition as an organization of plot development

3 Literature of the 20th century. MM. Zoshchenko. The artistic world of the writer. Image of the “little man” of the new Russia

The elements of the composition of a literary work include epigraphs, dedications, prologues, epilogues, parts, chapters, acts, phenomena, scenes, prefaces and afterwords of “publishers” (extra-plot images created by the author’s imagination), dialogues, monologues, episodes, inserted stories and episodes, letters , songs (for example, Oblomov's Dream in Goncharov's novel "Oblomov", a letter from Tatyana to Onegin and Onegin to Tatyana in Pushkin's novel "Eugene Onegin", the song "The Sun Rises and Sets..." in Gorky's drama "At the Lower Depths"); all artistic descriptions - portraits, landscapes, interiors - are also compositional elements.

a) the action of the work can begin from the end of events, and subsequent episodes will restore the time course of the action and explain the reasons for what is happening; such a composition is called reverse (this technique was used by N. Chernyshevsky in the novel “What is to be done?”);

b) the author uses a framing composition, or a ring composition, in which the author uses, for example, repetition of stanzas (the last repeats the first), artistic descriptions (the work begins and ends with a landscape or interior), the events of the beginning and ending take place in the same place, in they involve the same heroes, etc.; This technique is found both in poetry (Pushkin, Tyutchev, A. Blok often resorted to it in “Poems about the Beautiful Lady”) and in prose (“Dark Alleys” by I. Bunin; “Song of the Falcon”, “Old Woman Izergil” M. Gorky);

c) the author uses the technique of retrospection, that is, returning the action to the past, when the reasons for the current narrative were laid (for example, the author’s story about Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov in Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons”); Often, when using retrospection, an inserted story of the hero appears in the work, and this type of composition will be called “a story within a story” (Marmeladov’s confession and Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s letter in “Crime and Punishment”; Chapter 13 “The Appearance of the Hero” in “The Master and Margarita”; “ After the Ball" by Tolstoy, "Asya" by Turgenev, "Gooseberry" by Chekhov);

d) often the organizer of the composition is an artistic image, for example, the road in Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”; pay attention to the scheme of the author's narration: Chichikov's arrival in the city of NN - the road to Manilovka - Manilov's estate - the road - arrival at Korobochka - the road - a tavern, meeting with Nozdryov - the road - arrival at Nozdryov - the road - etc.; it is important that the first volume ends on the road; Thus, the image becomes the leading structure-forming element of the work;

e) the author can preface the main action with an exposition, which will be, for example, the entire first chapter in the novel “Eugene Onegin,” or he can begin the action immediately, sharply, “without acceleration,” as Dostoevsky does in the novel “Crime and Punishment” or Bulgakov in "The Master and Margarita";

f) the composition of the work can be based on the symmetry of words, images, episodes (or scenes, chapters, phenomena, etc.) and will be mirrored, as, for example, in A. Blok’s poem “The Twelve”; a mirror composition is often combined with a frame (this principle of composition is characteristic of many poems by M. Tsvetaeva, V. Mayakovsky, etc.);

g) the author often uses the technique of a compositional “break” of events: he breaks off the narrative at the most interesting place at the end of the chapter, and a new chapter begins with a story about another event; for example, it is used by Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment and Bulgakov in The White Guard and The Master and Margarita. This technique is very popular among the authors of adventure and detective works or works where the role of intrigue is very large.

The composition of a work can be thematic, in which the main thing is to identify the relationships between the central images of the work. This type of composition is more characteristic of lyrics. There are three types of such composition:

1. sequential, representing logical reasoning, the transition from one thought to another and the subsequent conclusion at the end of the work (“Cicero”, “Silentium”, “Nature is a sphinx, and therefore it is more true...” Tyutchev);

2. development and transformation of the central image: the central image is examined by the author from various angles, its striking features and characteristics are revealed; such a composition assumes a gradual increase in emotional tension and a culmination of experiences, which often occurs at the end of the work (“The Sea” by Zhukovsky, “I came to you with greetings...” by Fet);

3. comparison of 2 images that entered into artistic interaction (“Stranger” by Blok); such a composition is based on the technique of antithesis, or opposition.

So, composition is an aspect of the form of a literary work, but its content is expressed through the features of the form. The composition of a work is an important way of embodying the author's idea.

2 Literature of the 19th century. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. A satirical denunciation of the despotism of power and the long-suffering of the people

Among the classics of Russian critical realism of the 19th century. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826-1889) takes the place of an unrivaled artist of words in the field of socio-political satire. This determines the originality and enduring significance of his literary heritage. A revolutionary democrat, socialist, educator in his ideological convictions, he acted as an ardent defender of the oppressed people and a fearless denouncer of the privileged classes. The main pathos of his work lies in the uncompromising denial of all forms of oppression of man by man in the name of the victory of the ideals of democracy and socialism. During the 50-80s. The voice of the brilliant satirist, the “prosecutor of Russian public life,” as his contemporaries called him, sounded loudly and angrily throughout Russia, inspiring the best forces of the nation to fight the socio-political regime of the autocracy.

Saltykov’s ideological and aesthetic views were formed, on the one hand, under the influence of the ideas of Belinsky, which he acquired in his youth, the ideas of the French utopian socialists, and in general under the influence of broad philosophical, literary and social quests of the era of the 40s, and on the other hand, in the environment of the first democratic rise in Russia. The literary peer of Turgenev, Goncharov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin was, like them, a writer of high aesthetic culture, and at the same time, he accepted with exceptional sensitivity the revolutionary trends of the 60s, the powerful ideological preaching of Chernyshevsky, giving in his creativity is an organic synthesis of the qualities of a soulful artist, who perfectly comprehended the social psychology of all layers of society, and a temperamental political thinker-publicist, who was always passionately devoted to the struggle taking place in the public arena.

Saltykov, having already become a famous writer, continued his official activities for several years. He served as vice-governor in Ryazan and Tver (1858-1862), chairman of the state chamber in Penza, Tuley of Ryazan (1865-1868). While in these positions, he tried, as far as conditions allowed, “not to offend the peasant.” Such a humane attitude towards the people was unusual in the highest bureaucratic environment, and colleagues, recalling the French revolutionary Robespierre, called Vice-Governor Saltykov Vice-Robespierre.

Saltykov's many years of professional activity gave him rich material for creativity. From personal life experience, he perfectly comprehended the official and behind-the-scenes sides of the highest bureaucracy and officialdom, and that is why his satirical arrows hit the target so accurately.

In 1868, Saltykov-Shchedrin, having forever broken with the service and devoted himself exclusively to literature, stood together with Nekrasov at the head of “Notes of the Fatherland”, and after Nekrasov’s death (1878) - the head of this leading magazine, which continued the revolutionary-democratic traditions of Sovremennik, banned by the government in 1866

The period of work in Otechestvennye zapiski - from January 1868 until its closure in April 1884 - was the most brilliant period of Saltykov-Shchedrin's literary activity, the period of the highest flowering of his satire. His works appeared monthly on the pages of the magazine, attracting the attention of all reading Russia.

Literature of Russia at the turn of the century Main literary trends, movements

General characteristics of the period The last years of the 19th century became a turning point for Russian and Western cultures. Since 2000 and right up to the October Revolution of 1917, literally every aspect of Russian life changed, from economics, politics and science, to technology, culture and art. The new stage of historical and cultural development was incredibly dynamic and, at the same time, extremely dramatic. It can be said that Russia, at a turning point for it, was ahead of other countries in the pace and depth of changes, as well as in the enormity of internal conflicts.

What were the most important historical events that took place in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century? Russia has experienced three revolutions: years; -February and October 1917, -Russian-Japanese War. -The First World War, -The Civil War

The internal political situation in Russia The end of the 19th century revealed the deepest crisis phenomena in the economy of the Russian Empire. The confrontation of three forces: defenders of monarchism, supporters of bourgeois reforms, ideologists of the proletarian revolution. Various ways of restructuring were put forward: “from above”, by legal means, “from below” - through revolution.

Scientific discoveries of the 20th century The beginning of the 20th century was a time of global natural scientific discoveries, especially in the field of physics and mathematics. The most important of them were the invention of wireless communication, the discovery of X-rays, the determination of the mass of the electron, and the study of the phenomenon of radiation. The worldview of mankind was revolutionized by the creation of quantum theory (1900), special (1905) and general () theories of relativity. Previous ideas about the structure of the world were completely shaken. The idea of ​​the knowability of the world, which was previously an infallible truth, was questioned.

Philosophical foundations of culture at the turn of the century: The main question is the question of Man and God. Without faith in God, a person will never find the meaning of existence. (F.M. Dostoevsky) Poeticization of the image of Man: “Man – that sounds proud!” (M. Gorky) Russian thought echoed the “gloomy German genius.” (Alexander Blok). F. Nietzsche’s philosophy about the superman is “the will to re-evaluate.” (A. Bely) The superman is a general and incredibly distant perspective of humanity, which will find the meaning of its existence without God: “God is dead.”

Painting Strong positions were held by representatives of the Russian academic school and the heirs of the Wanderers of the Academic Wanderers. The emergence of a new style - modern (followers of this style united in the creative society "World of Art") modern Symbolism in painting (exhibition "Blue Rose", closely related to poetry; symbolism was not united stylistic direction) Symbolismedin The emergence of groups representing the avant-garde direction in art (exhibition “Jack of Diamonds”), avant-garde favorite genre of avant-garde artists - still life Neo-primitivism (exhibition “Donkey’s Tail”) Neo-primitivism Author’s style (synthesis of European avant-garde trends with Russian national traditions) Author’s

The tragic history of literature of the 20th century 1. In the 20s, the writers who constituted the flower of Russian literature left or were expelled: I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, I. Shmelev and others. 2. The impact of censorship on literature: 1926 - the magazine “ New World" with "The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon" by B. Pilnyak. In the 1930s, the writer was shot. I.A. Bunin

Literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, Russian literature became aesthetically multi-layered. Realism at the turn of the century remained a large-scale and influential literary movement. Thus, Tolstoy and Chekhov lived and worked in this era. (reflection of reality, life truth) A.P. Chekhov. Yalta

The transition from the era of classical Russian literature to the new literary time was accompanied by an unusually rapid one. Russian poetry, unlike previous examples, has again come to the forefront of the country's general cultural life. Thus began a new poetic era, called the “poetic renaissance” or “silver age.”

Modernism (from the French moderne - “newest”, “modern”) is new phenomena in literature and art. Its goal is the creation of a poetic culture that promotes the spiritual revival of humanity and the transformation of the world through the means of art. Symbolism (from the Greek symbolon - “sign, sign”) is a literary and artistic movement that considered the goal of art to be an intuitive comprehension of world unity through symbols. Existentialism is a worldview that raises questions about how a person can live in the face of impending historical catastrophes, based on the principle of contrasting subject and object.

Ideological foundations of realism and modernism Ideological foundation of realism Philosophy of modernism in the 20th century. Truth is One, good conquers evil, God defeats the devil. The world is not knowable, man is not able to separate good from evil. Hero, seeking the path to higher, eternal values, carrying the ideals of goodness and love. Complex, contradictory, standing out from the rest of the world, often opposing it. Highest values ​​Spiritual, Christian ideals Personality in its diversity Purpose of art Harmonization of life Expression of oneself and one’s understanding of the world and man.

The fundamental principles of the old realists, accepted by the new ones. Democracy is a rejection of elitist literature, understandable only to a “few” of dedicated literature. Taste for the public - awareness of the social role and responsibility of the writer. Historicism: art is a reflection of the era, its true mirror. Traditionalism is a spiritual and aesthetic connection with the precepts of the classics. Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich Chekhov Anton Pavlovich

Writers - realists Bunin Ivan Alekseevich Kuprin Alexander Ivanovich Zaitsev Boris Konstantinovich Veresaev Vikenty Vikentievich

Realist writers Maxim Gorky Korolenko Vladimir Galaktionovich Andreev Leonid Nikolaevich Zamyatin Evgeniy Ivanovich

Silver Age The Silver Age is part of the artistic culture of Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, associated with symbolism, acmeism, “neo-peasant” literature and partly futurism.

SYMBOLISM In March 1894, a collection entitled “Russian Symbolists” was published. After some time, two more issues appeared with the same name. The author of all three collections was the young poet Valery Bryusov, who used different pseudonyms in order to create the impression of the existence of an entire poetic movement.

SYMBOLISM Symbolism is the first and largest of the modernist movements that arose in Russia. The theoretical foundation of Russian symbolism was laid in 1892 with a lecture by D. S. Merezhkovsky “On the causes of the decline and new trends in modern Russian literature.” The title of the lecture contained an assessment of the state of the literature. The author pinned his hope for its revival on “new trends.” Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky

The main provisions of the movement Andrey Bely Symbol is the central aesthetic category of the new movement. The idea of ​​a symbol is that it is perceived as an allegory. The chain of symbols resembles a set of hieroglyphs, a kind of cipher for the “initiates”. Thus, the symbol turns out to be one of the varieties of tropes.

The main provisions of the movement The symbol is polysemantic: it contains an unlimited variety of meanings. “The symbol is a window to infinity,” said Fyodor Sologub.

The main provisions of the movement The relationship between the poet and his audience was built in a new way in symbolism. The symbolist poet did not strive to be universally understandable. He did not appeal to everyone, but only to the “initiated”, not to the reader-consumer, but to the reader-creator, reader-co-author. Symbolist lyrics awakened the “sixth sense” in a person, sharpened and refined his perception. To achieve this, the symbolists sought to make maximum use of the associative capabilities of the word and turned to the motifs and images of different cultures.

Senior Symbolists Gippius Zinaida Nikolaevna Balmont Konstantin Dmitrievich Fedor Sologub Kuzmin Mikhail Alekseevich

Young Symbolists “The final goal of art is the re-creation of life.” (A. Blok) Andrey Bely Alexander Alexandrovich Blok Ivanov Vyacheslav Ivanovich

Acmeism The literary movement of Acmeism arose in the early 1910s. (from the Greek acme - the highest degree of something, flowering, peak, edge). From the wide range of participants in the “Workshop”, a narrower and more aesthetically more united group of acmeists stood out: N. Gumilyov, A. Akhmatova, S. Gorodetsky, O. Mandelstam, M. Zenkevich and V. Narbut.

Acmeists Akhmatova Anna Andreevna Mandelstam Osip Emilievich Gumilyov Nikolai Stepanovich Sergei Gorodetsky

Futurism Futurism (from Latin futurum - future). He first announced himself in Italy. The birth of Russian futurism is considered to be 1910, when the first futurist collection “Zadok Judges” (its authors were D. Burliuk, V. Khlebnikov, V. Kamensky) was published. Together with V. Mayakovsky and A. Kruchenykh, these poets soon formed a group of Cubo-Futurists, or "Gilea" poets.
The main provisions of the movement As an artistic program, the futurists put forward a utopian dream of the birth of super-art capable of turning the world upside down. The artist V. Tatlin seriously designed wings for humans, K. Malevich developed projects for satellite cities cruising in the earth's orbit, V. Khlebnikov tried to offer humanity a new universal language and discover the “laws of time.”

Futurism has developed a kind of shocking repertoire. Bitter names were used: “Chukuryuk” - for the picture; "Dead Moon" - for a collection of works; "Go to hell!" - for a literary manifesto.

A slap in the face to public taste. Throw away Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. from the Steamboat of Modernity.... To all these Maxim Gorkys, Kuprins, Bloks, Sologubs, Remizovs, Averchenkos, Chernys, Kuzmins, Bunins and so on. and so on. All you need is a dacha on the river. Fate gives such a reward to tailors... From the heights of skyscrapers we look at their insignificance!.. We order to honor the rights of poets: 1. To increase the vocabulary in its volume with arbitrary and derivative words (Word Innovation). 2. An insurmountable hatred of the language that existed before them. 3. With horror, remove from your proud brow the wreath of penny glory you made from the bath brooms. 4. Stand on the rock of the word “we” amidst whistling and indignation. And if the dirty marks of your “Common Sense” and “Good Taste” still remain in our lines, then for the first time the Lightnings of the New Coming Beauty of the Self-Valuable (Self-Valuable) Word are already trembling on them. D. Burliuk, Alexey Kruchenykh, V. Mayakovsky, Victor Khlebnikov Moscow, 1912 December

Neo-peasant poets We are the early morning clouds, the dawns of dewy spring. N. Gumilyov Yesenin Sergey Aleksandrovich Oreshin Pyotr Vasilievich Klyuev Nikolay Alekseevich

Writers who were not members of literary groups Maximilian Aleksandrovich Voloshin Boris Leonidovich Pasternak Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva

Let's draw conclusions At the turn of the century, Russian literature experienced a heyday comparable in brightness and diversity of talents to the brilliant beginning of the 19th century. This is a period of intensive development of philosophical thought, fine arts, and stagecraft. Various directions are being developed in the literature. In the period from 1890 to 1917, three literary movements especially clearly manifested themselves - symbolism, acmeism and futurism, which formed the basis of modernism as a literary movement. The literature of the Silver Age revealed a brilliant constellation of bright poetic individuals, each of which represented a huge creative layer that enriched not only Russian, but also world poetry of the 20th century.

Let's draw conclusions The last years of the 19th century became a turning point for Russian and Western cultures. Since 2000 and right up to the October Revolution of 1917, literally every aspect of Russian life changed, from economics, politics and science, to technology, culture and art. The new stage of historical and cultural development was incredibly dynamic and, at the same time, extremely dramatic. It can be said that Russia, at a turning point for it, was ahead of other countries in the pace and depth of changes, as well as in the enormity of internal conflicts.

Questions: What were the most important historical events that took place in Russia at the turn of the century? What philosophical ideas occupied the minds of mankind? Who coined the term “Silver Age”? What trends existed in literature at the turn of the century? What traditions did realist writers develop at the beginning of the 20th century? What does the term “modernism” mean? What is meant by the term “Party literature”? Name the representatives of the “Silver Age”.

Literature at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries

Alexandrova T. L.

General characteristics of the era

The first question that arises when addressing the topic “Russian literature of the 20th century” is from when to count the 20th century. According to the calendar, from 1900 - 1901? But it is obvious that a purely chronological boundary, although significant in itself, gives almost nothing in the sense of delimiting eras. The first milestone of the new century is the revolution of 1905. But the revolution passed, and there was some calm - until the First World War. Akhmatova recalled this time in “Poem without a Hero”:

And along the legendary embankment

It was not the calendar day that was approaching,

The real twentieth century...

The “real twentieth century” began with the First World War and two revolutions of 1917, with Russia’s transition to a new phase of its existence. But the cataclysm was preceded by the “turn of the century” - a most complex, turning point period that largely predetermined subsequent history, but was itself the result and resolution of many contradictions that had been brewing in Russian society long before it. In Soviet times, it was customary to talk about the inevitability of a revolution, which liberated the creative powers of the people and opened the way for them to a new life. At the end of this “new life” period, a reassessment of values ​​began. The temptation arose to find a new and simple solution to the problem: simply change the signs to the opposite, declare everything that was considered white black, and vice versa. However, time shows the haste and immaturity of such revaluations. It is clear that it is impossible for a person who did not live through it to judge this era, and one should judge it with great caution.

After a century, the Russian turn of the 19th - 20th centuries seems to be a time of prosperity - in all areas. Literature, art, architecture, music - but not only that. Sciences, both positive and humanitarian (history, philology, philosophy, theology), are rapidly developing. The pace of industrial growth is no less rapid; factories, factories, and railways are being built. And yet Russia remains an agricultural country. Capitalist relations penetrate into the life of the village, on the surface - the stratification of the former community, the ruin of noble estates, the impoverishment of the peasants, hunger - however, right up to the First World War, Russia fed the whole of Europe with bread.

But what Tsvetaeva wrote about, addressing children of emigration raised in a nostalgic spirit is also true:

You, in orphan capes

Clothed from birth

Stop holding funerals

Through Eden, in which you

There was no... ("Poems to my son")

What seems like a heyday now seemed like a decline to contemporaries. Not only descendants, but also eyewitnesses of all subsequent events themselves will only be surprised to what extent they did not notice the bright sides of the reality around them. “Chekhov’s dull twilight”, in which there is an acute shortage of the bright, bold, strong - this is the feeling that preceded the first Russian revolution. But this is a view inherent primarily in the intelligentsia. In the mass of the population back in the 80-90s. there was confidence in the inviolability of the foundations and fortress of “Holy Rus'”.

Bunin in “The Life of Arsenyev” draws attention to the mentality of the tradesman Rostovtsev, whose high school student Alyosha Arsenyev, Bunin’s “lyrical hero,” lives as a “freeloader” - a mentality very characteristic of the era of Alexander III: “Pride in Rostovtsev’s words sounded quite often. Pride What? Because, of course, that we, the Rostovtsevs, are Russians, genuine Russians. That we live that very special, simple, seemingly modest life, which is real Russian life and which is not and cannot be better, because it is modest. it is only in appearance, but in reality it is abundant like nowhere else, it is a legitimate product of the primordial spirit of Russia, and Russia is richer, stronger, more righteous and more glorious than all the countries in the world. And was this pride inherent in Rostovtsev alone? Subsequently I saw that it was very and to very many, but now I see something else: the fact that she was then even some sign of the times was felt especially at that time and not only in our city. Where did she go later, when Russia was perishing? How did we not defend all that What did we so proudly call Russian, of the power and truth of which we seemed to be so confident? Be that as it may, I know for sure that I grew up in times of greatest Russian power and enormous consciousness of it." Further, Arsenyev - or Bunin - recalls how Rostovtsev listened to the reading of Nikitin's famous "Rus" "And when I reached the proud and joyful end , before the resolution of this description: “This is you, my sovereign Rus', my Orthodox homeland” - Rostovtsev clenched his jaw and turned pale." (Bunin I.A. Collected works in 9 volumes. M., 1967. T. 6., P. 62).

The famous spiritual writer, Metropolitan Veniamin (Fedchenkov) (1880 - 1961), recalls approximately the same mood in his memoirs: “As for social views, they were also based essentially on religion. It was the humble upbringing that the Christian Church gave us that taught us about power, that it is from God, and it must not only be recognized, obeyed, but also loved and revered. The king is a person especially blessed by God, the anointed of God. Confirmation is performed on him at the coronation to serve the state. He is the ruler over the entire country , as its owner, authorized manager. We were brought up towards him and his family not only in fear and obedience, but also in deep love and reverent veneration, as sacred, inviolable persons, truly “highest”, “autocratic”, “great”; all this was not subject to any doubt among our parents and among the people. This is how it was in my childhood" (Veniamin (Fedchenkov), Metropolitan. At the turn of two eras. M., 1994, p. 95). Metropolitan Benjamin recalls the sincere grief among the people on the occasion of the death of Emperor Alexander III. With the emperor in his last days, the revered shepherd throughout Russia, the holy righteous John of Kronstadt, was inseparable from him. “It was the death of a saint,” the heir to the crown prince, the future Emperor Nicholas II, writes in his diary (Diary of Emperor Nicholas II. 1890 - 1906. M., 1991, p. 87).

What happened next? What demons possessed the Russian “God-bearing” people that they went to destroy their own shrines? Another temptation: to find a specific culprit, to explain the fall by someone’s pernicious external influence. Someone invaded us from outside and ruined our lives - foreigners? Gentiles? But such a solution to the issue is not a solution. Berdyaev once wrote in “The Philosophy of Freedom”: a slave always looks for someone to blame, a free person is responsible for his actions. The contradictions of Russian life have been noticed for a long time - at least what Nekrasov wrote about:

You are also poor, you are also abundant,

You are both powerful and you are powerless,

Mother Rus'.

Some of the contradictions are rooted in Peter’s reforms: the split of the nation into an elite striving for Europe and a mass of people alien to Europeanization. If the cultural level of some of the privileged layers of society has reached the highest European standards, then among the common people it has undoubtedly become lower than before, in the era of the Moscow state - in any case, literacy has sharply decreased. The antinomies of Russian reality are also reflected in the famous comic poem by V.A. Gilyarovsky:

There are two misfortunes in Russia

Below is the power of darkness,

And above is the darkness of power.

European influence, which gradually penetrated deeper and deeper into Russian life, sometimes itself was transformed and refracted in the most unexpected way. The ideas of the liberation movement became a kind of new religion for the emerging Russian intelligentsia. ON THE. Berdyaev subtly noticed the parallel between her and the schismatics of the 17th century. “So the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia of the 19th century will be schismatic and will think that an evil force is in power. Both in the Russian people and in the Russian intelligentsia there will be a search for a kingdom based on truth” (Berdyaev N.A. Origins and meaning of Russian communism. M ., 1990, p. 11). The Russian revolutionary movement had its martyrs and “saints” who were ready to sacrifice their lives for the idea. The revolutionary “religion” was a kind of near-Christian heresy: while denying the Church, it itself borrowed a lot from the moral teachings of Christ - just remember Nekrasov’s poem “N.G. Chernyshevsky”:

He hasn't been crucified yet,

But the hour will come - he will be on the cross;

He was sent by the God of Wrath and Sorrow

Remind the kings of the earth of Christ.

Zinaida Gippius wrote about the peculiar religiosity of Russian democrats in her memoirs: “Only a thin film of unconsciousness separated them from true religiosity. Therefore, they were, in most cases, bearers of high morality.” Therefore, people of amazing spiritual strength could appear at that time (Chernyshevsky), capable of heroism and sacrifice. True materialism extinguishes the spirit of chivalry." (Gippius Z.N. Memoirs. M. 2001. P. 200.)

It should be noted that the actions of the authorities were not always reasonable and their consequences often turned out to be the opposite of those expected. Over time, the archaic and clumsy bureaucratic apparatus met less and less the urgent needs of governing a gigantic country. The scattered population and multinationality of the Russian Empire presented additional difficulties. The intelligentsia was also irritated by the excessive police zeal, although the rights of opposition-minded public figures to express their civic position were incomparably wider than in the future “free” Soviet Union.

A kind of milestone on the path to the revolution was the Khodynka disaster, which happened on May 18, 1896, during the celebrations of the coronation of the new emperor, Nicholas II. Due to the negligence of the administration, a stampede occurred during a public festival on Khodynskoye Field in Moscow. According to official data, about 2,000 people died. The sovereign was advised to cancel the celebrations, but he did not agree: “This catastrophe is the greatest misfortune, but a misfortune that should not overshadow the coronation holiday. The Khodynka catastrophe should be ignored in this sense” (Diary of Emperor Nicholas II. 1890 - 1906. M., 1991 ., p. 129). This attitude outraged many; many thought it was a bad omen.

Metropolitan Benjamin recalled the impact that “Bloody Sunday” on January 9, 1905 had on the people. “The first revolution of 1905 began for me with the famous uprising of workers in St. Petersburg on January 9. Under the leadership of Father Gapon, thousands of workers, with crosses and banners, moved from behind the Neva Gate to the royal palace with a request, as they said then. I was a student at that time academy. The people walked with sincere faith in the tsar, the defender of truth and the offended. But the tsar did not accept him, instead there was an execution. I do not know the behind-the-scenes history of the events and therefore I am not included in their assessment. Only one thing is certain, that there was a shooting (but not yet shot) faith in the tsar. I, a man of monarchical sentiments, not only did not rejoice at this victory of the government, but felt a wound in my heart: the father of the people could not help but accept his children, no matter what happened later...” (Veniamin (Fedchenkov) , Metropolitan. At the turn of two eras. M., 1994, P. 122) And the emperor wrote in his diary that day: “A difficult day! Serious riots occurred in St. Petersburg due to the desire of the workers to reach the Winter Palace. The troops had to shoot at different places in the city, there were many killed and wounded. Lord, how painful and difficult!" (Diary of Emperor Nicholas II. 1890 - 1906. M., 1991, p. 209). But it is clear that he had no intention of accepting anyone. It is difficult to talk about this event to say: it is only clear that this is a tragedy of mutual misunderstanding of the authorities and the people. The one who was labeled “Bloody Nicholas”, who was considered a nonentity and a tyrant of his country, was in fact a man of high moral qualities, faithful to his duty, ready to give his life for Russia - which he later proved by the feat of a passion-bearer, while many of the “freedom fighters” who condemned him saved themselves by compromising with an alien power or by fleeing outside the country.You cannot condemn anyone, but this fact should be stated.

Metropolitan Benjamin does not deny the responsibility of the Church for everything that happened to Russia: “I must admit that the influence of the Church on the masses of the people was weakening and weakening, the authority of the clergy was falling. There are many reasons. One of them is in ourselves: we have ceased to be “salt salt.” “and therefore they could not salt others” (Veniamin (Fedchenkov), Metropolitan. At the turn of two eras. M., 1994, P. 122). Remembering his student years at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, over the years he wonders why they, future theologians, never thought of going to Kronstadt to see Fr. John. “Our religious appearance continued to be still brilliant, but the spirit weakened. And the “spiritual” became worldly. General student life went past religious interests. There is absolutely no need to think that theological schools were nurseries for apostates, atheists, renegades. There were also only a few of these. But much more dangerous was the internal enemy: religious indifference. How shameful it is now! And now how we cry from our poverty and from petrified insensibility. No, not all was well in the Church. We became those about whom it is said in the Apocalypse: “Because you are cold as you are.” , nor hot, then I will vomit you out of My mouth... "The times came soon and we, many, were vomited even from the Motherland... We did not value its shrines. What we sowed, so we reaped" (Veniamin (Fedchenkov), Metropolitan of God's people. My spiritual meetings. M., 1997, pp. 197 – 199). Nevertheless, the very ability to such repentance testifies that the Church was alive and soon proved its viability.

All these aggravated contradictions were reflected in literature in one way or another. According to an already established tradition, the “turn of the century” covers the last decade of the 19th century and the period before the 1917 revolution. But the 1890s are also the 19th century, the time of Tolstoy and Chekhov in prose, Fet, Maykov and Polonsky in poetry. It is impossible to separate the outgoing 19th century from the emerging 20th century; there is no strict boundary. Authors of the nineteenth century and authors of the twentieth century are people of the same circle, they know each other, meet in literary circles and editorial offices of magazines. There is both mutual attraction and repulsion between them, the eternal conflict of “fathers and sons.”

The generation of writers born in the 60s and 70s. XIX century and made an outstanding contribution to Russian culture, in its aspirations it was somewhat different from the still dominant “sixties” and seventies. More precisely, it split, and the event that they experienced in childhood or early youth, but which perhaps had a decisive influence on it, was the assassination of Alexander II on March 1, 1881. For some, it awakened the idea of ​​​​the fragility of autocracy (the murder of “God’s anointed” happened, but the world did not collapse) and the desire to more actively continue the work of the revolutionary intelligentsia (these were people like Lenin and Gorky), others made them shudder at the cruelty of the “fighters for the people’s happiness” and think more carefully about eternal questions - from these came mystics, religious philosophers, poets, alien to social themes. But the traditional Orthodox church, in which many were raised, seemed to them too mundane, ingrained in everyday life and not in keeping with the spirit of their ideal aspirations. They were looking for spirituality, but they were often looking along roundabout and dead-end paths. Some eventually returned to the Church, some remained in eternal opposition to it.

The name “Silver Age” was established for the literature of the turn of the century. For some, this concept has a negative connotation. What does it include? Approaching the pan-European tradition - and to some extent neglecting the national one, “opening new horizons” in the field of form - and narrowing the content, attempts at intuitive insights and moral blindness, the search for beauty - and a certain morbidity, damage, the spirit of hidden danger and the sweetness of sin. Bunin characterized his contemporaries in the following way: “At the end of the nineties, he had not yet arrived, but a “great wind from the desert” was already felt. New people of this new literature were already emerging in the forefront of it and were surprisingly not similar to the previous, still so recent “rulers.” thoughts and feelings," as they expressed it then. Some of the old ones still ruled, but the number of their adherents was decreasing, and the glory of the new ones was growing. And almost all of those new ones who were at the head of the new, from Gorky to Sologub, were naturally gifted people , endowed with rare energy, great strength and great abilities. But here is what is extremely significant for those days when the “wind from the desert” was already approaching: the forces and abilities of almost all innovators were of rather low quality, vicious by nature, mixed with vulgar, deceitful, speculative, with servility to the street, with a shameless thirst for success, scandals...” (Bunin. Collected works. vol. 9. P. 309).

The temptation for educators is to ban this literature, to prevent the poisonous spirit of the Silver Age from “poisoning” the younger generation. It was this impulse that was followed in the Soviet period, when the pernicious “Silver Age” was contrasted with the “life-affirming romanticism” of Gorky and Mayakovsky. Meanwhile, Gorky and Mayakovsky are typical representatives of the same Silver Age (which is confirmed by Bunin). Forbidden fruit attracts, official recognition repels. That is why, during the Soviet period, many people, while reading, did not read Gorky and Mayakovsky, but absorbed the forbidden Symbolists and Acmeists with all their souls - and in some way, they were indeed morally damaged, losing the sense of the boundary between good and evil. A ban on reading is not a way to protect morality. You need to read the literature of the Silver Age, but you need to read it with reasoning. “Everything is possible for me, but not everything is for my benefit,” said the Apostle Paul.

In the 19th century, Russian literature performed a function in society that was close to religious and prophetic: Russian writers considered it their duty to awaken conscience in a person. The literature of the 20th century partly continues this tradition, partly protests against it; continuing, he protests, and while protesting, he still continues. Starting from his fathers, he tries to return to his grandfathers and great-grandfathers. B.K. Zaitsev, a witness and chronicler of the Silver Age of Russian literature, comparing it with the previous, Golden Age, pronounces the following verdict on his time: “The Golden Age of our literature was the century of the Christian spirit, goodness, pity, compassion, conscience and repentance - this is what gave it life. Ours The Golden Age is a harvest of genius. The Silver Age is a harvest of talents. That's what this literature had little of: love and faith in the Truth" (Zaitsev B.K. Silver Age. - Collected works in 11 vols. vol. 4., p. 478). But still, such a judgment cannot be accepted unambiguously.

Literary and social life 1890 – 1917

The intelligentsia has always defended its internal freedom and independence from power, and yet the dictates of public opinion were much more severe than the pressure “from above.” Politicization was the reason that writers and critics formed different groups, sometimes neutral, sometimes hostile towards each other. Zinaida Gippius in her memoirs well showed the spirit of St. Petersburg literary groups, which she had the opportunity to observe at the beginning of her literary activity, in the 1890s: “And so, looking closely at St. Petersburg life, I make a discovery: there is some kind of line that separates literary people, literary elders, and perhaps everyone in general. There are, it turns out, “liberals,” like Pleshcheev, Weinberg, Semevsky and then others, who are not liberals or less liberals" (Gippius. Memoirs. P. 177.). Pleshcheev, for example, never speaks of either Polonsky or Maikov, because Polonsky is a censor, and Maikov is also a censor, and an even larger official, the Privy Councilor (an interesting remark is that the radical democrat Pleshcheev is most similar in type to good Russian master). The young were allowed to enter both circles, but directives were already given, “what is good and what is bad.” “The worst was considered to be the old man Suvorin, who was still unknown to me, the editor of Novoye Vremya. Everyone reads the newspaper, but it is ‘impossible’ to write in it” (Gippius. Ibid.). However, Tolstoy and Chekhov were published in the “reactionary” Novoye Vremya.

Both St. Petersburg and Moscow had their own legislators of public opinion. The leader of the populist movement was considered Nikolai Konstantinovich Mikhailovsky (1842 – 1904), a sociologist, publicist, critic, who from 1892 headed the St. Petersburg magazine “Russian Wealth”. His closest collaborators and associates were Sergei Nikolaevich Krivenko (1847 - 1906), Nikolai Fedorovich Annensky (1843 - 1912), brother of the then unknown poet I.F. Annensky. V.G. constantly collaborated with Russian Wealth. Korolenko. The magazine conducted active polemics, on the one hand, with the conservative press, and on the other, with the Marxist ideas that were spreading in society.

The stronghold of populism in Moscow was the magazine "Russian Thought". The editor of "Russian Thought" from its founding in 1880 was the journalist and translator Vukol Mikhailovich Lavrov (1852 - 1912), then, from 1885, the critic and publicist Viktor Aleksandrovich Goltsev (1850 - 1906). V.A. recalled about “Russian Thought” in his book “Moscow Newspaper”. Gilyarovsky. The small episode he cited in his memoirs characterizes the era well. In relation to the government, Russian Thought was considered oppositional, and Goltsev, who in his views was a supporter of liberal reforms, had a reputation almost as a revolutionary. In the early 90s, Lavrov bought a plot of land near the town of Staraya Ruza; he and his employees built summer cottages there. In the Moscow literary community, the place was called the “Writers' Corner,” but the police dubbed it the “Supervised Area.” In Lavrov’s house they opened a public library, collected from donations, on which a sign was hung, half jokingly, half seriously: “People’s Library named after V.A. Goltsev.” “This sign,” writes Gilyarovsky, “was on display for no more than a week: the police showed up, and the words “named after Goltsev” and “folk” were destroyed, and only one thing was left - “library”. The name of Goltsev and the word were so formidable in those days. people" for the authorities" (Gilyarovsky V.A. Collected works in 4 vols. M., 1967. vol. 3. P. 191). There were many such, in essence, worthless clashes between the authorities and the democratic intelligentsia, and they fed and supported unabating mutual irritation.

The populists viewed the new literature with skepticism. Thus, assessing Chekhov’s work, Mikhailovsky believes that the writer was unable to fulfill one of the main tasks of literature: “to create a positive ideal.” Nevertheless, Chekhov is published in both “Russian Wealth” and “Russian Thought” quite regularly (it was in “Russian Thought” that his “Ward No. 6”, “Gooseberry”, “About Love”, “Lady with a Dog” were published), essays “Sakhalin Island” were published, etc.). These magazines also publish Gorky, Bunin, Kuprin, Mamin-Sibiryak, Garin-Mikhailovsky and others.

There were also less politicized press organs. Thus, a prominent place in literary life was occupied by the "thick" St. Petersburg magazine "Bulletin of Europe", published by the historian and publicist Mikhail Matveevich Stasyulevich (1826 - 1911). This magazine appeared in the 60s, the name repeated the “Bulletin of Europe” published at the beginning of the 19th century by N.M. Karamzin and thereby claimed the right to succession. Stasyulevich's "Bulletin of Europe" (a "magazine of history, literature and politics", which gained a reputation as a "professor's one") published critical studies, monographs, biographies and historical fiction, reviews of foreign literature (the magazine, for example, introduced the reader to the poetry of the French Symbolists). Vladimir Solovyov published a number of his works in Vestnik Evropy. Serious philosophical works were published in the journal "Questions of Philosophy and Psychology".

Also popular were the magazines "Niva" (with monthly literary supplements), "Magazine for Everyone", "World Illustration", "North", "Books of the Week" (a supplement to the newspaper "Week"), "Picturesque Review", "Russian Review" (which took a "protective position"), etc. Literary works and critical articles were published not only in magazines, but also in newspapers - "Russian Vedomosti", "Birzhevye Vedomosti", "Russia", "Russian Word", " Courier" and others. In total, more than 400 titles of various newspapers and magazines, central and local, were published in Russia at that time.

The Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences, whose president since 1889 was Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov (1858 - 1915) - a poet who signed his initials in print with the initials K.R. - did not stand aside from literary life. The Academy was guided by the Pushkin tradition in Russian literature. In 1882, the “Pushkin Prizes” were established at the Academy of Sciences - with a capital of 20,000 rubles, which remained, after all expenses, from the amount collected by subscription for the construction of the monument in Moscow in 1880. The prize was awarded every two years, in the amount of 1000 or 500 rubles. (half bonus) and was considered very prestigious. Prizes were awarded not only for original literary works, but also for translations. A notable event was the anniversary celebrations held at the initiative of the Academy in honor of the 100th anniversary of Pushkin’s birth. On the initiative of K.R. The Pushkin House, the largest literary archive and research center, was founded in St. Petersburg.

In his memoirs, Bunin cites “someone’s wonderful words”: “In literature there is the same custom as among the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego: young people, growing up, kill and eat old people” (Bunin. Collected works. T. 9., p. " "pure art" and the conservative direction, because it had many revolutionary moments. Marxists condescendingly recognize the historical merits of the populists, considering revolutionary work in Russia an evolutionary process; the decadents consider themselves successors only to the luminaries of Russian and world literature - Dante, Shakespeare, Pushkin , Dostoevsky, Verlaine and also condescendingly (but also contemptuously) evaluate their immediate predecessors - the poetry of the 1880s - 1890s.

It is characteristic that representatives of the older generation perceived the diverse youth as one. Bunin paints a memorable portrait of the populist writer Nikolai Nikolaevich Zlatovratsky (1843 - 1912), one of the leading employees of Russian Wealth and Russian Thought, who spent his last years living in Moscow and near Moscow on his estate in the village of Aprelevka: “When I visited Zlatovratsky, he, frowning his shaggy eyebrows like Tolstoy - he generally played a little like Tolstoy, thanks to his certain similarity with him - sometimes said with playful grumpiness: “The world, my friends, is still saved only by bast shoes, no matter what the gentlemen Marxists say! "Zlatovratsky lived from year to year in a small apartment with constant portraits of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky; he walked, swaying like a bear, around his smoky office, in worn out felt shoes, in a cotton shirt, in thick pants that hung low , as he walked, he made cigarettes with the machine, sticking it into his chest, and muttered: “Yes, I dream of going to Aprelevka again this summer - you know, it’s along the Bryansk road, only an hour’s drive from Moscow, and grace... God willing, there will be fish again I’ll catch it, I’ll have a heart-to-heart talk with old friends - I have the most wonderful guy friends there... All these Marxists, some kind of decadents, ephemerides, scum! " (Bunin. Collection op. vol. 9. p. 285).

“Everything really was at a turning point, everything was replaced,” writes Bunin, “Tolstoy, Shchedrin, Gleb Uspensky, Zlatovratsky - Chekhov, Gorky, Skabichevsky - Uklonsky, Maikov, Fet - Balmont, Bryusov, Repin, Surikov - Levitan, Nesterov, Maly theater - the Art Theater... Mikhailovsky and V.V. - Tugan-Baranovsky and Struve, "The Power of the Land" - "The Cauldron of Capitalism", "The Foundations" of Zlatovratsky - "The Men" of Chekhov and "Chelkash" of Gorky (Bunin. Collected works. vol. 9. P. 362).

“The revolutionary intelligentsia of that time was sharply divided into two hostile camps - the camp of the ever-decreasing populists and the camp of the ever-arriving Marxists,” he wrote about the 90s. V.V. Veresaev (Veresaev V.V. Memoirs. M., 1982. P. 495). – The magazines “New Word”, “Nachalo”, “Life” and others became the platform for the preaching of Marxism. They publish mainly “legal Marxists” (P.B. Struve, M.I. Tugan-Baranovsky, as well as young philosophers, soon departed from Marxism - S.N. Bulgakov, N.A. Berdyaev), and from time to time revolutionary Marxists (Plekhanov, Lenin, Zasulich, etc.) Journal. "Life" promotes a sociological or class-class approach to literature. The leading critic of "Life" Evgeniy Andreevich Solovyov-Andreevich (1867 - 1905) considers the question of the "active personality" to be decisive in literature. The first modern writers for him are Chekhov and Gorky. “Life” publishes famous writers Chekhov, Gorky, Veresaev and lesser known Evgeniy Nikolaevich Chirikov (1864 – 1932), Skitalets (real name Stepan Gavrilovich Petrov, 1869 – 1941). Lenin evaluates this magazine positively. The sociological approach was also advocated by the magazine "World of God". The ideologist and soul of its editorial staff was the publicist Angel Ivanovich Bogdanovich (1860 - 1907) - an adherent of the aesthetics of the sixties and critical realism. In "World of God" Kuprin, Mamin-Sibiryak, and at the same time Merezhkovsky are published.

In the 1890s. In Moscow, a writers' circle "Sreda" arises, uniting writers of a democratic trend. Its founder was the writer Nikolai Dmitrievich Teleshov (1867 – 1957), in whose apartment writers’ meetings were held. Their regular participants were Gorky, Bunin, Veresaev, Chirikov, Garin-Mikhailovsky, Leonid Andreev, and many others. Chekhov and Korolenko attended the “Wednesdays”, artists and actors came: F.I. Shalyapin, O.L. Knipper, M.F. Andreeva, A.M. Vasnetsov and others. “The circle was closed, outsiders were not allowed into it,” recalled V.V. Veresaev, “Writers read their new works in the circle, which were then criticized by those present. The main condition was not to be offended by any criticism. And the criticism was often cruel , destroying, so that some more proud members even avoided reading their things on “Sreda” (Veresaev. Memoirs. P. 433).

A notable event in the life of the democratic camp (but not only it) was the founding of the Moscow Art Theater in 1898. The first meeting of the two founders of the theater - Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky (1863 - 1938) and Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858 - 1943) - took place on June 22, 1897 in the Moscow restaurant "Slavic Bazaar". These two people found each other and, having met for the first time, could not part for 18 hours: a decision was made to create a new, “director’s” theater and basic principles were developed; in addition to creative ones, practical issues were also discussed.

Initially, the theater was located in the building of the Hermitage Theater in Karetny Ryad. His first performance was “Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich” by A.K. Tolstoy with Moskvin in the title role, but a truly significant event was the production of Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” which premiered on December 17, 1898. Already the premiere made it possible to see some characteristic features of directing: “play with a pause,” attention to “small roles” and speech characteristics, even the raising of the curtain itself was unusual: it did not rise, but moved apart. “The Seagull” was an unprecedented success, and later the seagull on the curtain became the emblem of the Moscow Art Theater. Its author was the architect F.O. Shekhtel.

In 1902, the theater moved to a new building in Kamergersky Lane (it became known as the “Public Art Theater in Kamergersky.” The first performance in the new building was Gorky’s “The Bourgeois” and since then Gorky’s plays have been included in the permanent repertoire of the Moscow Art Theater. Soon for the Moscow Art Theater, according to Shekhtel's design, a mansion was rebuilt in Kamergersky Lane. Above the side entrance to the theater in 1903, a high relief "Wave" (or "Swimmer" according to the design of the sculptor A.S. Golubkina) was installed. "Wave", like the emblem - The seagull reflected the revolutionary aspirations of the intelligentsia and were also associated with the “Song of the Petrel.” The Moscow Art Theater’s “kapusniki” evenings of the creative intelligentsia, so named because they were held during Lent (when all entertainment gatherings generally stopped), also became famous. At least they pretended to observe the rules of piety: they were served pies with cabbage as a treat.

Democratic writers in the 1900s. are grouped around the publishing house of the Znanie partnership. The publishing house was founded in 1898 by literacy workers, its managing director was Konstantin Petrovich Pyatnitsky (1864 - 1938) - the one to whom Gorky dedicated his play “At the Depths”. Gorky himself joined the partnership in 1900, and became its ideological inspirer for a whole decade. "Znanie" carried out cheap "folk" publications, which sold in large quantities (up to 65,000 copies). In total, 40 book titles were published between 1898 and 1913. At first, the publishing house published mainly popular science literature, but Gorky attracted the best literary forces of writers to it - mainly prose writers. In general, by the beginning of the 1900s. There was still a sense of the priority of prose over poetry, its greater social significance, which was established in the middle of the 19th century. But at the beginning of the century the situation began to change.

An exponent of the modernist trend in the 1890s. became the magazine "Northern Herald", the editorial office of which was reorganized and the critic Akim Lvovich Volynsky (real name Flexer) (1861 - 1926) became its de facto leader. Volynsky considered the main task of the magazine to be “the struggle for idealism” (this was the title of his book, published as a separate edition in 1900, which included his numerous articles previously published in Severny Vestnik). The critic called for the “modernization” of populism: to fight not for the socio-political reorganization of society, but for a “spiritual revolution,” thereby encroaching on the “holy of holies” of the Russian democratic intelligentsia: the idea of ​​public service. “The Russian reader,” he wrote, “in general, is a rather carefree creature. He opens only the publication recommended to him once and for all by critics and reviewers recognized by him. He cares little about the rest. And in France, and in England, and in Germany, a writer is judged according to the extent to which it corresponds to the code of artistic requirements, for us - according to what its political catechism is" (Volynsky A.L. Russian critics. - North, 1896, p. 247).

Young writers grouped around the Northern Messenger, striving to overthrow the dictates of democratic unanimity and Russian national provincialism and merge with the pan-European literary process. Nikolai Minsky, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius, Fyodor Sologub, Konstantin Balmont, Mirra Lokhvitskaya, Konstantin Ldov and others collaborate in the magazine. At the same time, individual articles by Tolstoy are published in the Severny Vestnik, and Gorky’s “Malva” also appeared in it.

The new direction was not initially united; the “fighters for idealism” did not form a united front. It is characteristic that Vladimir Solovyov, whom the modernists considered their predecessor and ideological inspirer, did not recognize them. His parodies of the first decadents, in which the favorite techniques of the new poetry were played out, became widely known.

Vertical horizons

In chocolate skies

Like half-mirror dreams

In the cherry laurel forests.

Ghost of a fire-breathing ice floe

In the bright dusk it went out,

And there is no one who can hear me

Hyacinth Pegasus.

Mandrake immanent

They rustled in the reeds,

And the rough-decadent ones

Virshi in withering ears.

In 1895, for the first time, the publication of the collections “Russian Symbolists” attracted public attention—admittedly, mostly ironically—the leading author of which was the 22-year-old poet Valery Bryusov, who published his poems not only under his own name, but also under several pseudonyms in order to create an impression already existing strong school. Much of what was printed in the collection was such that it seemed that there was no need for parody, since it sounded parodic in itself. A poem consisting of one line became especially notorious: “Oh, close your pale legs!”

In the 1890s. Decadence was considered a marginal phenomenon. Not all of the writers of the new trend were allowed into print (among the “rejected” was Bryusov, who was called a poet only in quotation marks); those who were nevertheless published (Balmont, Merezhkovsky, Gippius) collaborated in magazines of various directions, including populist ones, but this was not thanks to, but in spite of their desire for novelty. But by the 1900s, the situation had changed - this was noted by one of the literary observers of that time: “Before the Russian public learned about the existence of Symbolist philosophers, it had an idea of ​​​​“decadents” as special people who write about “blue sounds” "and in general all rhymed nonsense, then certain romantic traits were attributed to the decadents - daydreaming, contempt for everyday prose, etc. Recently, romantic traits have been replaced by a new trait - the ability to organize one’s affairs. The decadent has turned from a dreamer into a practitioner" (Literary Chronicle. - Books of the Week, 1900, No. 9, p. 255). This can be viewed differently, but that’s really how it was.

To understand the prerequisites for the flourishing of culture and art at the beginning of the 20th century, it is important to understand the financial platform on which this flourishing was based. This was largely the activity of enlightened merchants-philanthropists - such as Savva Ivanovich Mamontov, Savva Timofeevich Morozov, Sergei Aleksandrovich Polyakov and others. P.A. Buryshkin, an entrepreneur and collector, subsequently recalled the merits of the Russian merchants: “Tretyakov Gallery, Shchukinsky and Morozovsky museums of modern French painting, Bakhrushinsky Theater Museum, collection of Russian porcelain by A.V. Morozov, collection of icons of S.P. Ryabushinsky, ... Private Opera S.I. Mamontov, Art Theater of K.S. Alekseev - Stanislavsky and S.T. Morozov, M.K. Morozov - and the Moscow Philosophical Society, S.I. Shchukin - and the Philosophical Institute at Moscow University... Naidenov collections and publications on the history of Moscow... The Clinical Town and Maiden Field in Moscow were created mainly by the Morozov family... Soldatenkov - both his publishing house and the Shchepkinskaya library... Soldatenkov Hospital, Solodovnikovskaya Hospital, Bakhrushinskys, Khludovskys, Mazurinsky, Gorbovsky hospice houses and shelters, Arnold-Tretyakov School for the Deaf and Dumb, Shelaputinsky and Medvednikovsky gymnasiums, Aleksandrovsky Commercial School; Practical Academy of Commercial Sciences, Commercial Institute of the Moscow Society for the Propagation of Commercial Education... were built by some family, or in memory of some - families And always, in everything, the public good comes first for them, concern for the benefit of the whole people" (Buryshkin P.A. Merchant Moscow. M., 2002). Patronage and charity had high prestige; among the merchants there was even a semblance of competition: who would do the most for their city.

At the same time, merchants sometimes seemed to not know what to use their funds for. The desire to distinguish himself led to experimentation. At the beginning of the 20th century, new mansions built in traditional merchant cities - primarily in Moscow - were considered examples of pretentiousness and bad taste. It took years and even decades for Art Nouveau to gain recognition and for the buildings of architects F.O. Shekhtelya, L.N. Kekusheva, V.D. Adamovich, N.I. Pozdeeva, A.A. Ostrogradsky were appreciated. But there were also completely different types of investments: for example, Savva Morozov, through the mediation of Gorky, donated about one hundred thousand rubles (a huge amount at that time) to the Bolshevik Party for the development of the revolution.

Among the decadents there were indeed practical people who managed to find significant funds for the development of a new art. Such talent as a practitioner and organizer was possessed, first of all, by Valery Bryusov, through whose efforts the decadent publishing house "Scorpion" was created in Moscow in 1899. Its financial basis was as follows. In 1896, poet K.D. Balmont married one of the richest Moscow heiresses, E.A. Andreeva. The marriage was concluded against the wishes of the parents and the bride did not receive large funds at her disposal. However, having become related to the Andreev family, Balmont found himself connected by family ties with Sergei Aleksandrovich Polyakov (1874 - 1948), a highly educated young man, mathematician and polyglot, who willingly became close to his new relative and his friends, including Bryusov, who quickly managed to turn things are on the right track. Several poetic almanacs were published with Pushkin's title "Northern Flowers" (the last one, however, was called "Northern Assyrian Flowers"). The monthly decadent magazine “Scales” began to be published, in which Bryusov attracted, first of all, young poets. The circle of collaborators was small, but each wrote under several pseudonyms: for example, Bryusov was not only Bryusov, but also Aurelius, and simply “V.B.”, Balmont - “Don” and “Lionel”; “Boris Bugaev” and “Andrei Bely” were published in the magazine - and no one yet suspected that this was the same person, the unknown “Max Voloshin” (“Vax Kaloshin”, as Chekhov ironically) was published, the gifted young man Ivan appeared for a short time Konevskoy (real name - Ivan Ivanovich Oreus, 1877 - 1901), whose life soon ended tragically and absurdly: he drowned.

In the first years, Bunin also collaborated with Scorpio, who later recalled: “Scorpio existed (under the editorship of Bryusov) with the money of a certain Polyakov, a wealthy Moscow merchant, one of those who had already graduated from universities and was drawn to all kinds of arts, a still young man , but frayed, balding, with a yellow mustache. This Polyakov caroused almost every night recklessly and very heartily fed and watered in restaurants both Bryusov and the rest of the fraternity of Moscow decadents, symbolists, “magicians”, “Argonauts”, seekers of the “golden fleece” ". However, with me he turned out to be stingier than Plyushkin. But Polyakov published superbly. And, of course, he acted smartly. The publications of Scorpio sold very modestly - Libra, for example, reached (in the fourth year of its existence) a circulation of only three hundred copies - but their appearance contributed a lot to their fame. And then - the names of the Polish publications: “Scorpio”, “Libra” or, for example, the name of the first almanac published by “Scorpio”: “Northern Assyrian Flowers” ​​Everyone was perplexed: why “Scorpio”? And what kind of “Scorpio” is it – a reptile or a constellation? And why did these “Northern flowers” ​​suddenly turn out to be Assyrian? However, this bewilderment soon gave way to respect and admiration among many. So, when soon after this Bryusov even declared himself an Assyrian magician, everyone already firmly believed that he was a magician. This is not a joke - a label. “What you call yourself is what you will be known for” (Bunin. Collected works. vol. 9. p. 291). With the advent of “Scorpio”, Moscow became a citadel of decadence, and an undoubted “candidate for leader” emerged - the tirelessly energetic Valery Bryusov - “one of the most painful figures of the Silver Age" - as B.K. Zaitsev will say about him. The Moscow “Literary and Artistic Circle”, which arose in 1899 and existed until 1919, also became a tribune for the dissemination of new ideas. it was headed by Bryusov.

St. Petersburg had its own leaders. In the 90s poets of different directions gathered for “Fridays” with the venerable poet Yakov Petrovich Polonsky (1818 – 1898). When he died, literally at the funeral, another poet, of a younger generation, but also already quite respectable in age, Konstantin Konstantinovich Sluchevsky (1837 - 1904), offered to gather with him. This is how Sluchevsky’s “Fridays” began. Sluchevsky at that time was a high-ranking official (editor of the official newspaper "Government Bulletin", member of the Council of the Minister of Internal Affairs, chamberlain of the court), so, naturally, radical democrats did not visit his salon, but still a variety of people gathered. It must be said that both Polonsky and Sluchevsky were tactful and diplomatic people and knew how to reconcile guests of very different views. Bryusov also attended them, leaving their descriptions in his diary: “Poets call these Friday meetings at Sluchevsky’s their academy. I was there on 11 in the evening, came with Balmont and Bunin, - according to custom, I brought my books to the owner, sat down and began listen... There were relatively few people - among the older ones there was the decrepit old man Mikhailovsky and the not particularly decrepit Likhachev, there was the publisher of "The Week" Gaideburov, the censor and translator of Kant, Sokolov, Yasinsky came later; among the young people there were Apollo Corinthian, Safonov, Mazurkevich, Gribovsky We , three decadents - Balmont, Sologub and I, sadly hid in a corner. And they say this is an even better evening, because Merezhkovsky was not there. Otherwise he is terrorizing the whole society. Oh! The Word! The Word cannot be false, for it is sacred. No low words! The old people are silent, afraid that he will beat them with authorities, because they are not very learned, old men. The youth does not dare to object and is bored, only Zinochka Gippius triumphs" (Bryusov V.Ya. Diaries. M., 2002. With 69). Bryusov judges the educational status of the older generation with the impudence of a young snob. Of course, there were different “old men”. But the owner himself, K.K. Sluchevsky, for example, had a doctorate in philosophy received in Heidelberg. He had the opportunity to study at the universities of Paris, Berlin, and Leipzig. If he wanted, he probably could have objected to Merezhkovsky, but he kept a delicate silence.

The Merezhkovsky couple occupied a prominent place in the literary life of the capital. Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (1865 - 1941) entered literature as a poet of the populist movement, but soon “changed milestones” and turned to spiritual quests of universal scope. His poetry collection "Symbols" (1892) by its very name indicated a relationship with the poetry of French symbolism, and for many aspiring Russian poets it became a programmatic one. In those years A.N. Maikov wrote a parody of the “decadents,” meaning, first of all, Merezhkovsky:

Dawn is blooming in the steppe. The river dreams with blood,

Inhuman love across the heavens

The soul is bursting at the seams. Baal became embittered,

He grabs the soul by the feet. Back at sea

Columbus left to look for America. Tired.

When will the sound of the earth on the coffin end grief?

Merezhkovsky did not receive wide recognition as a poet; not content with poetry, he turned to prose, and over the course of a decade he created three major historical and philosophical novels, united under the common title “Christ and Antichrist”: “The Death of the Gods (Julian the Apostate) – The Resurrected Gods (Leonardo da Vinci) – Antichrist (Peter and Alexei) ". In his novels, Merezhkovsky posed and tried to resolve serious religious and philosophical questions. In addition, he appeared in print both as a critic and as a translator of Greek tragedy. Merezhkovsky's ability to work and his literary prolificacy were amazing.

An equally notable figure was Merezhkovsky’s wife, Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius (1869 - 1943) - a poet, prose writer, critic and simply a beautiful woman (“Zinaida the Beautiful,” as her friends called her), who had an unfeminine mind, an inexhaustible polemical fervor, and a penchant for all sorts of things. shocking. The lines of her early poems: “But I love myself like God, // Love will save my soul...” or “I need something that is not in the world, // that is not in the world...” - were repeated with bewilderment and disapproval. Bunin (and not he alone) draws their portrait with a hostile pen: “Into the artistic room, squinting excessively, slowly entered a kind of heavenly vision, an amazingly thin angel in a snow-white robe and with golden flowing hair, along whose bare arms fell to the very floor something like sleeves, or wings: Z.N. Gippius, accompanied from behind by Merezhkovsky" (Bunin. Collected works. vol. 9. P. 281). In general, the Merezhkovskys were taken into account, they were respected, valued, but not loved. Contemporaries were repulsed by their “almost tragic egoism,” their hostile and disgusted attitude towards people; In addition, the memoirists noted with displeasure that they were very “flexible” in organizing their own affairs. However, those who knew them better found attractive traits in them: for example, during the 52 years of their married life they never separated for a day, they cared very much about each other (despite the fact that they did not experience passionate feelings for each other). Gippius had the talent to imitate someone else's handwriting and, when Merezhkovsky was persecuted in the press, in order to cheer him up, she herself wrote and sent him letters supposedly from enthusiastic fans and fans. They knew how to be loyal friends to people in their own circle. But still, the impressions of those who did not enter their orbit were mostly negative.

Ironically, it was these people, who seemed to emanate coldness and arrogance, who represented the “Christian” wing of Russian symbolism. On the initiative of the Merezhkovskys, at the beginning of the new century (1901–1903), religious and philosophical meetings were organized, at which representatives of the creative intelligentsia, who considered themselves “harbingers of a new religious consciousness,” discussed with representatives of the Church. The level of meetings was quite high. They were presided over by the rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Bishop of Yamburg Sergius (Stragorodsky) (1867 - 1944), the future Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', and other prominent theologians of the Academy were also present. Their opponents were philosophers, writers and public figures: N.A. Berdyaev, V.V. Rozanov, A.V. Kartashev, D.V. Filosofov, V.A. Ternavtsev and others. Based on the materials of the meetings, the magazine “New Way” (later renamed “Questions of Life”) began to be published. However, the parties did not find a common language. The “harbingers of a new religious consciousness” expected the advent of the era of the Third Testament, the era of the Holy Spirit, asserted the need for “Christian socialism,” and accused Orthodoxy of the lack of social ideals. From the point of view of theologians, all this was heresy; Participants in religious and philosophical meetings began to be called “God-seekers,” since their structures were built not on the foundation of a solid faith, but on the shaky soil of a shaky religious consciousness. K. Balmont, who at that time himself was sharply anti-Christian, nevertheless subtly felt a certain strain of God-seeking efforts.

Ah, the devils have now become professors,

Magazines are published, volume after volume is written.

Their boring faces are full of sadness, like a coffin,

When they shout: "Joy is with Christ"

(printed by: Valery Bryusov and his correspondents. // Literary Heritage. vol. 98. M., 1991. book 1., p. 99)

But still, these meetings were a stage in the life of the Russian intelligentsia, since they showed their desire (even if not crowned with success at that moment) to return to the sources of national identity, to carry out a synthesis of religion and new culture, and to sanctify de-churched life. Bryusov cites the words of Gippius in his diary: “If they say that I am a decadent Christian, that I go to a reception with the Lord God in a white dress, that will be true. But if they say that I am sincere, that will also be true” (Bryusov. Diaries . P. 136).

The Silver Age was a syncretic phenomenon. Phenomena parallel to literary ones were observed in other types of art, which also correlated with socio-political trends. Thus, in painting, the democratic camp was represented by the Association of Itinerants, which existed since 1870, whose task was to depict the everyday life and history of the peoples of Russia, its nature, social conflicts, and expose social order. At the turn of the century, this movement was represented by I.E. Repin, V.M. Vasnetsov, I.I. Levitan, V.A. Serov and others. At the same time, modernist groups were emerging. In 1898, the artistic association “World of Art” was created, inspired by the young artist and art critic Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870 – 1960). In 1898 – 1904 the society publishes a magazine with the same name - "World of Art", the editor of which, along with Benois, is Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (1872 - 1929) - a man of versatile activity, who soon gained worldwide fame thanks to the organization of the "Russian Seasons" of ballet in Paris and the creation of the troupe "Russian Ballet of Diaghilev". Among the participants in the "World of Art" were at first Benois' classmates - D. Filosofov, V. Nouvel, N. Skalon. Later they were joined by K. Somov, L. Rosenberg (later known under the name Bakst), and E. Lanceray, nephew of A. Benois. M. Vrubel, A. Golovin, F. Malyavin, N. Roerich, S. Malyutin, B. Kustodiev, Z. Serebryakova soon joined the core of the circle. Wandering movement ideologist V.V. Stasov branded this group as “decadent,” but some of the artists of the Peredvizhniki movement (Levitan, Serov, Korovin) began to actively collaborate with the “World of Art” artists. The basic principles of the "World of Art" were close to the principles of modernism in literature: interest in the culture of the past (domestic and world), an orientation towards rapprochement with Europe, an orientation towards the "peaks". A number of already mentioned artists (V. A. Serov, M. A. Vrubel, V. M. Vasnetsov, M. V. Nesterov, V. D. and E. D. Polenov, K. A. Korovin, I. E. Repin) worked in the Abramtsevo workshop of S.I. Mamontov, where there was also a search for new forms, but with an emphasis on the study of Russian antiquity. Artists of the new movement showed great interest in theater and the art of books - in particular, they designed the editions of Scorpio.

This, in general terms, is the spectrum of literary life of the period preceding the first Russian revolution. The period between the two revolutions was culturally no less, if not more intense. The already mentioned book publishing houses, magazine editorial offices, and theaters continued to operate, and new ones arose.

Bunin, remembering and depicting this time many years later, emphasizes a certain internal similarity - with external dissimilarity - between two opposing literary camps, democratic and decadent: “The Wanderer, Andreev, came for Gorky. And there, in the other camp, Blok appeared, White, Balmont blossomed... The wanderer - a kind of cathedral choirboy "drunken" - pretended to be a psaltery player, an ear player, growled at the intelligentsia: "You are toads in a rotten swamp" - reveled in his unexpected, unexpected glory and kept posing for photographers: sometimes with a gusli, - " oh, you goy, you, you little child, a thief-robber!” - now hugging Gorky, now sitting on the same chair with Chaliapin, Andreev became increasingly pale and gloomily drunk, gritting his teeth both from his own dizzying successes, and from those ideological abysses and heights, being among which he considered his specialty. And everyone walked around in slippers, in untucked silk shirts, in belts with a silver set, in long boots - I once met them all at once in the foyer of the Art Theater during intermission and could not resist , asked in a stupid tone Coco from “Fruits of Enlightenment”, who saw the men in the kitchen:

- Uh... Are you hunters?

And there, in another camp, the image of curly-haired Blok was drawn, his classic dead face, heavy chin, dull blue gaze. There Bely “threw a pineapple into the sky,” screamed about the impending transformation of the world, twitched, crouched, ran up, ran away, looked around senselessly and cheerfully with some strangely insinuating antics, his eyes sparkled brightly, blissfully joyfully and sprinkled with new thoughts. ..

In one camp they tore up publications of “Znanie”; there were books “Knowledge” that sold a hundred thousand copies a month or two, as Gorky said. And there, too, one striking book replaced another - Hamsun, Przybyshevsky, Verharn, ″Urbi et Orbi″, ″Let's be like the Sun″, ″Helmsmen of the Stars″, one magazine followed another: after ″Scales″ – ″Pass″, for ″ The world of art - "Apollo", "Golden Fleece" - followed triumph after triumph of the Art Theater, on the stage of which were the ancient Kremlin chambers, then the office of "Uncle Vanya", then Norway, then "The Bottom", then Maeterlinck's island, in which some bodies lay in heaps, muffledly moaning “We are scared!” - then the Tula hut from the “Power of Darkness”, all cluttered with carts, arches, wheels, clamps, reins, troughs and bowls, then the real Roman streets with real barefoot plebs. Then the triumphs of Rosehip began. He and the Art Theater were destined to contribute greatly to the unification of these two camps. ″Rosehip″ began to publish Serafimovich, ″Znanie″ – Balmont, Verhaeren. The Art Theater connected Ibsen with Hamsun, Tsar Fedor with “The Bottom,” “The Seagull” with “Children of the Sun.” The end of nine hundred and five also greatly contributed to this unification, when Bryusov appeared in the newspaper ″Fight″ next to Gorky, next to Lenin Balmont...” (Bunin. vol. 9. p. 297).

Indeed, the events of 1905 drew many people into the revolutionary whirlpool, who were, in principle, far from the revolution. In addition to the newspaper "Borba" mentioned by Bunin - the first legal Bolshevik newspaper, published in 1905, but which did not last very long, the newspaper "New Life" became a field of cooperation for people of different opinions, the official publisher of which was the decadent poet Nikolai Maksimovich Minsky (present fam. . Vilenkin) (1855 – 1937). On the one hand, Lenin, Lunacharsky, Gorky collaborated in the newspaper, on the other - Minsky himself, Balmont, Teffi and others. However, as Lunacharsky later recalled, the cooperation did not last long, since “it turned out to be impossible to harness our Marxist horse to the same cart with the semi-decadent trembling doe.” not allowed".

The writer Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Teffi (real name Lokhvitskaya, sister of the poetess M. Lokhvitskaya) (1872 - 1952), who by coincidence collaborated with the Bolsheviks in 1905, recalled this time: “Russia suddenly immediately went to the left. Students were worried, workers went on strike , even the old generals grumbled about the bad practices and spoke harshly about the personality of the sovereign. Sometimes public leftism took on a downright anecdotal character: the Saratov police chief, together with the revolutionary Topuridze, who married a millionaire, began publishing a legal Marxist newspaper. Agree that there was nowhere to go further. The St. Petersburg intelligentsia experienced the new moods sweetly and keenly. The theater staged “The Green Parrot,” a play from the time of the French Revolution, until then banned; publicists wrote articles and satires that undermined the system; poets composed revolutionary poems; actors recited these poems from the stage to enthusiastic applause from the public. The University and the Technological Institute were temporarily closed, and rallies were held in their premises, into which bourgeois urban inhabitants very easily and simply penetrated, were inspired by the then new cries of “right” and “down with” and carried them to friends and family families with poorly understood and poorly expressed ideas. New illustrated magazines have appeared on sale. Shebuev's "machine gun" and some others. I remember there was a bloody handprint on the cover of one of them. They supplanted the pious "Niva" and were bought up by a completely unexpected public." St. Petersburg 1999).

After the first Russian revolution, many members of the intelligentsia became disillusioned with previous social ideals. A reflection of this position was, in particular, the collection “Vekhi” (1909), published by a group of philosophers and publicists (N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, P.B. Struve, S.L. Frank, etc.). The criticism of the views of the Russian intelligentsia was fair in many respects, but not everyone agreed with it - in any case, the revolutionary ferment, which outwardly died down for a while, continued and undermined the foundations of the Russian Empire.

It must be said that the revolution gave a powerful impetus to the development of satire, subsequently, in the 1910s, with the change in the political situation, which returned to the mainstream of humor. In the 1910s The magazine "Satyricon" was very popular - formed in 1908 from the previously existing weekly "Dragonfly", the permanent editor of which was the humorist writer Arkady Timofeevich Averchenko (1881 - 1925). Teffi, Sasha Cherny (Alexander Mikhailovich Glikberg, 1880 - 1932), Pyotr Petrovich Potemkin (1886 - 1926) and others collaborated in the magazine. In 1913, some of the employees separated themselves and began publishing the magazine "New Satyricon" (he collaborated in it, in particular , Mayakovsky). The works of the “satiricists” were not momentary “mass” entertainment, but real good literature that did not lose relevance over time - like Chekhov’s humorous stories, they are read with interest even a century later.

The publishing house "Rosehip" was founded in 1906 in St. Petersburg by cartoonist Zinoviy Isaevich Grzhebin (1877 - 1929) and Solomon Yuryevich Kopelman. In 1907 – 1916 it published a number of almanacs (26 in total), in which the works of symbolist writers and representatives of realism were equally represented. The leading authors of the publishing house were the “realist” Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev (1871 – 1919) and the “symbolist” Fyodor Kuzmich Sologub (1863 – 1927) (present family Teternikov). However, the line between the two methods became increasingly blurred, and a new style of prose was formed, which was undoubtedly influenced by poetry. This can be said about the prose of such authors as Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev (1877 – 1972) and Alexey Mikhailovich Remizov (1877 – 1957), whose beginning of creative activity is also associated with “Rose Hip”.

In 1912, writers V.V. Veresaev, I.A. Bunin, B.K. Zaitsev, I.S. Shmelev and others organized the "Book Publishing House of Writers in Moscow." The leading role in the publishing house was played by Vikenty Vikentievich Veresaev (real name Smidovich, 1867 - 1945). “We proposed a negative ideological platform,” he recalled: nothing anti-life, nothing anti-social, nothing anti-art; the struggle for clarity and simplicity of language” (Veresaev. Memoirs. P. 509). To a large extent, thanks to this publishing house, the work of Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev (1873 - 1950) became known to the general public, since it published an eight-volume collection of his works - works written before the revolution. However, the works he created while in exile brought him real fame.

Book publishing house "Znanie" by the beginning of the 1910s. has lost its former meaning. Gorky at this time lived in exile in Capri. But having returned to his homeland in 1915, together with the Social Democrat Ivan Pavlovich Ladyzhnikov (1874 - 1945) and the writer Alexander Nikolaevich Tikhonov (1880 -1956), he organized the publishing house "Parus", which continued the traditions of "Knowledge", and began to publish a literary and public magazine "Chronicle", in which writers of different generations collaborated: I.A. Bunin, M.M. Prishvin, K.A. Trenev, I.E. Volnov, as well as scientists from all branches of science: K.A. Timiryazev, M.N. Pokrovsky and others.

In the early 1900s. A new generation of poets entered the literary field, who are usually called “younger symbolists” or “young symbolists”, the most famous of whom were Alexander Blok and Andrei Bely (Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev, 1880 - 1934). However, the “younger” poets were not always younger than the “senior” ones. For example, the poet-philologist Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (1866 - 1949) was closer in age to his elders, but in the 1900s. he lived abroad, seriously studying the history of ancient Rome, and only in 1905 did he return to Russia. Together with his wife, the writer Lydia Dmitrievna Zinovieva-Annibal, he settled in St. Petersburg in a house on Tavricheskaya Street, which soon gained fame as the “tower” of Vyacheslav Ivanov (“Vyacheslav the Magnificent,” as he was called) - a literary salon visited by writers of various directions , predominantly modernist. The bizarrely painful life of the “tower” and the atmosphere of Ivanovo’s “environments” were described in the memoirs of Andrei Bely: “The life of the ledge of a five-story building, or “tower,” is unique, inimitable; residents flocked in; walls broke; the apartment, swallowing the neighboring ones, became three, representing a weaving of the most bizarre corridors, rooms, doorless hallways; square rooms, rhombuses and sectors; rugs muffled the step, propped up bookshelves between gray-brown carpets, figurines, swinging shelves; this one is a museum; that one is like a barn; if you enter, you will forget which one you are in country, at what time; everything will be skewed; and the day will be night, the night will be day; even Ivanov’s “Wednesdays” were already Thursdays; they began later than 12 at night" (Andrey Bely. Beginning of the century. M.-L. 1933. P. 321 ).

The second symbolist publishing house after Scorpio was Grif, a publishing house that existed in Moscow in 1903–1914. Its founder and editor-in-chief was the writer Sergei Krechetov (real name Sergei Alekseevich Sokolov) (1878 - 1936).

In 1906 – 1909 The symbolist magazine "Golden Fleece" was published in Moscow. It was published at the expense of the merchant N.P. Ryabushinsky. Just as “Scales” was an expression of the position of the older symbolists, declaring comprehensive aestheticism and individualism, so “The Golden Fleece” reflected the views of those who saw a religious-mystical action in art - i.e. mostly younger ones, whose leader was Andrei Bely. The idol of the younger Symbolists was the great Russian philosopher Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov; like him, and to a much greater extent than him, elements of Christianity and Russian religious philosophy were intertwined in their constructions with theosophy, anthroposophy and occultism. But Solovyov’s conviction that the meaning of life is in the creation of good, as well as Dostoevsky’s well-known idea that beauty will save the world, inspired their work, at least at the beginning of their journey. “One can laugh at such an expenditure of energy,” recalled Andrei Bely’s first wife, the artist A.A. Turgenev, “but one cannot help but note that nowhere but in Russia, in these pre-revolutionary years of the century, was the hope for spiritual renewal experienced with such force - and nowhere was the disruption of these hopes soon experienced with such force" (Turgeneva A.A. Andrei Bely and Rudolf Steiner. - Memoirs of Andrei Bely. M., 1995, pp. 190 - 191).

“World of Art” and other modernist artists took part in the design of the “Golden Fleece”. The artistic department of the editorial office was headed by the artist V. Milioti. With the financial support of Ryabushinsky, art exhibitions were held, the main participants of which were artists from the Blue Rose association: P. Kuznetsov, V. Milioti, N. Sapunov, S. Sudeikin, M. Maryan, P. Utkin, G. Yakulov. In 1907 – 1911 Exhibitions "Salon of the Golden Fleece" were held in Moscow.

In 1909, the publishing house "Musaget" was organized in Moscow (Musaget - "driver of the muses" - one of Apollo's nicknames). Its founders were Andrei Bely and Emilius Karlovich Medtner (1872 - 1936) - music critic, philosopher and writer. The poet Ellis (Lev Lvovich Kobylinsky), as well as writers and translators A.S. also collaborated in it. Petrovsky and M.I. Sizov.

In this era, the relationship between poetry and prose changes. Lyric poetry, more mobile and spontaneous than prose, responds more quickly to the anxious mood of the era and itself quickly finds a response. At the same time, the average reader finds himself unprepared to perceive the complex language of the new lyrics. “The time is coming and has come,” wrote one of the literary critics of that era, “when the broad masses begin to treat poets as they used to treat philosophers: not directly, not through their own brains, but through the reviews of jury connoisseurs. The reputations of great poets begin to be built by hearsay "(Leonid Galich. - Theater and Art. 1905, No. 37, September 11). Indeed, in parallel with poetry, literary criticism is developing - and often the poets themselves act as interpreters of their own ideas. The first theorists were the symbolists. Bryusov, Balmont, Andrei Bely, Innokenty Annensky and others created theoretical studies and justifications of symbolism, wrote studies on the theory of Russian verse. Gradually, the ideal of the poet-“prophet” was replaced by the image of the poet-“master”, capable and willing to “believe harmony with algebra.” The resemblance to Pushkin's Salieri ceased to frighten, even poets of the "Mozartian" type paid tribute to mastery of the "craft".

By the beginning of the 1910s. The history of Russian symbolism has already spanned about two decades, and its founders moved from the age of “children” to the age of “fathers” and again found themselves drawn into an eternal conflict, but in a different capacity. The new generation, raised in an environment of great expectations and significant change, was even more radical. The language of new poetry was already familiar to them, and the tendency to theorize was also familiar. Some young authors in the 1900s collaborated in modernist magazines, studied with the leaders of symbolism. In the early 1910s. leaders of new trends were identified. A moderate reaction to symbolism was acmeism (from the Greek akme - “peak”), a more radical reaction was futurism. Both the Acmeists and the Futurists did not accept, first of all, the mysticism of the Symbolists - this was partly due to the progressive impoverishment of religiosity in society. Each of the two new directions tried to justify its principles and its right to supremacy.

The poets Nikolai Gumilyov, Sergei Gorodetsky (1884 - 1967), Osip Mandelstam (1891 - 1938), Anna Akhmatova, Georgy Adamovich (1892 - 1972) considered themselves among the Acmeists. The movement originated in the literary circle “Workshop of Poets” formed in 1912 (the name reflected the general desire for “craft”). The magazine "Hyperborea" became the tribune of the Acmeists, the editor of which was the poet-translator Mikhail Leonidovich Lozinsky (1886 - 1965). Acmeists also actively collaborated in the literary and artistic magazine "Apollo", which in 1909 - 1917. published in St. Petersburg by art historian and essayist Sergei Konstantinovich Makovsky (1877 - 1962).

Gorodetsky most definitely formulated the principles of Acmeism: “The struggle between Acmeism and symbolism, if it is a struggle and not the occupation of an abandoned fortress, is, first of all, a struggle for this world, sounding, colorful, having shapes, weight and time, for our planet Earth. Symbolism, in the end, having filled the world with “correspondences", turned it into a phantom, important only insofar as it shines through and shines through other worlds, and belittled its high intrinsic value. Among the Acmeists, the rose again became good in itself, with its petals, smell and color, and not their conceivable similarities with mystical love or something else" (Gorodetsky S. Some trends in modern Russian poetry - Apollo. 1913. No. 1).

The futurists declared themselves even more self-confident. “Only we are the face of our Time,” said the manifesto signed by David Burliuk, Alexey Kruchenykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Velimir Khlebnikov. “The horn of time blows for us in verbal art. The past is cramped. The Academy and Pushkin are more incomprehensible than hieroglyphs. Abandon Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. from the Steamship of Modernity. We order that the rights of poets be respected:

1. To increase the vocabulary in its volume with arbitrary and derivative words. (The word is innovation).

2. An insurmountable hatred of the language that existed before them.

3. With horror, remove from your proud brow the wreath of penny glory you made from the bath brooms.

4. Stand on the block of the word “we” among the sea, whistles and indignation.

5. And if the dirty stigmas of your “common sense” and “good taste” still remain in our lines, then for the first time the lightnings of the new future beauty of the self-valuable (self-sufficient) word are already trembling on them” (Quoted from: Ezhov I. S., Shamurin E.I. Anthology of Russian lyrics of the first quarter of the 20th century, P. XVIII).

The “purple hands” and “pale legs” that once shocked the public seemed like an innocent prank in front of the example of poetry that A. Kruchenykh offered:

Hole, bul, schyl,

This direction was called "Cubo-Futurism". The organizer of the Cubo-Futurist group was the poet and artist David Davidovich Burliuk (1882 - 1967).

In addition to “Cubo-Futurism”, there was “Ego-Futurism”, which was not so much known as a poetic school, but which gave one prominent representative - Igor Severyanin (real name Igor Vasilyevich Lotarev, 1887 - 1941). Severyanin was united with the Cubo-Futurists by his penchant for word creation, but unlike them, he was not so much a rebel as a singer of modern civilization:

Elegant stroller in electric beating,

Elastically rustled along the highway sand,

There are two virgin ladies in it, in fast-paced rapture,

In the scarlet oncoming aspiration - these are bees towards a petal...

The Northerner was a talented poet, but he often lacked taste and sense of proportion. Futuristic neologisms were quickly picked up by parodists:

Odulcinated by success

And aldonsed by the crowd,

Dressed in a fur coat with fur on top,

Laughs in your face with obvious laughter

Upgraded hero.

And with the frivolity of a woman

The crowd praises everything with a hundred lips,

What Kamensky will sanate her,

And Sergeev-Tsensky will be wise

And Sologub gave his advice.

– wrote critic and parodist A.A. Izmailov (Quoted from the ed.: Little things in life. Russian satire and humor of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries)

In addition to the Cubo-Futurists and Ego-Futurists, there were other futurist groups that united around the publishing houses they created: Mezzanine of Poetry (Konstantin Bolshakov, Rurik Ivnev, Boris Lavrenev, Vadim Shershenevich, etc.) and Centrifuge (Sergei Bobrov, Boris Pasternak, Nikolai Aseev, etc. .). These groups were less radical.

Processes parallel to literary ones are also observed in the fine arts, where in the early 1910s. Radical movements also emerged: Fauvism, Futurism, Cubism, Suprematism. Like futurist poets, avant-garde artists deny the experience of traditional art. The new direction recognized itself as being at the forefront of the development of art - the avant-garde. The most prominent representatives of the avant-garde were the founder of abstract art V. V. Kandinsky M. Z. Chagall, P. A. Filonov, K. S. Malevich and others. Avant-garde artists took part in the design of futurist books.

The search for new paths was also going on in music - it is associated with the names of S.V. Rachmaninov, A.N. Skryabina, S.S. Prokofieva, I.N. Stravinsky and a number of other composers, more or less famous. If Rachmaninov's work developed more in line with tradition, and Scriabin's music was close to symbolism, then Stravinsky's style can be compared with the avant-garde and futurism.

The formation of modernist theater is associated with the name of Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold (1874 - 1940). He began his acting and directing career with Stanislavsky, but quickly separated from him. In 1906, actress V.F. Komissarzhevskaya invited him to St. Petersburg as the chief director of her theater. In one season, Meyerhold staged 13 performances, including Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler,” L. Andreev’s “A Man’s Life,” and A. Blok’s “Showroom.” After leaving the Komissarzhevskaya Theater, in 1907 - 1917. Meyerhold worked in the St. Petersburg imperial theaters and participated in small studio, including amateur, home productions. In the book “On the Theater” (1913), Meyerhold theoretically substantiated the concept of “conventional theater”, opposed to stage naturalism.

Both in literature and in other forms of art, not all creative people were drawn into one direction or another; there were many “loners” who gravitated towards certain groups, but for some reason - ideological or purely personal - were not included in any into one of the groups or only partially in contact with them. So, of the poets who entered the literary field in the late 90s - early 90s. Konstantin Fofanov (1862 - 1911), Mirra Lokhvitskaya (1869 - 1905), Bunin (who made his debut as a poet) did not adhere to any of the movements; Innokenty Annensky, who was later ranked among the Symbolists, stood apart, during his lifetime better known as a philologist and teacher than as poet; in the 900s Maximilian Voloshin (1877 – 1932) and Mikhail Kuzmin (1875 – 1936) maintained relative independence from the Symbolists; Vladislav Khodasevich (1886 - 1939) collaborated with the Symbolists, but did not completely join them; he was close to the Acmeists, but Georgy Ivanov (1894 - 1958) was not an Acmeist; Marina Tsvetaeva was a completely independent figure. In the 1910s The poets who after the revolution were classified as “peasant” or “new peasant” began their journey: Nikolai Klyuev (1884 – 1937), Sergei Klychkov (1889 – 1937), Sergei Yesenin.

The cultural life of Russia was not limited to the capitals - each city had its own initiatives, although perhaps of a less wide scope. Literature, painting, architecture, music, theater - there is, perhaps, no area that during this period was not marked by something bright, original, and talented. “And the feast of all these arts went from home to editorial office,” Bunin recalled, “and at Yar in Moscow, and in the St. Petersburg Tower of Vyacheslav Ivanov, and in the Vienna restaurant, and in the basement of Stray Dog ″:

We are all hawkmoths here, harlots...

Blok wrote about this time (quite seriously):

″The rebellion of the purple worlds is subsiding. The violins that praised the ghost reveal their true nature. The purple twilight dissipates... And in the rarefied air there is the bitter smell of almonds... In the purple twilight of the vast world, a huge hearse rocks, and on it lies a dead doll with a face vaguely reminiscent of the one that showed through the hearts of heavenly roses... "(Bunin. Collected works. t 9. P. 298).

Despite the “flourishing complexity” and exceptional creative energy manifested in all types of creativity, contemporaries themselves felt a kind of moral wormhole in this blooming organism, therefore the tragic events of subsequent years were perceived by religiously minded people as deserved retribution.

The highest point of cultural flourishing at the beginning of the 20th century was 1913. The First World War began in 1914, followed by two revolutions in 1917 - and although cultural life did not freeze, the scope of endeavors began to be gradually restrained by a lack of funds, and then by the ideological dictates of the new authorities. But there is no clear boundary of the Silver Age, since many writers, artists, philosophers formed by this era continued their creative activity both under Soviet power in their homeland and in the Russian Abroad.