The tradition of the family novel in Western European literature at the beginning of the twentieth century (based on Thomas Mann's novel "Buddenbrooks"). Gilenson B.A.: History of foreign literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries

Problems of the novel - analysis of the fall and death of the Buddenbrook dynasty

The reasons that led to the fall and death of the “Buddenbrook dynasty” were not clear to the young novelist; he so inquisitively read the family chronicle of the essentially unremarkable family of Lübeck wholesalers wheat. Rye and oats. None of these reasons, taken separately, had such an obvious destructive force. Annoying losses, almost inevitable in a large trading business, were balanced by considerable profits. But for some time now, the capital of the old company “Johann Buddenbrook”, although it did not decrease, its increase was insignificant - in a frightening discrepancy with the rapidly increasing wealth of Messrs. Hagenström and similar rich “upstarts”. The trouble - that is, the increasing predominance of losses over profits - gradually developed from hundreds of small miscalculations and missed “happy opportunities” in hours of blues, physical and mental fatigue.

When little Hanno's great-grandfather and grandfather - Johann Buddenbrook Sr. and his son, Consul Johann Buddenbrook - "returned home for dinner angry and upset." The company "Strunk and Hagenström" intercepted a profitable supply of a large batch of rye to Holland... "What a fox, this Hinrich Hagenström! A dirty tricker the likes of which the world has never seen..."

Johann Buddenbrook insisted so much on the supposedly advantageous marriage of his daughter. And Toni reconciled herself: out of filial piety, she married an unloved man, gave up her dream of a “marriage for love” with the son of the old pilot, Morten Schwarzkopf, a medical student, a Göttingen freedom lover, an intelligent and rather handsome fellow. But such a marriage, in the opinion of her family and all the “ruling families” of the glorious city, would be an unacceptable misalliance... “This won’t last long, Tony! Time will take its course... Everything will be forgotten..." This is how her older brother, Thomas Buddenbrook, tried to console her. "But I just don’t want to forget! - Tony shouted in despair. “To forget... Is this really a consolation?” But soon the consul’s son-in-law, Mr. Bendix Grünlich, went bankrupt.

She didn’t forget, she didn’t forget even after two unsuccessful marriages and scandalous divorces with the rascal Grunlich and the good-natured, lazy man in the street Permaneder. Morten's words and reasonings were preserved in the memory of her ingenuous heart. Its "sit on the rocks"; his harsh comments about the insignificance of the German press; him: “You can eat honeycomb honey in peace, Fraulein Buddenbrook... Here, at least, you know what you are introducing into the body...”; even his scientific explanation of pulmonary edema: “With this disease, the pulmonary vesicles are filled with such a watery fluid... If the disease takes a bad turn, a person cannot breathe, and he dies...” - all this was not forgotten, from time to time it emerged from the bottomless depths of her early impressions, became a “leitmotif” in the novel, inextricably linked with the image of Tony Buddenbrook, or rather: with the tragic layer of her subconscious, which her infantile mind had no idea about.

If we talk about the damage caused to the Johann Buddenbrook company by the bankruptcy of Bendix Grünlich. It was not so great, this damage... Consul Buddenbrook did not rescue his scoundrel son-in-law from trouble. He easily managed to get his daughter’s consent to divorce “this Grünlich,” who turned out to be a lowly deceiver, and now “and bankrupt for everything”: “Oh, dad, if you take me and Erica home... with joy!” "It was enough for you to go bankrupt! Enough! Never!"

When, following Johann Buddenbrook the elder, the younger bearer of this name also left the earth, Thomas Buddenbrook became the head of the company; and immediately in the old trading house“there was a breath of fresh spirit” of bolder enterprise. Thanks to his confident social manners, his endearing courtesy and tact, the new boss managed to conclude more than one grazing deal; under Consul Johann, such brilliant successes associated with risk were not noticed... But even then, at the dawn of his activity, something depressed Thomas Buddenbrook: he often complained to Stefan Kistenmaker, his constant friend and admirer, that “the personal interference of a businessman in “all things, alas, are going out of fashion”, that “in our time” courses are learned more and more quickly, due to which the risk is reduced, and thereby the young ladies are reduced.

The personal charm of Thomas Buddenbrook, his ability to “direct the course of events - with his eyes, in words, with a kind gesture,” reaped considerable benefits, but not so much in the commercial field as in the civil and secular field. He married a brilliant and intelligent woman, the daughter of a millionaire Gerda Arnoldsen, married “for love”, but also for a “very large dowry”; in addition, she played the violin excellently, as did her father, “a large businessman and, perhaps, an even greater violinist.” Thomas Buddenbrook's successes were also brilliant as a public figure, one might even say statesman- of course, only on the small scale of the Hanseatic city-republic. He, and not Hermann Hagenström (son of old Hinrich), was elected senator; Moreover, he became " right hand"The ruling burgomaster.

But all these successes were also reverse side. Thomas Buddenbrook's painful need for constant "invigoration" of his easily exhausted strength (he changed clothes three times a day, and this "renewal" acted on him like morphine on a drug addict) this time led to the unreasonable idea of erecting new house, which eclipsed the venerable family nest on Mengstrasse with the luxury of modern comfort - an undertaking that fully corresponded to the high rank of the senator, but not to the modest results of his commercial activities.

This expensive “renovation” undermined the well-being of the old company, but from that time on one blow of fate followed another: then an unexpected hail destroyed the wheat bought on the stump by Thomas Buddenbrook; then the old consul, without the knowledge of Thomas, met the dying request of her youngest daughter and bequeathed “Clara’s inherited share” to her husband, Pastor Tiburtius; Then Tony's son-in-law, one of the directors of the insurance company, Hugo Weinschenk, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for serious misconduct.

Thomas Buddenbrook and the “will to success” he had lost, he was still a “happy exception,” the pride of the family, while about his Christian brother, the old man Johann Buddenbrook Sr. once said: “He’s a monkey! Maybe he should become a poet?!” on his deathbed he addressed him with an urgent appeal: “Try to become a man!”

Christian Buddenbrook never became a “man” suitable for any activity, nor, nevertheless, a “poet”, but he remained a “monkey”, a virtuoso imitator and mockingbird. Members of the merchant club died laughing when he reproduced voices and brilliant habits with incomparable comedy famous artists and musicians, as well as the famous Berlin lawyer Breslauer, who brilliantly but unsuccessfully acted as a defense attorney at the trial of Hugo Weinschenck, who was somehow involved in the Buddenbrook family... The fate of Christian Buddenbrook ended in tears: constant delving into his own physical and mental flaws completely undermined him nervous system, and this gave reason to the Hamburg cocotte (whom Christian married and adopted her “combined” offspring) to imprison her husband in a psychiatric hospital, although for health reasons he could have lived at home.

Due to capricious biological processes, the last Buddenbrook, little Hanno, inherited from his mother her “obsession with music”; His flawed vitality was no longer enough to become, like grandfather Arnoldsen, a major businessman and, perhaps, an even bigger musician. And Hanno was the only heir of Senator Buddenbrook: after the first difficult birth, Gerda Buddenbrook, on the advice of doctors, refused to bear children. Here the notorious “law of degeneration,” which was discussed so much at the turn of the last and present centuries, operated with convincing clarity.

The novel, which tells about the death of one family, spoke about the collapse of patriarchal burgher respectability, about the inhumanity of the reigning imperialism, about a deep crisis and a change of eras. Each new generation of this family is less and less able to continue the work of their fathers due to the lack of their inherent burgher qualities, such as thrift, diligence and commitment, and moves further and further away from real world into religion, philosophy, music, vices, luxury and debauchery. The result of this is not only a gradual loss of interest in commerce and the prestige of the Buddenbrook family, but also a loss of not only the meaning of life, but also the will to live, turning into absurd and tragic deaths last representatives of this kind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This work consists of 3 chapters. Chapter 1 examined the time and place of writing the work of T. Mann. Chapter 2 examines the historical events that took place in Germany during the creation of Buddenbrooks by T. Mann. Chapter 3 reveals the realistic elements present in the work, in particular, the place where the action takes place, the family, as part of the real world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Buddenbrooks” by T. Mann is written in the manner of a broad, leisurely narrative, with the mention of many details, with a detailed depiction of individual episodes, with many dialogues and internal monologues.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Realistic elements in Buddenbrooks T. Manna

Family and main characters of the novel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setting of the novel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Features of the novel "Loyal Subject". The image of Diederich Goesling in the work. Development of the protagonist's personality. Gesling's attitude to power and its representatives. Comic in the novel. "Loyal Subject" is an excellent example of a social-satirical novel.

abstract, added 02/23/2010

The history of writing the novel "Crime and Punishment". The main characters of Dostoevsky's work: a description of their appearance, inner world, character traits and place in the novel. Story line novel, main philosophical, moral and ethical problems.

abstract, added 05/31/2009

Romani and short stories by the great German writer Thomas Mann. The lack of sociality of Mann's works reveals cultural, historical and psychological problems in them. Burgherhood is the main theme of the writer’s creativity. Analysis of the novel "Mario and the Enchanter".

abstract, added 01/16/2010

“Royal Highness” is a novel-autobiography, by Thomas Mann, depicting situations similar to his real life: life with his brother, fathers, and bride. The problems of life and spirit are revealed by the conflict between specialism and bourgeois marriage.

course work, added 05/19/2009

Brief retelling Jerome D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye. The image of the main character, his character and place in the novel. Features of the translation of the work. Transmission of slang in the translation of a work. Editorial analysis in accordance with GOST 7.60-2003.

course work, added 08/31/2014

History and main stages of writing Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”, the main political and social reasons for rejection of this work. The structure of the novel and its main parts, the idea and meaning, the fate of the hero in the wars he went through.

presentation, added 01/25/2012

Features of the study epic work. Methods and techniques for studying epic works of large form. Methodology for studying the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita". Two points of view on the methodology of teaching the novel.

course work, added 12/28/2006

Characteristics of Bulgakov's novel " White Guard", the role of art and literature. The theme of honor as the basis of the work. A fragment from the revelation of I. Theologian as a kind of timeless point of view on the events occurring in the novel. Features of the novel "War and Peace."

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

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

What is the novel "Buddenbrooks" about?

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

Buddenbrook House Museum in Lübeck

Inside the Buddenbrow House Museum in Lübeck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

On November 8, as part of the module “Stockholm Syndrome”, Professor gave a report on Thomas Mann and his Nobel novel Dirk Kemper, Head of the Department of Germanic Philology at the Institute of Philology and History of the Russian State University for the Humanities. In his speech, he examined the novel “Buddenbrooks” from various angles.

Nobel Prize

Thomas Mann was proud of his works and appreciated the response - both from readers and in the press; The Nobel Prize for him, as for almost all writer laureates, is the pinnacle literary career. However, the wording in the diploma confused and even angered him: the prize was awarded for the novel “Buddenbrooks.”
The writer's wife Katya Mann, perhaps the only member of the family who did not study literary creativity and who left no memoirs, explained this reaction in a single late interview (titled “My Unwritten Memories”): Thomas Mann by 1929 was already known as the author of the novel “The Magic Mountain”; he himself found this novel much better than the early “Buddenbrooks”. However, in Nobel Committee There was a Germanist, Böck, who did not like the new novel: he considered “The Magic Mountain” a book difficult to translate, too German (“zu Deutsch”) and generally incomprehensible for readers from other countries. Mann objected: how can it be impossible to translate a novel if numerous translations already exist! Katja Mann says that Böck's reaction is stupid, since Buddenbrooks, published in 1901, could not have been the reason for receiving the prize in 1929.
Many authors find themselves in a similar position: this fate did not escape Goethe, who for a long time was associated among his contemporaries with “The Sorrows.” young Werther" Thomas Mann was outraged that his name was associated with early novel, when he became a different person, began to write better and completely changed.

Creation of a novel

In 1897-1898 Thomas Mann and his brother Heinrich lived in Italy. The conception of the novel dates back to this time: Thomas draws up a plan and draws family tree the Buddenbrook family. In the city of Palestrina, the brothers created something like a literary bureau: they wrote dozens of letters to loved ones and distant relatives, asking them about their family history. The story of the Manns was to form the basis of a novel about Buddenbrooks. With the response letters, they also received a “family bible” - a large leather folder with documents: there were certificates of marriages, births, deaths, invitations to important receptions and housewarmings, papers on lucrative deals. Year after year is a real chronicle: this is how the novel is organized.
TO Italian period There is one more episode - a curious touch to the appearance of Thomas Mann, whom we are accustomed to seeing as serious, well-mannered, and reserved. In Italy, young people not only worked, but also had fun - they created the illustrated “Diary of an Obedient Child” (“Diary good boy"), they drew cartoons and fooled around in every possible way.

Family chronicle

An appeal to the “family bible,” a thick notebook in a leather pad (the prototype was the materials of the Mann family) is one of the key leitmotifs of the novel. There are two episodes in the novel where the technique is based on the understanding of a family chronicle as a book of destinies.
First example: Toni, divorced for the second time, records the divorce in her own hand.

And when the divorce decision had already been made by the court, she suddenly asked with an important face:
-Have you already put this in the family notebook, father? No? Oh, then I’ll do it myself... Please give me the keys to the secretary.
And it is under the lines written by her four years ago with my own hand, proudly and diligently wrote: “This marriage was dissolved in February 1850,” then she put down her pen and thought for a minute.

This already shows the beginning of the destruction of tradition: all records, according to custom, were made only by the eldest member of the family. When Tony herself takes the keys and writes in the book, for Thomas Mann this is a sign of the beginning of decay. The father has already lost supreme power over the family chronicle.
The second episode emphasizes the idea of decline even more clearly. The representative of the latest generation, Hanno, is not at all interested in the family enterprise; his father cannot involve him in practical activities. But one day he intervenes family history:

Hanno blithely slid off the ottoman and headed towards the desk. The notebook was opened to the very page where, in the handwriting of his ancestors, and finally in the hand of his father, the family tree of the Buddenbrooks was drawn with all the appropriate headings, brackets and clearly marked dates. Standing with one knee on the chair and resting his brown curly head on his palm, Hanno looked at the manuscript somehow from the side, with an unconsciously critical and slightly contemptuous seriousness of complete indifference, while his free hand played with his mother’s hand made of ebony set in gold. He ran his eyes over all these men and female names, displayed one under the other or next to each other. Many of them were drawn in an intricate, old-fashioned way, with sweeping strokes, faded or, on the contrary, thick black ink, to which grains of fine golden sand stuck. At the end he read what was written in his father’s small, hasty handwriting under the names of Thomas and Gerda. given name: “Justus-Johann-Caspar, b. April 15, 1861." This amused him. He straightened up, with a casual movement picked up a ruler and a pen, placed the ruler just below his name, once again looked at all this genealogical intricacy and calmly, without thinking about anything, almost mechanically, carefully drew a double line across the entire page, making the top line is somewhat thicker than the bottom, as expected in arithmetic notebooks. Then he cocked his head to the side and looked at his work with a searching gaze.
After lunch, the senator called him to his place and, frowning his eyebrows, shouted:
- What it is? Where did this come from? Did you do this?
For a moment, Ganno even thought - is it him or not him? - but immediately answered timidly, fearfully:
- Yes!
- What does it mean? Why did you do that? Answer! How dare you allow yourself such outrage? - and the senator hit Ganno in the face with a rolled-up notebook.
Little Johann recoiled and, clutching his cheek with his hand, muttered:
- I thought... I thought that nothing would happen next...
(The quote is translated by Natalia Man)

Decadence

Decline is the central problem of the novel, and in connection with the change of generations of Buddenbrooks, we can talk about the typology of decline in the novel.
The eldest in the family, Johann Buddenbrook, is a type of naive person who lives and acts without much reflection. Jean is already thinking about expanding the family enterprise, about the meaning of the business. Faith becomes his support, and he perceives the success of a business as a mission, a task from above.
The next one, Thomas, is sentimental; he would like to live like his elders, but he cannot. As the most successful representative of the family, the city senator, he needs to draw strength from somewhere for this role - and the source becomes his passion for theatricalizing what is happening. My own life he's staging. The author constantly describes how he stands in front of the mirror, changes clothes three times a day, and builds his appearance.
Finally, young Hanno is lethargic, weak, he lacks the energy to participate in family matters(although little is expected of him), not even to study at school, where he is the last student. All my little vitality he only invests in music; music lessons- his only contact with the outside world, but in this he is truly gifted.
You can see how physical health decreases, there is less and less of it in each generation, but this is compensated by an increase in creative powers. Thomas Mann got this common idea from Nietzsche. In the novel it unfolds in time.

Leitmotifs

“It seems that in world literature there is no writer equal to L. Tolstoy in his depiction human body through the word. Abusing repetitions, and even then quite rarely, since for the most part he achieves with them what he needs, he never suffers from such common ones in others, even strong and experienced craftsmen, long lengths, heaps of various complex bodily signs when describing the appearance of the characters; it is precise, simple and possibly brief, choosing only a few small, unnoticed, personal, special features and bringing them not all at once, but gradually, one after another, distributing them throughout the flow of the story, weaving them into the movement of events, into the living fabric of action.” , writes D. S. Merezhkovsky about L. N. Tolstoy. His essay “L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky" was published precisely in 1900-1902. , when Buddenbrooks came out. These words, however, can also be applied to Thomas Mann.
In an interview, Mann said that he inherited the technique of leitmotifs from Wagner, but he probably should have also mentioned Tolstoy, whose works he turned to while working on the novel. This was especially evident in the details. One of the leitmotifs is the teeth of the heroes: everyone has next generation more and more dental problems (Thomas Buddenbrook dies precisely because of dental disease).
Descriptions of hands also lend themselves to typification: if the representatives of the older generation have strong, white hands, with short fingers, then the younger ones have thin and reddish hands, and the fingers are long enough to play an octave on the piano.
Merezhkovsky pays considerable attention to the hands of Tolstoy's heroes in his work; but due to the simultaneous publication, it is impossible to talk about the influence of his ideas on Mann.
In general, the structure of leitmotifs in the novel is fertile material, a pleasant topic for student work and all kinds of educational essays.

Anti-Semitism?

That's right - with a question mark. The angle is unexpected; no manifestations of anti-Semitism are visible in the novel. However, sometimes the description of the Hagenström family is classified as anti-Semitic. If the Buddenbrooks are guided by Protestant ethics, their actions are transparent and simple, then the Hagenstroms play on the stock exchange and are not so respectable. But on the whole it is more correct to evaluate it as an image of two different worlds― patriarchal, unshakable and bourgeois, a reflection of new economic trends.
The reason for the search for anti-Semitism in the text lies in the circumstances of Mann's youth, when he was published in the magazine "Twentieth Century": although his articles were critical responses to literary works, the very magazine in which they were published is extremely nationalistic and anti-Semitic. Heinrich Mann was its publisher and published his articles there, which openly adhered to a similar bias. Thomas's articles (eight of them were published) were not anti-Semitic, but were quite nationalistic, and the main idea of German nationalism of those years was the need to win back space for life from Russian Empire. Thomas Mann fully adhered to this right-wing mainstream in his youth.
However, both brothers later deleted the Twentieth Century articles from their bibliographies and never discussed them with each other or with anyone else. A Germanist discovered these articles by Thomas Mann eight years after his death, and a debate broke out.

Modern literature?

The structure of the novel “Buddenbrooks” is absolutely traditional - there were many similar chronicle novels in the nineteenth century, this genre is well developed. The narrator, the all-knowing author, is by no means a new invention; almost everything in the technique and manner of writing of Thomas Mann is familiar to the reader. Also, the work cannot be attributed either to the avant-garde, or to symbolism or any other current movement.
Contemporary novel made two ideas - firstly, the idea of decline, decadence, which flourished magnificently at the turn of the century, and secondly, the idea of contrasting the bourgeoisie and artists, gleaned from the philosophy of Nietzsche and relevant for the art of the transitional era.

Self-promotion

On November 26, 1901, Thomas Mann writes a letter to his schoolmate Otto Grautoff with a request to review his novel, to write about the truly German spirit reflected in two topics - philosophy and music. In December of the same year, a friend's reviews were published, reproducing the instructions almost verbatim.

Film adaptations

The last point of the report was German film productions of the novel “Buddenbrooks”. There were three of them: in 1959 they filmed the first volume, in 1979 they shot an eight-episode television film, trying to reproduce the content of the novel one to one, transferring the text in its entirety; finally, the film was shot in 2008 - the costumes and props in it were at their best, but meaningful it's a dummy. However, others in artistically Unfortunately, they don’t represent much, so all that remains is to turn to the original source.

Margarita Golubeva