N.M. Karamzin - journalist, writer, historian "Moscow Magazine" "Moscow Magazine" "Letters of a Russian Traveler" "Letters of a Russian Traveler" "Natalia, the Boyar's Daughter" "Natalya, the Boyar's Daughter" "Poor Lisa" "Poor Lisa" " History of the Russian State" "History of the Russian State" N.M. Karamzin. Hood. A.G. Venetsianov. 1828
Sentimentalism An artistic movement (current) in art and literature of the late 18th – early 19th centuries. An artistic movement (current) in art and literature of the late 18th – early 19th centuries. Direction From English. SENTIMENTAL - sensitive. From English SENTIMENTAL - sensitive. “An elegant image of the basic and everyday” (P.A. Vyazemsky.) “An elegant image of the basic and everyday” (P. A. Vyazemsky.)
“Poor Lisa” What is this work about? What is this work about? From whom is the story told? From whom is the story told? How did you see the main characters? How does the author feel about them? How did you see the main characters? How does the author feel about them? Is Karamzin's story similar to the works of classicism? Is Karamzin's story similar to the works of classicism? O. Kiprensky. Poor Lisa.
Classicism Classicism Line of comparison Sentimentalism Sentimentalism Raising a person in the spirit of loyalty to the state, the cult of reason Main idea The desire to represent the human personality in the movements of the soul Civil, social Main theme Love Strict division into positive and negative, one-linearity Heroes and characters Refusal of straightforwardness in assessing characters, attention to ordinary people Auxiliary, conditional Role of landscape Means of psychological characterization of heroes Tragedy, ode, epic; comedy, fable, satire Main genres Tale, journey, novel in letters, diary, elegy, message, idyll
Homework 1. Textbook, pp Write down answers to the questions: Why did Karamzin’s story become a discovery for his contemporaries? Why did Karamzin's story become a discovery for his contemporaries? What tradition of Russian literature began with Karamzin? What tradition of Russian literature began with Karamzin?
December 12, 1766 (family estate Znamenskoye, Simbirsk district, Kazan province (according to other sources - the village of Mikhailovka (now Preobrazhenka), Buzuluk district, Kazan province) - June 03, 1826 (St. Petersburg, Russian Empire)
On December 12 (December 1, Old Style), 1766, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was born - Russian writer, poet, editor of the Moscow Journal (1791-1792) and the journal Vestnik Evropy (1802-1803), honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences ( 1818), full member of the Imperial Russian Academy, historian, first and only court historiographer, one of the first reformers of the Russian literary language, founding father of Russian historiography and Russian sentimentalism.
Contribution of N.M. It is difficult to overestimate Karamzin's contribution to Russian culture. Remembering everything that this man managed to do in the short 59 years of his earthly existence, it is impossible to ignore the fact that it was Karamzin who largely determined the face of the Russian 19th century - the “golden” age of Russian poetry, literature, historiography, source studies and other humanitarian areas scientific knowledge. Thanks to linguistic research aimed at popularizing the literary language of poetry and prose, Karamzin gave Russian literature to his contemporaries. And if Pushkin is “our everything,” then Karamzin can safely be called “our Everything” with a capital letter. Without him, Vyazemsky, Pushkin, Baratynsky, Batyushkov and other poets of the so-called “Pushkin galaxy” would hardly have been possible.
“No matter what you turn to in our literature, everything began with Karamzin: journalism, criticism, stories, novels, historical stories, journalism, the study of history,” V.G. rightly noted later. Belinsky.
“History of the Russian State” N.M. Karamzin became not just the first Russian-language book on the history of Russia, accessible to a wide reader. Karamzin gave the Russian people the Fatherland in the full sense of the word. They say that, having closed the eighth and final volume, Count Fyodor Tolstoy, nicknamed the American, exclaimed: “It turns out that I have a Fatherland!” And he wasn't alone. All his contemporaries suddenly learned that they lived in a country with a thousand-year history and had something to be proud of. Before this, it was believed that before Peter I, who opened a “window to Europe,” there was nothing in Russia even remotely worthy of attention: the dark ages of backwardness and barbarism, boyar autocracy, primordially Russian laziness and bears in the streets...
Karamzin’s multi-volume work was not completed, but, having been published in the first quarter of the 19th century, it completely determined the historical identity of the nation for many years to come. All subsequent historiography was never able to generate anything more consistent with the “imperial” self-awareness that developed under the influence of Karamzin. Karamzin’s views left a deep, indelible mark in all areas of Russian culture in the 19th and 20th centuries, forming the foundations of the national mentality, which ultimately determined the path of development of Russian society and the state as a whole.
It is significant that in the 20th century, the edifice of Russian great power, which had collapsed under the attacks of revolutionary internationalists, was revived again by the 1930s - under different slogans, with different leaders, in a different ideological package. but... The very approach to the historiography of Russian history, both before 1917 and after, largely remained jingoistic and sentimental in Karamzin style.
N.M. Karamzin - early years
N.M. Karamzin was born on December 12 (1st century), 1766 in the village of Mikhailovka, Buzuluk district, Kazan province (according to other sources, in the family estate of Znamenskoye, Simbirsk district, Kazan province). Little is known about his early years: there are no letters, diaries, or memories of Karamzin himself about his childhood. He did not even know exactly his year of birth and almost all his life he believed that he was born in 1765. Only in his old age, having discovered the documents, did he become “younger” by one year.
The future historiographer grew up on the estate of his father, retired captain Mikhail Egorovich Karamzin (1724-1783), an average Simbirsk nobleman. Received a good home education. In 1778 he was sent to Moscow to the boarding school of Moscow University professor I.M. Shadena. At the same time, he attended lectures at the university in 1781-1782.
After graduating from the boarding school, in 1783 Karamzin entered service in the Preobrazhensky Regiment in St. Petersburg, where he met the young poet and future employee of his “Moscow Journal” Dmitriev. At the same time he published his first translation of S. Gesner’s idyll “The Wooden Leg”.
In 1784, Karamzin retired as a lieutenant and never served again, which was perceived in the society of that time as a challenge. After a short stay in Simbirsk, where he joined the Golden Crown Masonic lodge, Karamzin moved to Moscow and was introduced into the circle of N. I. Novikov. He settled in a house that belonged to the Novikov Friendly Scientific Society, became the author and one of the publishers of the first children's magazine " Children's reading for the heart and mind" (1787-1789), founded by Novikov. At the same time, Karamzin became close to the Pleshcheev family. For many years he had a tender platonic friendship with N.I. Pleshcheeva. In Moscow, Karamzin published his first translations, in which his interest in European and Russian history is clearly visible: Thomson’s “The Seasons,” Zhanlis’s “Country Evenings,” W. Shakespeare’s tragedy “Julius Caesar,” Lessing’s tragedy “Emilia Galotti.”
In 1789, Karamzin’s first original story, “Eugene and Yulia,” appeared in the magazine “Children’s Reading...”. The reader practically did not notice it.
Travel to Europe
According to many biographers, Karamzin was not inclined towards the mystical side of Freemasonry, remaining a supporter of its active and educational direction. To be more precise, by the end of the 1780s, Karamzin had already “become ill” with Masonic mysticism in its Russian version. Perhaps the cooling towards Freemasonry was one of the reasons for his departure to Europe, where he spent more than a year (1789-90), visiting Germany, Switzerland, France and England. In Europe, he met and talked (except for influential Freemasons) with European “masters of minds”: I. Kant, I. G. Herder, C. Bonnet, I. K. Lavater, J. F. Marmontel, visited museums, theaters, secular salons. In Paris, Karamzin listened to O. G. Mirabeau, M. Robespierre and other revolutionaries at the National Assembly, saw many outstanding political figures and was familiar with many. Apparently, revolutionary Paris in 1789 showed Karamzin how powerfully a word can influence a person: in print, when Parisians read pamphlets and leaflets with keen interest; oral, when revolutionary speakers spoke and controversy arose (an experience that could not be acquired in Russia at that time).
Karamzin did not have a very enthusiastic opinion about English parliamentarism (perhaps following in the footsteps of Rousseau), but he very highly valued the level of civilization at which English society as a whole was located.
Karamzin – journalist, publisher
In the autumn of 1790, Karamzin returned to Moscow and soon organized the publication of the monthly “Moscow Journal” (1790-1792), in which most of the “Letters of a Russian Traveler” telling about revolutionary events in France, the stories “Liodor”, “Poor Liza”, “Natalia, the Boyar’s Daughter”, “Flor Silin”, essays, stories, critical articles and poems. Karamzin attracted the entire literary elite of that time to collaborate in the magazine: his friends Dmitriev and Petrov, Kheraskov and Derzhavin, Lvov, Neledinsky-Meletsky and others. Karamzin’s articles asserted a new literary direction- sentimentalism.
The Moscow Journal had only 210 regular subscribers, but for the end of the 18th century, this is the same as a hundred thousand circulation at the end of the 19th century. Moreover, the magazine was read by precisely those who “made the difference” in the literary life of the country: students, officials, young officers, minor employees of various government agencies (“archive youths”).
After Novikov’s arrest, the authorities became seriously interested in the publisher of the Moscow Journal. During interrogations in the Secret Expedition, they ask: was it Novikov who sent the “Russian traveler” abroad on a “special mission”? The Novikovites were people of high integrity and, of course, Karamzin was shielded, but because of these suspicions the magazine had to be stopped.
In the 1790s, Karamzin published the first Russian almanacs - “Aglaya” (1794 -1795) and “Aonids” (1796 -1799). In 1793, when the Jacobin dictatorship was established at the third stage of the French Revolution, which shocked Karamzin with its cruelty, Nikolai Mikhailovich abandoned some of his previous views. The dictatorship aroused in him serious doubts about the possibility of humanity to achieve prosperity. He sharply condemned the revolution and all violent methods of transforming society. The philosophy of despair and fatalism permeates his new works: the story “The Island of Bornholm” (1793); "Sierra Morena" (1795); poems “Melancholy”, “Message to A. A. Pleshcheev”, etc.
During this period, real literary fame came to Karamzin.
Fedor Glinka: “Out of 1,200 cadets, it was rare that he did not repeat by heart some page from The Island of Bornholm.”.
The name Erast, previously completely unpopular, is increasingly found in lists of nobility. There are rumors of successful and unsuccessful suicides in the spirit of Poor Lisa. The poisonous memoirist Vigel recalls that important Moscow nobles had already begun to make do with “almost like an equal with a thirty-year-old retired lieutenant”.
In July 1794, Karamzin’s life almost ended: on the way to the estate, in the steppe wilderness, he was attacked by robbers. Karamzin miraculously escaped, receiving two minor wounds.
In 1801, he married Elizaveta Protasova, a neighbor on the estate, whom he had known since childhood - at the time of the wedding they had known each other for almost 13 years.
Reformer of the Russian literary language
Already in the early 1790s, Karamzin was seriously thinking about the present and future of Russian literature. He writes to a friend: “I am deprived of the pleasure of reading much on native language. We are still poor in writers. We have several poets who deserve to be read.” Of course, there were and are Russian writers: Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Fonvizin, Derzhavin, but there are no more than a dozen significant names. Karamzin is one of the first to understand that it is not a matter of talent - there are no less talents in Russia than in any other country. It’s just that Russian literature cannot move away from the long-outdated traditions of classicism, founded in the middle of the 18th century by the only theorist M.V. Lomonosov.
The reform of the literary language carried out by Lomonosov, as well as the theory of the “three calms” he created, met the tasks of the transition period from ancient to new literature. A complete rejection of the use of familiar Church Slavonicisms in the language was then still premature and inappropriate. But the evolution of the language, which began under Catherine II, actively continued. The “Three Calms” proposed by Lomonosov were based not on lively colloquial speech, but on the witty thought of a theoretical writer. And this theory often put the authors in a difficult position: they had to use heavy, outdated Slavic expressions where in the spoken language they had long been replaced by others, softer and more elegant. The reader sometimes could not “cut through” the piles of outdated Slavicisms used in church books and records in order to understand the essence of this or that secular work.
Karamzin decided to bring the literary language closer to the spoken one. Therefore, one of his main goals was the further liberation of literature from Church Slavonicisms. In the preface to the second book of the almanac “Aonida,” he wrote: “The thunder of words alone only deafens us and never reaches our hearts.”
The second feature of Karamzin’s “new syllable” was the simplification of syntactic structures. The writer abandoned lengthy periods. In "Pantheon" Russian writers“He decisively declared: “Lomonosov’s prose cannot serve as a model for us at all: his long periods are tiring, the arrangement of words is not always consistent with the flow of thoughts.”
Unlike Lomonosov, Karamzin strove to write in short, easily understandable sentences. This is still a model of good style and an example to follow in literature.
Karamzin’s third merit was the enrichment of the Russian language with a number of successful neologisms, which became firmly established in the main vocabulary. Among the innovations proposed by Karamzin are such widely known words in our time as “industry”, “development”, “sophistication”, “concentrate”, “touching”, “entertainment”, “humanity”, “public”, “ generally useful”, “influence” and a number of others.
When creating neologisms, Karamzin used mainly the method of tracing French words: “interesting” from “interessant”, “refined” from “raffine”, “development” from “developpement”, “touching” from “touchant”.
We know that even in the era of Peter the Great, many foreign words appeared in the Russian language, but they mostly replaced words that already existed in the Slavic language and were not a necessity. In addition, these words were often taken in their raw form, so they were very heavy and clumsy (“fortecia” instead of “fortress”, “victory” instead of “victory”, etc.). Karamzin, on the contrary, tried to give foreign words Russian ending, adapting them to the requirements of Russian grammar: “serious”, “moral”, “aesthetic”, “audience”, “harmony”, “enthusiasm”, etc.
In his reform activities, Karamzin focused on the lively spoken language of educated people. And this was the key to the success of his work - he writes not scientific treatises, but travel notes(“Letters of a Russian Traveler”), sentimental stories (“Bornholm Island”, “Poor Lisa”), poems, articles, translated from French, English and German.
"Arzamas" and "Conversation"
It is not surprising that most of the young writers contemporary to Karamzin accepted his transformations with a bang and willingly followed him. But, like any reformer, Karamzin had staunch opponents and worthy opponents.
A.S. stood at the head of Karamzin’s ideological opponents. Shishkov (1774-1841) – admiral, patriot, famous statesman of that time. An Old Believer, an admirer of Lomonosov's language, Shishkov, at first glance, was a classicist. But this point of view requires significant qualifications. In contrast to Karamzin's Europeanism, Shishkov put forward the idea of nationality in literature - the most important sign of a romantic worldview that was far from classicism. It turns out that Shishkov also joined for romantics, but not of a progressive, but of a conservative direction. His views can be recognized as a kind of forerunner of later Slavophilism and Pochvenism.
In 1803, Shishkov spoke with “Discourse on the old and new syllable Russian language" He reproached the “Karamzinists” for succumbing to the temptation of European revolutionary false teachings and advocated for the return of literature to the oral folk art, to popular vernacular, to Orthodox Church Slavonic literature.
Shishkov was not a philologist. He dealt with the problems of literature and the Russian language, rather, as an amateur, so Admiral Shishkov’s attacks on Karamzin and his literary supporters sometimes looked not so much scientifically substantiated as unsubstantiated ideological. Karamzin’s language reform seemed to Shishkov, a warrior and defender of the Fatherland, unpatriotic and anti-religious: “Language is the soul of the people, the mirror of morals, a true indicator of enlightenment, an incessant witness of deeds. Where there is no faith in the hearts, there is no piety in the language. Where there is no love for the fatherland, there the language does not express domestic feelings.”.
Shishkov reproached Karamzin for the excessive use of barbarisms (“epoch”, “harmony”, “catastrophe”), he was disgusted by neologisms (“coup” as a translation of the word “revolution”), artificial words hurt his ear: “future”, “well-read” and etc.
And we must admit that sometimes his criticism was pointed and accurate.
The evasiveness and aesthetic affectation of the speech of the “Karamzinists” very soon became outdated and fell out of literary use. This is precisely the future that Shishkov predicted for them, believing that instead of the expression “when travel became a need of my soul,” one could simply say: “when I fell in love with traveling”; the refined and periphrased speech “motley crowds of rural oreads meet with dark bands of reptile pharaohs” can be replaced with the understandable expression “gypsies come to meet the village girls”, etc.
Shishkov and his supporters took the first steps in studying the monuments of ancient Russian writing, enthusiastically studied “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” studied folklore, advocated the rapprochement of Russia with the Slavic world and recognized the need to bring the “Slovenian” style closer to the common language.
In a dispute with the translator Karamzin, Shishkov put forward a compelling argument about the “idiomatic nature” of each language, about the unique originality of its phraseological systems, which make it impossible to literally translate a thought or true semantic meaning from one language to another. For example, when translated literally into French, the expression “old horseradish” loses its figurative meaning and “means only the thing itself, but in the metaphysical sense it has no circle of signification.”
In defiance of Karamzin, Shishkov proposed his own reform of the Russian language. He proposed to designate concepts and feelings missing in our everyday life with new words formed from the roots not of French, but of Russian and Old Church Slavonic. Instead of Karamzin’s “influence” he suggested “influx”, instead of “development” - “vegetation”, instead of “actor” - “actor”, instead of “individuality” - “intelligence”, “wet feet” instead of “galoshes” and “wandering” instead "labyrinth". Most of his innovations did not take root in the Russian language.
It is impossible not to recognize Shishkov’s ardent love for the Russian language; One cannot help but admit that the passion for everything foreign, especially French, has gone too far in Russia. Ultimately, this led to the fact that the language of the common people, the peasant, became very different from the language of the cultural classes. But we cannot ignore the fact that the natural process of the language evolution that had begun could not be stopped. It was impossible to forcefully return into use the already outdated expressions that Shishkov proposed at that time: “zane”, “ugly”, “like”, “yako” and others.
Karamzin did not even respond to the accusations of Shishkov and his supporters, knowing firmly that they were guided exclusively by pious and patriotic feelings. Subsequently, Karamzin himself and his most talented supporters (Vyazemsky, Pushkin, Batyushkov) followed the very valuable instructions of the “Shishkovites” on the need to “return to their roots” and examples of their own history. But then they could not understand each other.
The pathos and ardent patriotism of A.S.’s articles. Shishkova evoked a sympathetic attitude among many writers. And when Shishkov, together with G. R. Derzhavin, founded the literary society “Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word” (1811) with a charter and its own magazine, P. A. Katenin, I. A. Krylov, and later V. K immediately joined this society Kuchelbecker and A. S. Griboyedov. One of the active participants in the "Conversation...", the prolific playwright A. A. Shakhovskoy, in the comedy "New Stern" viciously ridiculed Karamzin, and in the comedy "A Lesson for Coquettes, or Lipetsk Waters" in the person of the "balladeer" Fialkin created a parody image of V. A Zhukovsky.
This caused a unanimous rebuff from young people who supported Karamzin’s literary authority. D. V. Dashkov, P. A. Vyazemsky, D. N. Bludov composed several witty pamphlets addressed to Shakhovsky and other members of the “Conversation...”. In “Vision in the Arzamas Tavern” Bludov gave the circle of young defenders of Karamzin and Zhukovsky the name “Society of Unknown Arzamas Writers” or simply “Arzamas”.
The organizational structure of this society, founded in the fall of 1815, was dominated by a cheerful spirit of parody of the serious “Conversation...”. In contrast to the official pomposity, simplicity, naturalness, and openness prevailed here; a large place was given to jokes and games.
Parodying the official ritual of the “Conversation...”, upon joining Arzamas, everyone had to read a “funeral speech” to his “deceased” predecessor from among the living members of the “Conversation...” or Russian Academy sciences (Count D.I. Khvostov, S.A. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, A.S. Shishkov himself, etc.). “Funeral speeches” were a form of literary struggle: they parodied high genres and ridiculed the stylistic archaism of the poetic works of the “talkers.” At the meetings of the society, the humorous genres of Russian poetry were honed, a bold and decisive struggle was waged against all kinds of officialdom, and a type of independent Russian writer, free from the pressure of any ideological conventions, was formed. And although P. A. Vyazemsky, one of the organizers and active participants of the society, in his mature years condemned the youthful mischief and intransigence of his like-minded people (in particular, the rituals of “funeral services” for living literary opponents), he rightly called “Arzamas” a school of “literary fellowship” and mutual creative learning. The Arzamas and Beseda societies soon became centers of literary life and social struggle in the first quarter of the 19th century. "Arzamas" included such famous people, like Zhukovsky (pseudonym - Svetlana), Vyazemsky (Asmodeus), Pushkin (Cricket), Batyushkov (Achilles), etc.
"Conversation" disbanded after Derzhavin's death in 1816; "Arzamas", having lost its main opponent, ceased to exist by 1818.
Thus, by the mid-1790s, Karamzin became the recognized head of Russian sentimentalism, which opened not just a new page in Russian literature, but Russian fiction in general. Russian readers, who had previously devoured only French novels and the works of enlighteners, enthusiastically accepted “Letters of a Russian Traveler” and “Poor Liza,” and Russian writers and poets (both “besedchiki” and “Arzamasites”) realized that it was possible must write in their native language.
Karamzin and Alexander I: a symphony with power?
In 1802 - 1803, Karamzin published the journal “Bulletin of Europe”, in which literature and politics predominated. Largely thanks to the confrontation with Shishkov, a new aesthetic program for the formation of Russian literature as nationally distinctive appeared in Karamzin’s critical articles. Karamzin, unlike Shishkov, saw the key to the uniqueness of Russian culture not so much in adherence to ritual antiquity and religiosity, but in the events of Russian history. The most striking illustration of his views was the story “Martha the Posadnitsa or the Conquest of Novagorod.”
In his political articles of 1802-1803, Karamzin, as a rule, made recommendations to the government, the main one of which was educating the nation for the sake of the prosperity of the autocratic state.
These ideas were generally close to Emperor Alexander I, the grandson of Catherine the Great, who at one time also dreamed of an “enlightened monarchy” and a complete symphony between the authorities and a European educated society. Karamzin’s response to the coup of March 11, 1801 and the accession to the throne of Alexander I was “Historical eulogy to Catherine the Second” (1802), where Karamzin expressed his views on the essence of the monarchy in Russia, as well as the duties of the monarch and his subjects. The “eulogium” was approved by the sovereign as a collection of examples for the young monarch and was favorably received by him. Alexander I, obviously, was interested in Karamzin’s historical research, and the emperor rightly decided that the great country simply needed to remember its no less great past. And if you don’t remember, then at least create it again...
In 1803, through the tsar’s educator M.N. Muravyov - poet, historian, teacher, one of the most educated people of that time - N.M. Karamzin received the official title of court historiographer with a pension of 2,000 rubles. (A pension of 2,000 rubles a year was then assigned to officials who, according to the Table of Ranks, had ranks no lower than general). Later, I.V. Kireevsky, referring to Karamzin himself, wrote about Muravyov: “Who knows, maybe without his thoughtful and warm assistance Karamzin would not have had the means to accomplish his great deed.”
In 1804, Karamzin practically retired from literary and publishing activities and began to create the “History of the Russian State,” on which he worked until the end of his days. With his influence M.N. Muravyov made many previously unknown and even “secret” materials available to the historian, and opened libraries and archives for him. Modern historians can only dream of such favorable working conditions. Therefore, in our opinion, talking about “The History of the Russian State” as a “scientific feat” by N.M. Karamzin, not entirely fair. The court historiographer was on duty, conscientiously doing the work for which he was paid. Accordingly, he had to write a story that was in this moment necessary for the customer, namely, Emperor Alexander I, who at the first stage of his reign showed sympathy for European liberalism.
However, under the influence of studies in Russian history, by 1810 Karamzin had become a consistent conservative. During this period, the system of his political views was finally formed. Karamzin’s statements that he is a “republican at heart” can only be adequately interpreted if we consider that we are talking about “Plato’s Republic of the Wise Men,” an ideal social order based on state virtue, strict regulation and the renunciation of personal freedom . At the beginning of 1810, Karamzin, through his relative Count F.V. Rostopchin, met in Moscow the leader of the “conservative party” at court - Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna (sister of Alexander I) and began to constantly visit her residence in Tver. The Grand Duchess's salon represented the center of conservative opposition to the liberal-Western course, personified by the figure of M. M. Speransky. In this salon, Karamzin read excerpts from his “History...”, and then he met the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, who became one of his patrons.
In 1811, at the request of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, Karamzin wrote a note “On ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations,” in which he outlined his ideas about the ideal structure Russian state and sharply criticized the policies of Alexander I and his immediate predecessors: Paul I, Catherine II and Peter I. In the 19th century, the note was never published in full and was circulated only in handwritten copies. In Soviet times, the thoughts expressed by Karamzin in his message were perceived as a reaction of the extremely conservative nobility to the reforms of M. M. Speransky. The author himself was branded a “reactionary”, an opponent of the liberation of the peasantry and other liberal steps of the government of Alexander I.
However, during the first full publication of the note in 1988, Yu. M. Lotman revealed its deeper content. In this document, Karamzin made a justified criticism of unprepared bureaucratic reforms carried out from above. Praising Alexander I, the author of the note at the same time attacks his advisers, meaning, of course, Speransky, who stood for constitutional reforms. Karamzin takes it upon himself to prove in detail, with references to historical examples, to the Tsar that Russia is not ready, either historically or politically, for the abolition of serfdom and the limitation of the autocratic monarchy by the constitution (following the example of the European powers). Some of his arguments (for example, about the futility of liberating peasants without land, the impossibility of constitutional democracy in Russia) even today look quite convincing and historically correct.
Along with a review of Russian history and criticism of the political course of Emperor Alexander I, the note contained a complete, original and very complex in its theoretical content concept of autocracy as a special, distinctively Russian type of power, closely associated with Orthodoxy.
At the same time, Karamzin refused to identify “true autocracy” with despotism, tyranny or arbitrariness. He believed that such deviations from the norms were due to chance (Ivan IV the Terrible, Paul I) and were quickly eliminated by the inertia of the tradition of “wise” and “virtuous” monarchical rule. In cases of a sharp weakening and even complete absence of the supreme state and church power (for example, during the Time of Troubles), this powerful tradition led, within a short historical period, to the restoration of autocracy. The autocracy was the “palladium of Russia”, main reason her power and prosperity. Therefore, the basic principles of monarchical rule in Russia, according to Karamzin, should have been preserved in the future. They should have been supplemented only by proper policies in the field of legislation and education, which would not lead to the undermining of the autocracy, but to its maximum strengthening. With such an understanding of autocracy, any attempt to limit it would be a crime against Russian history and the Russian people.
Initially, Karamzin’s note only irritated the young emperor, who did not like criticism of his actions. In this note, the historiographer showed himself plus royaliste que le roi (a greater royalist than the king himself). However, subsequently the brilliant “hymn to the Russian autocracy” as presented by Karamzin undoubtedly had its effect. After the War of 1812, Napoleon's winner Alexander I curtailed many of his liberal projects: Speransky's reforms were not completed, the constitution and the very idea of limiting autocracy remained only in the minds of future Decembrists. And already in the 1830s, Karamzin’s concept actually formed the basis of the ideology Russian Empire, designated by the “theory of official nationality” of Count S. Uvarov (Orthodoxy-Autocracy-Nationalism).
Before the publication of the first 8 volumes of “History...” Karamzin lived in Moscow, from where he traveled only to Tver to visit Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna and Nizhny Novgorod, during the occupation of Moscow by the French. He usually spent the summer in Ostafyevo, the estate of Prince Andrei Ivanovich Vyazemsky, whose illegitimate daughter, Ekaterina Andreevna, Karamzin married in 1804. (Karamzin’s first wife, Elizaveta Ivanovna Protasova, died in 1802).
In the last 10 years of his life, which Karamzin spent in St. Petersburg, he became very close to royal family. Although Emperor Alexander I had a reserved attitude towards Karamzin since the submission of the Note, Karamzin often spent the summer in Tsarskoe Selo. At the request of the empresses (Maria Feodorovna and Elizaveta Alekseevna), he more than once had frank political conversations with Emperor Alexander, in which he acted as a spokesman for the opinions of opponents of drastic liberal reforms. In 1819-1825, Karamzin passionately rebelled against the sovereign’s intentions regarding Poland (he submitted a note “Opinion of a Russian Citizen”), condemned the increase in state taxes in Peaceful time, spoke about the absurd provincial system of finance, criticized the system of military settlements, the activities of the Ministry of Education, pointed out the strange choice by the sovereign of some of the most important dignitaries (for example, Arakcheev), spoke about the need to reduce internal troops, about the imaginary repair of roads, so painful for the people, and constantly pointed out on the need to have firm laws, civil and state.
Of course, having behind such intercessors as both empresses and Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, it was possible to criticize, and argue, and show civil courage, and try to guide the monarch “on the true path.” It is not for nothing that Emperor Alexander I was called the “mysterious sphinx” by both his contemporaries and subsequent historians of his reign. In words, the sovereign agreed with Karamzin’s critical remarks regarding military settlements, recognized the need to “give fundamental laws to Russia,” and also to revise some aspects of domestic policy, but it so happened in our country that in reality, all the wise advice of government officials remains “fruitless for dear Fatherland"...
Karamzin as a historian
Karamzin is our first historian and last chronicler.
With his criticism he belongs to history,
simplicity and apothegms - the chronicle. A.S. Pushkin
Even from the point of view of historical science contemporary to Karamzin, to name 12 volumes of his “History of the Russian State”, in fact, scientific work no one decided. Even then it was clear to everyone that the honorary title of court historiographer could not make a writer a historian, give him the appropriate knowledge and proper training.
But, on the other hand, Karamzin initially did not set himself the task of taking on the role of a researcher. The newly minted historiographer did not intend to write a scientific treatise and appropriate the laurels of his illustrious predecessors - Schlözer, Miller, Tatishchev, Shcherbatov, Boltin, etc.
Preliminary critical work on sources for Karamzin is only “a heavy tribute to reliability.” He was, first of all, a writer, and therefore wanted to apply his literary talent to ready-made material: “to select, animate, color” and thus make from Russian history “something attractive, strong, worthy of the attention of not only Russians, but also foreigners." And he accomplished this task brilliantly.
Today it is impossible not to agree that in early XIX century, source studies, paleography and other auxiliary historical disciplines were in their infancy. Therefore, to demand from the writer Karamzin professional criticism, as well as strict adherence to one or another methodology for working with historical sources, is simply ridiculous.
You can often hear the opinion that Karamzin simply beautifully rewrote the “Russian History from Ancient Times” written in a long-outdated, difficult-to-read style by Prince M.M. Shcherbatov, introduced some of his own thoughts from it, and thereby created a book for lovers of fascinating reading in family circle. This is wrong.
Naturally, when writing his “History...” Karamzin actively used the experience and works of his predecessors - Schlozer and Shcherbatov. Shcherbatov helped Karamzin navigate the sources of Russian history, significantly influencing both the choice of material and its arrangement in the text. Whether by chance or not, Karamzin brought the “History of the Russian State” to exactly the same place as Shcherbatov’s “History”. However, in addition to following the scheme already worked out by his predecessors, Karamzin provides in his work a lot of references to extensive foreign historiography, almost unfamiliar to the Russian reader. While working on his “History...”, he for the first time introduced into scientific circulation a mass of unknown and previously unstudied sources. These are Byzantine and Livonian chronicles, information from foreigners about the population of ancient Rus', as well as a large number of Russian chronicles that have not yet been touched by the hand of a historian. For comparison: M.M. Shcherbatov used only 21 Russian chronicles when writing his work; Karamzin actively quoted more than 40. In addition to the chronicles, Karamzin involved in the study monuments of ancient Russian law and ancient Russian fiction. A special chapter of “History...” is dedicated to “Russian Truth,” and a number of pages are devoted to the just discovered “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.”
Thanks to the diligent help of the directors of the Moscow Archive of the Ministry (Collegium) of Foreign Affairs N. N. Bantysh-Kamensky and A. F. Malinovsky, Karamzin was able to use those documents and materials that were not available to his predecessors. Many valuable manuscripts were provided by the Synodal Repository, libraries of monasteries (Trinity Lavra, Volokolamsk Monastery and others), as well as private collections of manuscripts by Musin-Pushkin and N.P. Rumyantseva. Karamzin received especially many documents from Chancellor Rumyantsev, who collected historical materials in Russia and abroad through his numerous agents, as well as from A.I. Turgenev, who compiled a collection of documents from the papal archive.
Many of the sources used by Karamzin were lost during the Moscow fire of 1812 and were preserved only in his “History...” and extensive “Notes” to its text. Thus, Karamzin’s work, to some extent, itself acquired the status of a historical source, to which professional historians have every right to refer.
Among the main shortcomings of the “History of the Russian State,” the author’s peculiar view of the tasks of the historian is traditionally noted. According to Karamzin, “knowledge” and “learning” in a historian “do not replace the talent to depict actions.” Before artistic task History recedes into the background even the moral one, which Karamzin’s patron, M.N., set for himself. Muravyov. The characteristics of historical characters are given by Karamzin exclusively in a literary and romantic vein, characteristic of the direction of Russian sentimentalism he created. Karamzin’s first Russian princes are distinguished by their “ardent romantic passion” for conquest, their squad is distinguished by their nobility and loyal spirit, the “rabble” sometimes shows dissatisfaction, raising rebellions, but ultimately agrees with the wisdom of the noble rulers, etc., etc. P.
Meanwhile, the previous generation of historians, under the influence of Schlözer, had long ago developed the idea of critical history, and among Karamzin’s contemporaries, the demands for criticism of historical sources, despite the lack of a clear methodology, were generally accepted. And the next generation has already come forward with a demand for philosophical history - with the identification of the laws of development of the state and society, the recognition of the main driving forces and laws historical process. Therefore, Karamzin’s overly “literary” creation was immediately subjected to well-founded criticism.
According to the idea, firmly rooted in Russian and foreign historiography of the 17th - 18th centuries, the development of the historical process depends on the development of monarchical power. Karamzin does not deviate one iota from this idea: monarchical power exalted Russia during the Kiev period; the division of power between the princes was a political mistake, which was corrected by the statesmanship of the Moscow princes - the collectors of Rus'. At the same time, it was the princes who corrected its consequences - the fragmentation of Rus' and the Tatar yoke.
But before reproaching Karamzin for not bringing anything new into the development of Russian historiography, it should be remembered that the author of “History of the Russian State” did not at all set himself the task of philosophical understanding of the historical process or blind imitation of the ideas of Western European romantics (F. Guizot , F. Mignet, J. Meschlet), who even then started talking about the “class struggle” and the “spirit of the people” as the main driving force of history. Karamzin was not at all interested in historical criticism, and he deliberately rejected the “philosophical” direction in history. The researcher’s conclusions from historical material, as well as his subjective fabrications, seem to Karamzin to be “metaphysics”, which is not suitable “for depicting action and character.”
Thus, with his unique views on the tasks of the historian, Karamzin, by and large, remained outside the dominant trends of Russian and European historiography of the 19th and 20th centuries. Of course, he participated in its consistent development, but only as an object for constant criticism and a clear example of how history should not be written.
Reaction of contemporaries
Karamzin's contemporaries - readers and fans - enthusiastically accepted his new “historical” work. The first eight volumes of “History of the Russian State” were printed in 1816-1817 and went on sale in February 1818. A huge circulation of three thousand for that time was sold out in 25 days. (And this despite the hefty price of 50 rubles). A second edition was immediately required, which was carried out in 1818-1819 by I.V. Slenin. In 1821 a new, ninth volume was published, and in 1824 the next two. The author did not have time to finish the twelfth volume of his work, which was published in 1829, almost three years after his death.
“History...” was admired by Karamzin’s literary friends and the vast public of non-specialist readers who suddenly discovered, like Count Tolstoy the American, that their Fatherland has a history. According to A.S. Pushkin, “everyone, even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, hitherto unknown to them. She was a new discovery for them. Ancient Russia, it seemed, was found by Karamzin, like America by Columbus.”
Liberal intellectual circles of the 1820s found Karamzin’s “History...” backward in general views and overly tendentious:
Research specialists, as already mentioned, treated Karamzin’s work precisely as a work, sometimes even belittling it historical meaning. To many, Karamzin’s enterprise itself seemed too risky - to undertake to write such an extensive work given the then state of Russian historical science.
Already during Karamzin’s lifetime, critical analyzes of his “History...” appeared, and soon after the author’s death, attempts were made to determine the general significance of this work in historiography. Lelevel pointed out an involuntary distortion of the truth due to Karamzin’s patriotic, religious and political hobbies. Artsybashev showed to what extent the writing of “history” is harmed literary devices non-professional historian. Pogodin summed up all the shortcomings of the History, and N.A. Polevoy saw the general reason for these shortcomings in the fact that “Karamzin is a writer not of our time.” All his points of view, both in literature and in philosophy, politics and history, became outdated with the appearance of new influences in Russia European romanticism. In contrast to Karamzin, Polevoy soon wrote his six-volume “History of the Russian People,” where he completely surrendered to the ideas of Guizot and other Western European romantics. Contemporaries assessed this work as an “undignified parody” of Karamzin, subjecting the author to rather vicious, and not always deserved, attacks.
In the 1830s, Karamzin’s “History...” became the banner of the officially “Russian” movement. With the assistance of the same Pogodin, its scientific rehabilitation is being carried out, which is fully consistent with the spirit of Uvarov’s “theory of official nationality”.
In the second half of the 19th century, based on the “History...”, a lot of popular science articles and other texts were written, which served as the basis for well-known educational and teaching aids. Based on the historical stories of Karamzin, many works were created for children and youth, the purpose of which for many years was to educate patriotism, loyalty to civic duty, and the responsibility of the younger generation for the fate of their Motherland. This book, in our opinion, played decisive role in shaping the views of more than one generation of Russian people, having a significant impact on the foundations patriotic education youth at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries.
December 14. Karamzin's finale.
The death of Emperor Alexander I and the December events of 1925 deeply shocked N.M. Karamzin and had a negative impact on his health.
On December 14, 1825, having received news of the uprising, the historian goes out into the street: “I saw terrible faces, heard terrible words, five or six stones fell at my feet.”
Karamzin, of course, regarded the action of the nobility against their sovereign as a rebellion and a serious crime. But among the rebels there were so many acquaintances: the Muravyov brothers, Nikolai Turgenev, Bestuzhev, Ryleev, Kuchelbecker (he translated Karamzin’s “History” into German).
A few days later Karamzin will say about the Decembrists: “The delusions and crimes of these young people are the delusions and crimes of our century.”
On December 14, during his movements around St. Petersburg, Karamzin caught a severe cold and contracted pneumonia. In the eyes of his contemporaries, he was another victim of this day: his idea of the world collapsed, his faith in the future was lost, and a new king, very far from ideal image enlightened monarch. Half-ill, Karamzin visited the palace every day, where he talked with Empress Maria Feodorovna, moving from memories of the late Emperor Alexander to discussions about the tasks of the future reign.
Karamzin could no longer write. The XII volume of “History...” froze during the interregnum of 1611 - 1612. The last words of the last volume are about a small Russian fortress: “Nut did not give up.” The last thing that Karamzin actually managed to do in the spring of 1826 was that, together with Zhukovsky, he persuaded Nicholas I to return Pushkin from exile. A few years later, the emperor tried to pass the baton of the first historiographer of Russia to the poet, but the “sun of Russian poetry” somehow did not fit into the role of state ideologist and theorist...
In the spring of 1826 N.M. Karamzin, on the advice of doctors, decided to go to Southern France or Italy for treatment. Nicholas I agreed to sponsor his trip and kindly placed a frigate of the Imperial Navy at the disposal of the historiographer. But Karamzin was already too weak to travel. He died on May 22 (June 3), 1826 in St. Petersburg. He was buried at the Tikhvin Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
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Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin in the history of Russian culture.
Annotation:
the material is intended for class hour in grades 7-9 or an extracurricular event dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the birth of N.M. Karamzin.
Purpose of the event:
get acquainted with the biography and work of N. M. Karamzin, show his role in the development of Russian culture.
Tasks:
- educational: to introduce the creative heritage of N. M. Karamzin.
- developing: develop logical thinking, attention, speech.
- educational: to cultivate a sense of interest in studying Russian literature and history.
Equipment: slide presentation, portrait of the writer, books by N. M. Karamzin.
Progress of the event.
Whatever you turn to in our literature -
everything started with Karamzin:
journalism, criticism, novella,
historical story, journalism,
studying history.
V.G. Belinsky
Teacher's word:
“Russian literature knew writers greater than Karamzin,
knew more powerful talents and more searing pages. But in terms of impact
on the reader of his era, Karamzin is in the first row in terms of influence on
culture of the time in which he acted, he will stand comparison with
any, the most brilliant names.”
A.S. Pushkin called Karamzin “a great writer in every sense
this word." The role of Karamzin in the history of Russian culture is great: in
literature, he showed himself as a reformer, created the genre of psychological
stories; laid the foundations for professionalization in journalism
writing work, created samples of the main types of periodicals
publications; as an educator he played a huge role in the formation of a literate
reader, taught women to read in Russian, introduced the book into
home education of children.
Today we will get acquainted with the life and work of N.M. Karamzin, whose 250th anniversary Russia will celebrate in 2016.
KARAMZIN Nikolai Mikhailovich (1766-1826), Russian historian, writer, critic, journalist, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1818). Creator of "History of the Russian State" (vol. 1-12, 1816-29), one of the significant works in Russian historiography. The founder of Russian sentimentalism ("Letters of a Russian Traveler", "Poor Lisa", etc.). Editor of the "Moscow Journal" (1791-92) and "Bulletin of Europe" (1802-1803).
Acquaintance with the biography of N.M. Karamzin.
1 Student:
Nikolai Mikhailovich was born on December 12, 1766 on the estate. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was born in the village. Znamenskoye (Karamzinka) of Simbirsk district, in the family of retired captain Mikhail Egorovich Karamzin, a descendant of the Crimean Tatar murza Kara-Murza. From autumn to spring, the Karamzins usually lived in Simbirsk, in a mansion on Old Venets, and in the summer - in the village of Znamensky. (Nowadays an uninhabited village 35 km southwest of Ulyanovsk).
Father Mikhail Yegorovich Karamzin was a middle-class nobleman. Little Nikolai grew up on his father’s estate and was educated at home. In 1778, Nikolai Mikhailovich went to Moscow to the boarding house of Moscow University professor I.M. Schaden.
As was the custom of that time, at the age of 8 he enlisted in the regiment and studied at a Moscow boarding school. From 1781 he served in St. Petersburg in the Preobrazhensky Regiment. This is where it started literary activity. From February 1783 he was on leave in Simbirsk, where he finally retired with the rank of lieutenant. In Simbirsk he became close to local masons, but was not carried away by their ideas. Since 1785 N.M. Karamzin lived in the capitals, regularly coming to Simbirsk until 1795.
2 Student
In 1789, Karamzin published his first story, “Eugene and
Julia". In the same year he goes abroad. Karamzin was in Europe
on the eve of the French Revolution. In Germany he met with Kant, in
In France he listened to Mirabeau and Robospierre. This trip had a certain
influence on his worldview and further creativity. After
returning from abroadAt the insistence of his father, in 1783 Nikolai entered service in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment of St. Petersburg, but soon retired. Afterwards he was a member of the Friendly Scientific Society in Moscow. There he also met writers - N. I. Novikov, A. M. Kutuzov, A. A. Petrov.
Karamzin becomes close to G.R. Derzhavin, A.M.
Kutuzov. Under the influence of A.M. Kutuzov he gets acquainted with literature
English pre-romanticism, well versed in literature
French Enlightenment (Voltaire, J.J. Rousseau).
In 1791-1792 after a year of traveling around Europe, he undertook the publication of the Moscow Journal, which gave Russian journalism, according to Yu.M. Lotman, the standard of Russian literary criticism magazine. A significant part of the publications in it were the works of Karamzin himself, in particular, the fruit of his trip to Europe - “Letters of a Russian Traveler”, which determined the main tone of the magazine - educational, but without excessive officiality. However, in 1792, the “Moscow Journal” was discontinued after the publication of Karamzin’s ode “To Grace” in it, the reason for the creation of which was the arrest of the Russian writer N.I., who was close to Karamzin. Novikova.
On the pages of this magazine he publishes his works “Letters of a Russian Traveler” (1791-1792), the stories “Poor Liza” (1792), “Natalia, the Boyar’s Daughter” (1792)and the essay “Flor Silin”. These works most forcefully expressed the main features of the sentimental Karamzin and his school.
The story "Poor Lisa". Sentimentalism.
Teacher's word:
“Karamzin was the first in Rus' to write stories... in which people acted, depictedlife of the heart
and passions in the midst of ordinary life,” wroteV.G. Belinsky
3 Student:
This is the love story of a peasant girl Lisa and
nobleman Erast. Karamzin's story became the first Russian work,
whose heroes the reader could empathize with in the same way as the heroes of Rousseau, Goethe and
other European novelists. Literary scholars have noted that
Karamzin presented the simple plot with psychological depth and
soulfully. Karamzin became the recognized head of the new literary
schools, and the story “Poor Liza” is an example of Russian sentimentalism.
“Lizin Pond” near the Simonov Monastery has become especially visited
a place for fans of the writer’s work.
4 Student:Sentimentalism(French sentimentalisme, from French sentiment - feeling) - a state of mind in Western European and Russian culture and a corresponding literary direction. In the 18th century, the definition of “sensitive” was understood as receptivity, the ability to respond spiritually to all manifestations of life. For the first time this word with a moral and aesthetic connotation of meaning appeared in the title of the novel by the English writer Laurence Stern “A Sentimental Journey”.
Works written within this artistic movement focus on the reader's perception, that is, on the sensuality that arises when reading them. In Europe, sentimentalism existed from the 20s to the 80s of the 18th century, in Russia - from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 19th century.
The hero of the literature of sentimentalism is an individual, he is sensitive to the “life of the soul”, has a diverse psychological world and exaggerated abilities in the sphere of feelings. He is focused on the emotional sphere, which means that social and civic problems fade into the background in his mind.
By origin (or by conviction) the sentimentalist hero is a democrat; rich spiritual world the commoner is one of the main discoveries and conquests of sentimentalism.
From the philosophy of the Enlightenment, sentimentalists adopted the idea of the extra-class value of the human person; the wealth of the inner world and the ability to feel were recognized for every person, regardless of his social status. A person, unspoiled by social conventions and the vices of society, a “natural” person, guided only by the impulses of his natural good feelings - this is the ideal of the sentimentalists. Such a person could most likely be from the middle and lower social strata - a poor nobleman, tradesman, peasant. A person experienced in social life, who has accepted the value system of a society where the social reigns
inequality is a negative character; he has traits that deserve the indignation and censure of readers.
Sentimentalist writers in their works great attention paid to nature as a source of beauty and harmony, it was in the bosom of nature that a “natural” person could be formed. A sentimentalist landscape encourages thinking about lofty things and awakening bright and noble feelings in a person.
The main genres in which sentimentalism manifested itself were elegy, message, diary, notes, epistolary novel. It was these genres that gave the writer the opportunity to turn to the inner world of a person, reveal his soul, and imitate the sincerity of the heroes in expressing their feelings.
The most famous representatives of sentimentalism are James Thomson, Edward Jung, Thomas Gray, Laurence Stern (England), Jean Jacques Rousseau (France), Nikolai Karamzin (Russia).
Sentimentalism penetrated into Russia in the 1780s and early 1790s thanks to translations of the novels “Werther” by I.V. Goethe, "Pamela", "Clarissa" and "Grandison" by S. Richardson, "New Heloise" by J.-J. Rousseau, "Paul and Virginie" by J.-A. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. The era of Russian sentimentalism was opened by Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin with “Letters of a Russian Traveler” (1791–1792).
His story "Poor Liza" (1792) is a masterpiece of Russian sentimental prose.
Works by N.M. Karamzin gave rise to a huge number of imitations; At the beginning of the 19th century, “Poor Masha” by A.E. appeared. Izmailov (1801), “Journey to Midday Russia” (1802), “Henrietta, or the Triumph of Deception over Weakness or Delusion” by I. Svechinsky (1802), numerous stories by G.P. Kameneva (“The Story of Poor Marya”; “Unhappy Margarita”; “Beautiful Tatiana”), etc.
N.M. Karamzin – historian, creator of “History of the Russian State”
Teacher's word:
The activities of Karamzin, who headed an entire
literary trend - sentimentalism, and for the first time brought together
historiography with artistic creativity, different sides
constantly attracted the attention of N.V. Gogol, M.Yu. Lermontov, I.S.
Turgeneva, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy. Associated with the name Karamzin
a special stage in the development of Russian culture.
5 Student:
Karamzin developed an interest in history in the mid-1790s. He wrote a story on a historical theme - “Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod” (published in 1803). In the same year, by decree of Alexander I, he was appointed to the position of historiographer, and until the end of his life he was engaged in writing “The History of the Russian State.”
Karamzin opened the history of Russia to a wide educated public. According to Pushkin, “everyone, even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, hitherto unknown to them. She was a new discovery for them. Ancient Russia seemed to be found by Karamzin, like America by Columbus.”
In his work, Karamzin acted more as a writer than a historian - when describing historical facts, he cared about the beauty of the language, least of all trying to draw any conclusions from the events he described. Nevertheless, his commentaries, which contain many extracts from manuscripts, mostly first published by Karamzin, are of high scientific value.
A. S. Pushkin assessed Karamzin’s works on Russian history as follows:
“In his “History” elegance and simplicity prove to us, without any bias, the necessity of autocracy and the charms of the whip.”
6 Student:
In 1803 N.M. Karamzin receives an official appointment to
position of court historiographer, begins to work on the “History of the Russian State” and works on it until the end of his life.
“History of the Russian State” was published in volumes, causing great
public interest. Vyazemsky noted that Karamzin, with his “History...”
“saved Russia from the invasion of oblivion, called it to life, showed us that
“We have a fatherland.”
N.M. Karamzin was awarded the rank of state councilor for this work.
and the Order of St. Anna 1st degree.
with dedication to Alexander I.
This work aroused great interest among contemporaries. Immediately around
“Stories...” Karamzin sparked a wide controversy, reflected in
printing, as well as preserved in manuscript literature. Subjected
criticism of Karamzin’s historical concept, his language (speeches by M. T.
Kachenovsky, I. Lelevel, N.S. Artsybashev and others), his political
views (statements by M.F. Orlov, N.M. Muravyov, N.I. Turgenev).
But many greeted “History...” with enthusiasm: K.N. Batyushkov, I.I.
Dmitriev, Vyazemsky, Zhukovsky and others.
ceremonial meeting of the Imperial Russian Academy" in connection with
election to its membership. Particular attention was paid here to the problems
national identity of Russian literature, spoke about the “folk
property of Russians." In 1819 Karamzin again spoke at a meeting
Russian Academy with reading excerpts from volume 9 “History...”,
dedicated to the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Volume 9 went out of print in 1821
his work, in 1824 - vols. 10 and 11; v. 12, the last one containing a description
events before early XVII V. Karamzin did not have time to complete it (published posthumously in
1829).
The appearance of new volumes showing the despotism of Ivan the Terrible and
telling about the crime of Boris Godunov, caused a revival
controversy surrounding Karamzin's work. The attitude of A.S. is indicative. Pushkin to
Karamzin and his activities. Having met the historiographer back in 1816
in Tsarskoe Selo, Pushkin maintained respect for him and his family and
affection, which did not prevent him from entering into quite a relationship with Karamzin
sharp disputes. Having taken part in the controversy surrounding “History...”, Pushkin
warmly defended Karamzin, emphasizing the social significance
his work and calling it “the feat of an honest man.” Your tragedy
Pushkin dedicated “Boris Godunov” to the “precious memory for Russians” of N.M.
Karamzin.
N.M. Karamzin is a reformer of the Russian language.
Teacher's word:
Great are the merits of N.M. Karamzin in the field of reforming the Russian language. “No matter how Karamzin’s views changed throughout his life, the idea of progress remained their solid foundation. It was expressed in the idea of the continuity of improvement of man and humanity.” According to Karamzin, the happiness of humanity lies through the improvement of the individual. “The main engine here is not morality (as the Freemasons believed), but art (...). And Karamzin considered instructing his contemporaries in the art of living as his primary task. He wanted to implement, as it were, Peter’s second reform: not of state life, not of the external conditions of social existence, but of the “art of being oneself” - a goal that can be achieved not through the efforts of the government, but through the actions of people of culture, especially writers.
7 Student:
The most important part of this program was the reform of the literary language, which was based on the desire to bring the written language closer to the living spoken language of an educated society.”
In 1802, in the journal “Bulletin of Europe” N.M. Karamzin published an article “Why there are few creative talents in Russia.”
Karamzin's work had a significant impact on the development of the Russian literary language. He sought not to use Church Slavonic vocabulary and grammar, but to turn to the language of his era, the language of “ordinary” people, using grammar and syntax as an example French. Karamzin was one of the first to use the letter Yo, introduced new words (neologisms) (charity, love, impression, sophistication, humane, etc.), barbarisms (sidewalk, coachman, etc.).
Following the ideas of sentimentalism. Karamzin emphasizes the role of the author’s personality in the work and the impact of his views on the world. The presence of the author sharply distinguished his works from the stories and novels of classicist writers. It should be noted that there are artistic techniques that Karamzin most often uses to express his personal attitude to an object, phenomenon, event, or fact. His works contain many paraphrases, comparisons, similes, and epithets. Researchers of Karamzin’s work note the melodiousness of his prose due to the rhythmic organization and musicality (repetitions, inversions, exclamations, etc.)
Final words from the teacher:
In one of his last letters to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Karamzin wrote: “As I approach the end of my activities, I thank
God for your destiny. Maybe I'm mistaken, but my conscience is calm.
My dear Fatherland cannot blame me for anything. I was always ready
serve him without humiliating my personality, for which I am responsible to the same
Russia. Yes, even if all I did was describe the history of the barbarian centuries,
let me not be seen either on the battlefield or in the council of statesmen. But
since I am not a coward or a sloth, I say: “So it was as it pleased
Heaven" and, without ridiculous pride in my craft as a writer, without shame I see myself among our generals and ministers."
1. The formation of literary activity.
2. The beginning of Russian sentimental-romantic prose and poetry.
3. Karamzin’s innovation and its significance for Russian literature.
N. M. Karamzin was born into the family of a Simbirsk nobleman and spent his childhood in a village located on the banks of the Volga. The future literary figure received an excellent education at the boarding school of Schaden, a professor at Moscow University. While still a student, the young man showed interest in Russian literature, moreover, he tried himself in prose and poetry. However, Karamzin for a long time cannot set a goal for himself, determine his purpose in this life. He is helped in this by I. S. Turgenev, a meeting with whom turned the young man’s whole life upside down. Nikolai Mikhailovich moves to Moscow and becomes a visitor to I. A. Novikov’s circle.
Soon attention is paid to the young man. Novikov instructs Karamzin and A.A. Petrov to edit the magazine “Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind.” This literary activity undoubtedly brings great benefit to a young writer. Gradually, in his works, Karamzin abandons complex, overloaded syntactic structures and high lexical means. His worldview is influenced big influence two things: enlightenment and Freemasonry. And in the latter case not small role played by the Freemasons' desire for self-knowledge and interest in the inner life of man. It is human character, personal experiences, soul and heart that the writer puts at the head of the table in his works. He is interested in everything that is in any way connected with the inner world of people. On the other hand, all of Nikolai Mikhailovich’s work is marked by a peculiar attitude towards the order established in Russia: “I am a republican at heart. And I will die like this... I do not demand a constitution or representatives, but in my feelings I will remain a republican, and, moreover, a loyal subject of the Russian Tsar: this is a contradiction, not only an imaginary one! At the same time, Karamzin can be called the founder of Russian sentimental-romantic literature. Despite the fact that the literary heritage of this talented person is relatively small, it has never been fully collected. There remain many diary entries and private letters containing new ideas for the development of Russian literature that have not yet been published.
Karamzin's first literary steps have already attracted the attention of the entire literary community. To some extent, the great Russian commander A.M. Kutuzov predicted his future: “What happened in him French revolution... but years and experiences will once cool his imagination, and he will look at everything with different eyes.” The commander's assumptions were confirmed. In one of his poems Nikolai Mikhailovich writes:
But time and experience destroy
Castle in the air of youth;
The beauty of magic disappears...
Now I see a different light, -
Karamzin's poetic works constantly touch upon, reveal, expose the essence of man, his soul and heart. In his article “What does an author need?” the poet directly states that any writer “paints a portrait of his soul and heart.” Since his student years, the talented young man has shown interest in poets of the sentimental and pre-romantic movements. He speaks enthusiastically of Shakespeare due to his lack of selectivity in the object of his work. The great playwright of the past, according to Karamzin, opposed the classicists and approached the romantics. His ability to penetrate into “human nature” delighted the poet: “...for every thought he finds an image, for every sensation an expression, for every movement of the soul the best turn.”
Karamzin was a preacher of a new aesthetics, which did not accept any dogmatic rules and clichés and did not at all interfere with the free imagination of a genius. In the poet’s understanding, it acted as a “science of taste.” In Russian literature, conditions have arisen that require new ways of depicting reality, ways based on sensitivity. That is why neither “low ideas” nor descriptions of terrible scenes could appear in a work of art. The writer’s first work, designed in a sentimental style, appeared on the pages of “Children’s Reading” and was called “Russian True Tale: Evgeny and Yulia.” It told about the life of Mrs. L. and her pupil Julia, who, “waking up with nature,” enjoyed the “pleasures of the morning” and read “the works of true philosophers.” However, the sentimental story ends tragically - the mutual love of Julia and Mrs. L.'s son Evgeniy does not save the young man from death. This work is not entirely typical of Karamzin, although it touches on some sentimental ideas. The work of Nikolai Mikhailovich is more characterized by a romantic vision of the world around him, as well as genre speciation. This is precisely what many poems of the talented writer, created in an elegiac tone, testify to:
My friend! Materiality is poor:
Play with your dreams in your soul,
Otherwise life will be boring.
Another famous work Karamzin’s “Letters of a Russian Traveler” is a continuation of the tradition of travel, popular in those days in Russia thanks to the work of F. Delorme and K. F. Moritz. The writer turned to this genre not by chance. He was famous for his relaxed form of narration about everything that could come across the author’s path. In addition, in the process of travel, the character of the traveler himself is revealed in the best possible way. In his work, Karamzin pays great attention to the main character and narrator; it is his feelings and experiences that are fully manifested here. The traveler's state of mind is described in a sentimental manner, but the depiction of reality amazes the reader with its truthfulness and realism. Often the author uses a fictitious plot invented by a traveler, but immediately corrects himself, claiming that the artist should write everything as it was: “I wrote in the novel. That the evening was the most stormy; that the rain did not leave a dry thread on me... but in fact the evening turned out to be the quietest and clearest.” Thus, romance gives way to realism. In his work, the author is not an outside observer, but an active participant in everything that happens. He states the facts and gives an acceptable explanation of what happened. The focus of the work is the problem of the socio-political life of Russia and art. That is, again romance is closely intertwined with reality. The writer's sentimental style is manifested in melodiousness, in the absence of rude, colloquial expressions in the text, and in the predominance of words expressing various feelings.
Karamzin's poetic works are also filled with pre-romantic motifs, often characterized by moods of sadness, loneliness and melancholy. For the first time in Russian literature, the writer in his poetry turns to the otherworldly, bringing happiness and peace. This theme sounds especially clear in the poem “Cemetery”, constructed in the form of a dialogue between two voices. The first tells about the horror instilled in a person by thoughts of death, while the other sees only joy in death. In his lyrics, Karamzin achieves an amazing simplicity of style, abandoning vivid metaphors and unusual epithets.
In general, the literary work of Nikolai Mikhailovich played a big role in the development of Russian literature. V. G. Belinsky rightfully attributed to the poet the discovery of a new literary era, believing that this talented man “created an educated literary language in Rus',” which significantly helped “to make the Russian public eager to read Russian books.” Karamzin’s activities played a huge role in the development of such outstanding Russian writers as K. N. Batyushkov and V. A. Zhukovsky. From the very first literary experiments Nikolai Mikhailovich shows innovative qualities, trying to find his own path in literature, revealing characters and themes in a new way, using stylistic means, in particular in terms of prose genres.
Karamzin himself characterizes his work in the best possible way, speaking about the activities of W. Shakespeare, however, following the same principles: “he did not want to observe the so-called unities, which our current dramatic authors so firmly adhere to. He did not want to put tight limits on his imagination. His spirit soared like an eagle and could not measure its soaring with the measure with which sparrows measure theirs.”
Table of contents I. Introduction………………………………………………………………………...3
II. Biography of N.M. Karamzin…………………………………………..… .4
III. Peculiarities of creativity of N.M. Karamzin…………………………………..7
IV. Conclusion……………………………………………………………..18
V. Bibliography…………………………………………… …………………19
Introduction
Whatever you turn to in our literature, everything began with Karamzin: journalism, criticism, stories, novels, historical stories, journalism, the study of history.
V.G. Belinsky.
In the last decades of the 18th century, a new literary trend gradually emerged in Russia - sentimentalism. Determining its features, P.A. Vyazemsky pointed to the “elegant depiction of the basic and everyday.” In contrast to classicism, sentimentalists declared a cult of feelings, not reason, and glorified the common man, the liberation and improvement of his natural principles. The hero of works of sentimentalism is not a heroic person, but simply a person, with his rich inner world, various experiences, and self-esteem. The main goal of noble sentimentalists is to restore the trampled human dignity of the serf peasant in the eyes of society, to reveal his spiritual wealth, and to portray family and civic virtues.
The favorite genres of sentimentalism were elegy, epistle, epistolary novel (novel in letters), diary, travel, and story. The dominance of drama is replaced by epic storytelling. The syllable becomes sensitive, melodious, and emphatically emotional. The first and largest representative of sentimentalism was Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin.
Biography of N.M. Karamzin
Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766-1826) was born on December 1 in the village of Mikhailovka, Simbirsk province, into the family of a landowner. Received a good home education. At the age of 14 he began studying at the Moscow private boarding school of Professor Schaden. After graduating in 1873, he came to the Preobrazhensky Regiment in St. Petersburg, where he met the young poet and future employee of his “Moscow Journal” I. Dmitriev. At the same time he published his first translation of S. Gesner’s idyll “The Wooden Leg”. Having retired with the rank of second lieutenant in 1784, he moved to Moscow, where he became one of the active participants in the magazine “Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind,” published by N. Novikov, and became close to the Freemasons. Engaged in translations of religious and moral works. Since 1787, he regularly publishes his translations of Thomson’s “The Seasons,” Genlis’s “Country Evenings,” Shakespeare’s Tragedy “Julius Caesar,” and Lessing’s tragedy “Emilia Galotti.”
In 1789, Karamzin’s first original story, “Eugene and Yulia,” appeared in the magazine “Children’s Reading.” In the spring he goes on a trip to Europe: he visits Germany, Switzerland, France, where he observed the activities of the revolutionary government. In June 1790 he moved from France to England.
In the fall he returns to Moscow and soon begins publishing the monthly “Moscow Magazine”, in which most of the “Letters of a Russian Traveler”, the stories “Liodor”, “Poor Liza”, “Natalia, the Boyar’s Daughter”, “Flor Silin”, essays, stories, criticism and poems. Karamzin attracted I. Dmitriev, A. Petrov, M. Kheraskov, G. Derzhavin, Lvov, Neledinsky-Meletsky and others to collaborate in the magazine. Karamzin's articles approved a new literary direction - sentimentalism. In the 1970s, Karamzin published the first Russian almanacs - “Aglaya” and “Aonids”. The year came 1793, when, at the third stage of the French Revolution, the Jacobin dictatorship was established, which shocked Karamzin with its cruelty. The dictatorship aroused in him doubts about the possibility for humanity to achieve prosperity. He condemned the revolution. The philosophy of despair and fatalism permeates his new works: the stories “Bornholm Island” (1793), “Sierra Morena” (1795), poems: “Melancholy”, “Message to A.A. Pleshcheev” and others.
By the mid-1790s, Karamzin became the recognized head of Russian sentimentalism, which opened a new page in Russian literature. He was an indisputable authority for V. Zhukovsky, K. Batyushkov, young Pushkin.
In 1802-03, Karamzin published the journal “Bulletin of Europe”, in which literature and politics predominated. In Karamzin’s critical articles, a new aesthetic program emerged, which contributed to the formation of Russian literature as nationally distinctive. Karamzin saw the key to the identity of Russian culture in history. The most striking illustration of his views was the story “Martha the Posadnitsa.” In his political articles, Karamzin made recommendations to the government, pointing out the role of education.
Trying to influence Tsar Alexander I, Karamzin gave him his “Note on Ancient and New Russia” (1811), causing his irritation. In 1819, he submitted a new note - “Opinion of a Russian Citizen”, which caused even greater dissatisfaction with the Tsar. However, Karamzin did not abandon his belief in the salvation of an enlightened autocracy and condemned the Decembrist uprising. However, Karamzin the artist was still highly valued by young writers, even those who did not share his political convictions.
In 1803, through M. Muravyov, Karamzin received the official title of court historiographer. In 1804, he began to create the “History of the Russian State,” which he worked on until the end of his days, but did not complete. In 1818, the first 8 volumes of History, Karamzin’s greatest scientific and cultural feat, were published. In 1821, the 9th volume, dedicated to the reign of Ivan the Terrible, was published, and in 18245 - the 10th and 11th, about Fyodor Ioannovich and Boris Godunov. Death interrupted work on the 12th volume. This happened on May 22 (June 3, new style) 1826 in St. Petersburg.
Peculiarities of creativity of N.M. Karamzin
Karamzin's worldview.
From the beginning of the century, Karamzin was firmly assigned to literary residence in anthologies. It was published occasionally, but not for reading purposes, but for educational purposes. The reader had a firm conviction that there was no need to take Karamzin into his hands, especially since in the briefest information the matter could not be avoided without the word “conservative”. Karamzin sacredly believed in man and his improvement, in reason and enlightenment: “My mental and sensitive power will be destroyed forever, before I believe that this world is a cave of robbers and villains, virtue is an alien plant on the globe, enlightenment is a sharp a dagger in the hands of a murderer.”
Karamzin discovered Shakespeare for the Russian reader by translating Julius Caesar into the times of youthful tyrant-fighting sentiments, releasing it with an enthusiastic introduction in 1787 - this date should be considered the starting date in the procession of the works of the English tragedian in Russia.
Karamzin’s world is a world of a walking spirit, in continuous movement, which has absorbed everything that constituted the content of the pre-Pushkin era. No one did as much to saturate the air of the era with literary and spiritual content as Karamzin, who walked many pre-Pushkin roads.
In addition, one must see the silhouette of Karamzin, expressing the spiritual content of the era, on the vast historical horizon, when one century gave way to another, and the great writer was destined to play the role of the last and the first. As the finalizer - the “head of the school” of Russian sentimentalism - he was the last writer of the 18th century; as the discoverer of a new literary field - historical prose, as a transformer of the Russian literary language - he undoubtedly became the first - in a temporary sense - writer of the 19th century, providing Russian literature with access to the world stage. The name Karamzin was the first to appear in German, French and English literature.
Karamzin and classicists.
The classicists saw the world in a “halo of splendor.” Karamzin took a step towards seeing a person in a dressing gown, alone with himself, giving preference to “middle age” over youth and old age. The majesty of the Russian classicists was not discarded by Karamzin - it was suitable for showing history in faces.
Karamzin came to literature when classicism suffered its first defeat: Derzhavin in the 90s of the 18th century was already recognized as the largest Russian poet, despite his complete disregard for traditions and rules. The next blow to classicism was dealt by Karamzin. A theorist and reformer of Russian noble literary culture, Karamzin took up arms against the foundations of the aesthetics of classicism. The pathos of his work was a call for the depiction of “natural, unadorned nature”; to the depiction of “true feelings”, not bound by the conventions of classicism’s ideas about characters and passions; a call for the depiction of small things and everyday details, in which there was no heroism, no sublimity, no exclusivity, but in which a fresh, unprejudiced look revealed “unexplored beauties characteristic of dreamy and modest pleasure.” However, one should not think that “natural nature”, “true feelings” and attentiveness to “inconspicuous details” turned Karamzin into a realist who sought to depict the world in all its truthful diversity. The worldview associated with the noble sentimentalism of Karamzin, like the worldview associated with classicism, was conducive to only limited and largely distorted ideas about the world and man.
Karamzin is a reformer.
Karamzin, if we consider his activities as a whole, was a representative of broad layers of the Russian nobility. All of Karamzin’s reform activities met the interests of the nobility and, first of all, the Europeanization of Russian culture.
Karamzin, following the philosophy and theory of sentimentalism, realizes the specific weight of the author’s personality in the work and the significance of his individual view of the world. In his works he offers a new connection between the depicted reality and the author: personal perception, personal feeling. Karamzin structured the period so that there was a sense of the presence of the author. It was the presence of the author that transformed Karamzin’s prose into something completely new compared to the novel and story of classicism. Let us consider the artistic techniques most often used by Karamzin using the example of his story “Natalya, the Boyar’s Daughter.”
The stylistic features of the story “Natalia, the Boyar’s Daughter” are inextricably linked with the content, ideological orientation of this work, with its system of images and genre originality. The story reflects the characteristic features of the style characteristic of Karamzin’s fictional prose as a whole. The subjectivism of Karamzin’s creative method and the writer’s increased interest in the emotional impact of his works on the reader determine the abundance of periphrases, comparisons, likenings, etc. in them.
Among the various artistic techniques - first of all, tropes, which give the author great opportunities to express his personal attitude towards an object, phenomenon (i.e., to show what impression the author experiences, or with what the impression made on him by some object can be compared, phenomenon). Periphrases that are generally characteristic of the poetics of sentimentalists are also used in “Natalia, the Boyar’s Daughter.” So, instead of saying that the boyar Matvey was old, close to death, Karamzin writes: “the quiet fluttering of the heart heralded the onset of life’s evening and the approach of night.” Boyar Matvey's wife did not die, but “fell asleep” eternal sleep" Winter is the “queen of cold,” etc.
There are substantivized adjectives in the story that are not adjectives in ordinary speech: “What are you doing, you reckless one!”
In using epithets, Karamzin takes mainly two routes. One row of epithets should highlight the internal, “psychological” side of the subject, taking into account the impression that the subject makes directly on the “heart” of the author (and, therefore, on the “heart” of the reader). The epithets of this series seem to be devoid of real content. Such epithets are a characteristic phenomenon in the system of visual means of sentimentalist writers. And the stories contain “the tops of gentle mountains”, “a kind ghost”, “sweet dreams”, the boyar Matvey has “a clean hand and a pure heart”, Natalya becomes “cloudier”. It is curious that Karamzin applies the same epithets to various objects and concepts: “Cruel! (she thought). Cruel!" - this epithet refers to Alexei, and a few lines later Karamzin calls the frost “cruel.”
Karamzin uses another series of epithets in order to revive the objects and paintings he creates, and to influence visual perception the reader, “to make the objects he describes sparkle, light up, shine. This is how he creates decorative painting.
In addition to the epithets of these types, one more type of epithets can be noted in Karamzin, which is much less common. Through this “row” of epithets, Karamzin conveys impressions perceived as if from the auditory side, when any quality, by the expression it produces, can be equated to concepts perceived by ear. “The moon descended, and a silver ring was rattled at the boyar gate.”; The ringing of silver can be clearly heard here - this is the main function of the epithet “silver”, and not to indicate what material the ring was made of.
Appeals that are characteristic of many of Karamzin’s works appear many times in “Natalya, the Boyar’s Daughter.” Their function is to give the story a more emotional character and introduce into the story an element of closer communication between the author and the readers, which obliges the reader to treat the events depicted in the work with greater confidence.
The story “Natalya, the Boyar’s Daughter,” like the rest of Karamzin’s prose, is distinguished by its great melodiousness, reminiscent of the style of poetic speech. The melodiousness of Karamzin's prose is achieved mainly by the rhythmic organization and musicality of the speech material (the presence of repetitions, inversions, exclamations, dactylic endings, etc.).
The proximity of Karamzin's prose works led to the widespread use of poetic phraseology in them. The movement of phraseological means of poetic styles into prose creates an artistic and poetic flavor of Karamzin’s prose works.
Brief description of Karamzin's main prose works.
Karamzin's main prose works are “Liodor”, “Eugene and Julia”, “Julia”, “A Knight of Our Time”, in which Karamzin depicted Russian noble life. The main goal of noble sentimentalists is to restore the trampled human dignity of the serf peasant in the eyes of society, to reveal his spiritual wealth, and to portray family and civic virtues. The same features can be found in Karamzin’s stories from peasant life - “Poor Liza” (1792) and “Frol Silin, a virtuous man” (1791). The most significant artistic expression of the writer’s interests was his story “Natalya, the Boyar’s Daughter,” the characteristics of which are given above. Sometimes Karamzin goes into completely fabulous, fabulous times in his imagination and creates fairy tales, for example, “Dense Forest” (1794) and “Bornholm Island”. The latter, containing a description of a rocky island and a medieval castle with some mysterious family tragedy in it, expresses not only the sensitive, but also the sublimely mysterious experiences of the author and therefore should be called a sentimental-romantic story.
In order to correctly restore Karamzin’s true role in the history of Russian literature, it is necessary to first dispel the existing legend about the radical transformation of all Russian literary stylistics under the pen of Karamzin; it is necessary to explore in its entirety, breadth and in all internal contradictions the development of Russian literature, its trends and its styles, in connection with the intense social struggle in Russian society of the last quarter of the 18th century and the first quarter of the 19th century.
It is impossible to consider Karamzin’s style, his literary production, the forms and types of his literary, artistic and journalistic activity statically, as a single, immediately defined system that did not know any contradictions and any movement. Karamzin's work covers more than forty years of development of Russian literature - from Radishchev to the collapse of Decembrism, from Kheraskov to the full flowering of Pushkin's genius.
Karamzin's stories belong to the best artistic achievements of Russian sentimentalism. They played a significant role in the development of Russian literature of their time. They really retained their historical interest for a long time.
Features of Karamzin's poetry.
Karamzin is known to the general reading public as a prose writer and historian, the author of “Poor Liza” and “History of the Russian State.” Meanwhile, Karamzin was also a poet who managed to say his new word in this area. In his poetic works he remains a sentimentalist, but they also reflected other aspects of Russian pre-romanticism. At the very beginning of his poetic career, Karamzin wrote the programmatic poem “Poetry” (1787). However, unlike the classic writers, Karamzin asserts not the state, but the purely personal purpose of poetry, which, in his words, “has always been the joy of innocent, pure souls.” Looking back at the history of world literature, Karamzin re-evaluates its centuries-old legacy.
Karamzin strives to expand the genre composition of Russian poetry. He owned the first Russian ballads, which would later become the leading genre in the work of the romantic Zhukovsky. The ballad “Count Guarinos” is a translation of an ancient Spanish romance about the escape of a brave knight from Moorish captivity. It was translated from German using trochaic tetrameter. This meter would later be chosen by Zhukovsky in the “romances” about Sid and Pushkin in the ballads “Once Upon a Time There Lived a Poor Knight” and “Rodrigue.” Karamzin’s second ballad, “Raisa,” is similar in content to the story “Poor Liza.” Her heroine, a girl deceived by her loved one, ends her life in the depths of the sea. In the descriptions of nature, one can feel the influence of the dark poetry of Ossean, popular at that time: “In the darkness of the night a storm raged; // A menacing ray sparkled in the sky.” The tragic denouement of the ballad and the affectation of love feelings anticipate the style of the “cruel romances of the 19th century.”
Karamzin's poetry is distinguished from the poetry of the classicists by the cult of nature. Addressing her is deeply intimate and in some cases marked with biographical features. In the poem “Volga” Karamzin was the first of the Russian poets to glorify the great Russian river. This work was created based on direct childhood impressions. The range of works dedicated to nature includes “A Prayer for Rain,” created during one of the terrible dry years, as well as the poems “To the Nightingale” and “Autumn.”
The poetry of moods is affirmed by Karamzin in the poem “Melancholy”. The poet refers in it not to a clearly expressed state of the human spirit - joy, sadness, but to its shades, “overflows”, to transitions from one feeling to another.
Karamzin's reputation as a melancholic person was firmly established. Meanwhile, sad motives are only one of the facets of his poetry. In his lyrics there was also a place for cheerful epicurean motifs, as a result of which Karamzin can already be considered one of the founders of “light poetry”. The basis of these sentiments was enlightenment, which proclaimed man’s right to pleasure given to him by nature itself. The poet’s anacreontic poems glorifying feasts include such works as “The Merry Hour,” “Resignation,” “To Lila,” and “Impermanence.”
Karamzin is a master of small forms. His only poem, “Ilya Muromets,” which he called “a heroic tale” in the subtitle, remained unfinished. Karamzin's experience cannot be considered successful. The peasant son Ilya Muromets is transformed into a gallant, sophisticated knight. And yet, the poet’s very appeal to folk art, the intention to create a national fairy-tale epic on its basis, is very indicative. The style of narration also comes from Karamzin, replete with lyrical digressions of a literary and personal nature.
Features of Karamzin's works.
Karamzin’s repulsion from classicist poetry was also reflected in the artistic originality of his works. He sought to free them from shy classic forms and bring them closer to relaxed colloquial speech. Karamzin did not write either odes or satires. His favorite genres were epistle, ballad, song, and lyrical meditation. The overwhelming majority of his poems do not have stanzas or are written in quatrains. The rhyme, as a rule, is not ordered, which gives the author’s speech a relaxed character. This is especially typical for friendly messages from I.I. Dmitriev, A.A. Pleshcheev. In many cases, Karamzin turns to rhymeless verse, which Radishchev also advocated in “The Journey.” This is how both of his ballads, the poems “Autumn”, “Cemetery”, “Song” in the story “Bornholm Island”, and many anacreontic poems were written. Without abandoning iambic tetrameter, Karamzin, along with it, often uses trochee tetrameter, which the poet considered a more national form than iambic.
Karamzin is the founder of sensitive poetry.
In poetry, Karamzin's reform was taken up by Dmitriev, and after the latter - by Arzamas poets. This is how Pushkin’s contemporaries imagined this process from a historical perspective. Karamzin is the founder of “sensitive poetry”, poetry of “heartfelt imagination”, poetry of spiritualization of nature - natural philosophy. In contrast to Derzhavin’s poetry, which is realistic in its tendencies, Karamzin’s poetry gravitates towards noble romance, despite the motifs borrowed from ancient literature and the tendencies of classicism partially preserved in the field of verse. Karamzin was the first to instill in the Russian language the form of ballads and romances and introduce complex meters. In poems, trochees were almost unknown in Russian poetry before Karamzin. The combination of dactylic stanzas with trochaic stanzas was also not used. Before Karamzin, blank verse was also rarely used, which Karamzin turned to, probably under the influence of German literature. Karamzin’s search for new dimensions and a new rhythm speaks of the same desire to embody new content.
The main character of Karamzin’s poetry, its main task is to create subjective and psychological lyrics, to capture the subtlest moods of the soul in short poetic formulas. Karamzin himself formulated the poet’s task this way: “He correctly translates everything dark in the hearts into a language that is clear to us, // Finds words for subtle feelings.” The poet’s job is to express “shades of different feelings, not thoughts to agree” (“Prometheus”).
In Karamzin's lyrics, considerable attention is paid to the feeling of nature, understood in psychological terms; the nature in it is inspired by the feelings of the person living with it, and the person himself is merged with it.
Karamzin's lyrical style predicts Zhukovsky's future romanticism. On the other hand, Karamzin used the experience of German and English literature of the 18th century in his poetry. Later, Karamzin returned to French poetry, which at that time was saturated with sentimental pre-romantic elements.
Karamzin’s interest in poetic “trifles,” witty and elegant poetic trinkets, such as “Inscriptions on the statue of Cupid,” poems for portraits, madrigals, is connected with the experience of the French. In them he tries to express the sophistication, the subtlety of relationships between people, sometimes to fit into four verses, two verses an instantaneous, fleeting mood, a flashing thought, an image. On the contrary, Karamzin’s work on updating and expanding the metrical expressiveness of Russian verse is connected with the experience of German poetry. Like Radishchev, he is dissatisfied with the “dominance” of the iambic. He himself cultivates trochee, writes in trisyllabic meters, and especially introduces blank verse, which has become widespread in Germany. The variety of sizes, freedom from the usual consonance should have contributed to the individualization of the very sound of the verse in accordance with the individual lyrical task of each poem. Karamzin’s poetic creativity also played a significant role in the development of new genres.
P.A. Vyazemsky wrote in his article about Karamzin’s poems (1867): “With him the poetry of a feeling of love for nature, gentle ebbs of thought and impressions was born, in a word, inner, soulful poetry. If in Karamzin one can notice some lack of brilliant properties of a happy poet, then he had a feeling and awareness of new poetic forms.”
Karamzin's innovation - in the expansion of poetic themes, in its boundless and tireless complication - later resonated for almost a hundred years. He was the first to introduce blank verse into use, boldly resorted to imprecise rhymes, and his poems were constantly characterized by “artistic play.”
At the center of Karamzin's poetics is harmony, which constitutes the soul of poetry. The idea of it was somewhat speculative.
Karamzin - reformer of the Russian literary language
1) Inconsistency of the theory of Lomonosov’s “three calms” with new requirements.
Karamzin's work played a big role in the further development of the Russian literary language. Creating a “new syllable”, Karamzin starts from Lomonosov’s “three calms”, from his odes and laudatory speeches. The reform of the literary language carried out by Lomonosov met the tasks of the transition period from ancient to new literature, when it was still premature to completely abandon the use of Church Slavonicisms. The theory of the “three calms” often put writers in a difficult position, since they had to use heavy, outdated Slavic expressions where in the spoken language they had already been replaced by other, softer, more elegant ones. Indeed, the evolution of the language, which began under Catherine, continued. Many foreign words came into use that did not exist in an exact translation in the Slavic language. This can be explained by the new demands of cultural, intelligent life.
Karamzin's reform.
The “Three Calms” proposed by Lomonosov were based not on lively colloquial speech, but on the witty thought of a theoretical writer. Karamzin decided to bring the literary language closer to the spoken language. Therefore, one of his main goals was the further liberation of literature from Church Slavonicisms. In the preface to the second book of the almanac “Aonida,” he wrote: “The thunder of words alone only deafens us and never reaches our hearts.”
The second feature of the “new syllable” was the simplification of syntactic structures. Karamzin abandoned lengthy periods. In the “Pantheon of Russian Writers,” he decisively declared: “Lomonosov’s prose cannot serve as a model for us at all: his long periods are tiresome, the arrangement of words is not always consistent with the flow of thoughts.” Unlike Lomonosov, Karamzin strove to write in short, easily understandable sentences.
Karamzin’s third merit was the enrichment of the Russian language with a number of successful neologisms, which became firmly established in the main vocabulary. “Karamzin,” wrote Belinsky, “introduced Russian literature into the sphere of new ideas, and the transformation of language was already a necessary consequence of this.” Among the innovations proposed by Karamzin are such widely known words in our time as “industry”, “development”, “sophistication”, “concentrate”, “touching”, “entertainment”, “humanity”, “public”, “ generally useful”, “influence” and a number of others. When creating neologisms, Karamzin used mainly the method of tracing French words: “interesting” from “interessant”, “refined” from “raffine”, “development” from “developpement”, “touching” from “touchant”.
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