 |
Подготовьте для чтения и перевода текст объемом 10 тыс. печатных знаков.
|
|
|
|
About F. Dostoevsky's novel "Demons"
The conceptual and artistic idea of the "Besov" demanded such a depiction of a single event so that it reflected the main trends in the development of modern society, revealed the links between the present and the past and the future, and the subtle transitions of high to low would appear.
Dostoevsky emphasized that in his work there are no real "portraits or literal reproduction of non-Chaevist history." It was important for him to create a type of pseudorevolutionary who could not at all resemble the real Nechaev, but who had to fully correspond to the perfect evil deed.
In the image of Peter Verkhovensky and his accomplices, in their thoughts and actions, the true appearance and real motives of the behavior of imaginary fighters for the fair reorganization of society are manifested in a concentrated and convex way.
Dostoevsky shows how a boomerang can turn and turn into a nihilistic desire to destroy the very social forms and institutions through which these values, ideals, and traditions were passed on from century to century, from generation to generation.
Militant unbelief, lack of a family hearth and the main occupation, superficial education, ignorance of the people and their history — these and similar spiritual and psychological prerequisites form “a mind without soil and without connections — without a nation and without the necessary work”, have a corrupting effect on the soul.
As a result, the main character of the novel “Demons”, Peter Verkhovensky, was unable to understand the noble and “idealistic” dimensions of life, but with his “little mind” he learned well how to use the weaknesses of human nature (sentimentality, honoring, fear of personal opinion and original thinking).).
People for Peter Verkhovensky - a kind of "material that must be organized" for some indistinct progress.
Serving humanity in theory, which are engaged in the novel and "imp", in fact turns into spiritual and physical destruction. At the heart of such a ministry is a scornful division of people into eligible "geniuses" and a disenfranchised "crowd."
For example, Shigalev proposes "in the form of the final resolution of the issue - the division of humanity into two unequal parts. One-tenth share gains individual freedom and unlimited right over the remaining nine-tenths. The same must lose personality and turn like a herd and with unlimited obedience primitive innocence, like a primitive paradise, though they will work, by the way... ".
Lyamshin would like to somewhat transform Shigalev's methodical despotism in order to speed up the final resolution of the question: "Instead of paradise... I would take these nine-tenths of humanity, if I have nowhere to go with them, and blew them into the air, but would leave only a handful educated people who would begin to live and live like a scientist... "
|
|
|
The worst thing is that these ideas are obsessed not only with the theorists, the so-called ideologists of "scholarly" and "progressive" life. The "muddy" influence of this principle of "universal destruction for good final goals" is experienced by those who fear lagging behind fashion and pass for other characters of the novel by retrogrades.
Father of the main "demon" Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky asks a question:
"Why are all these desperate socialists and communists at the same time such incredible misers, acquirers, proprietors, and even so that the more he is a socialist, the farther he goes, the stronger the proprietor. Why is that?"
The fact is that Verkhovensky Sr. does not understand the laws by which the humanistic ideas he professed are reduced, changed and reborn.
"You cannot imagine what sadness and anger embrace your whole soul, when a great idea, you have long and holyly honored, taken by the inept and pulled to the same fools, like yourself, on the street, and you suddenly meet it on pushy, unrecognizable, in the mud, put ridiculously, angle, without proportion, without harmony, a toy for stupid guys! No! In our time it was not so, and we did not strive for that. "
Stepan Timofeevich himself most vividly expresses in the novel the collective features of Russian Westernizers and typifies the characteristics of the worldview, mentality and psychological disposition of the "liberal-idealists" of the 1840s.
External and internal appearance, thoughts, feelings, desires of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky are characterized, on the one hand, by elevation, generosity, “something beautiful in general”, and on the other - some kind of slurredness, incoherency, half-heartedness. He is a brilliant lecturer, but on historical topics abstract from life, the author of the poem "with a touch of higher meaning," which, however, walked only "between two lovers and one student." Verkhovensky Sr. was going to enrich science with some research, but the good intentions of an intelligent and gifted scientist went, as they say, into the sand of semi-science.
For Verkhovensky-father, his native country "is too great a misunderstanding to be resolved, without the Germans and labor."
According to Dostoevsky, misunderstanding of Russia, its historical achievements and spiritual values, unconditional imitation of the West without analyzing all the consequences (not only positive, but negative) resulting from this, created favorable conditions for borrowing "short" and vague ideas, and for subsequent reduction.
At the end of the novel, the ironic illumination of the image of Verkhovensky Sr. is complemented by dramatic intonations, when he enters the “last wandering”, realizes the tragic isolation of his generation from the people and his spiritual values, seeks to penetrate the innermost path of the Gospel. In the very possibility of such a "journey" the writer sees a pledge of a true revival of his hero, entrusts him with the author's interpretation of the novel's epigraph, puts into his mouth the thought of the apostolic message of love as a powerful force and "crown of being."
Thus, Dostoevsky suggests such a way out of the indefinite generosity of the "pure and perfect" westernism of the "fathers", although in reality the "supremacy" was on the side of the trends of the "unclean" nihilism of the "children." By the way, the very name of the heroes carries a very definite meaning in the work. In the notebook, the author notes that the father is constantly "swooping down with the son of supremacy."
|
|
|
In one of the letters, Dostoevsky emphasized that although the Nechaev's story and its generalized pamphlet image are in the foreground of the novel, all this is nevertheless “only an accessory and decor” of the acts of the main character.
In the writer's view, the frenzied nihilist, his “team” and “fans” not only gain a nutrient medium in unfocused ideas and incomplete theories, but also find support and justification in the depths of the consciousness of the so-called “extra” people, idle.
Truly "superior" in "demons" - Nikolay Stavrogin. This is a kind of ultimate, pointed and polemical expression of the Onegin-Pechorin type of personality.
Dostoevsky considered the main destructive consequence of the rupture of the upper stratum of society with the “soil” and the “land” to be the loss of living ties with traditions and traditions that preserve the atmosphere of the immediate Christian faith. The image of Stavrogin as if thickens and exposes the results of the situation of the modern world in which, if we use the famous words of Nietzsche, "God is dead." According to Dostoevsky, Stavrogin is making "painful convulsive efforts to renew himself and start believing again."
Stavrogin's heart is withered and makes him incapable of sincere faith. At the same time, he perfectly understands that without the “fullness of faith” and, accordingly, absolute understanding, human existence takes on a comic connotation and loses its true rationality. Therefore, Stavrogin is trying to get faith "otherwise", with his mind, rational way. But this "self-moving knife of the mind" (I. Kireevsky) takes him further away from the desired goal.
As a result, Stavrogin turned out to be crucified (his very name comes from the Greek word σταυρός - cross) between the immense thirst for the absolute and the equally immeasurable impossibility of its achievement.
Dostoevsky admitted that he took Stavrogin not only from the surrounding reality, but also from his own heart, because his faith had passed through the crucible of cruel doubts and denials.
Unlike its creator, Stavrogin, however, turned out to be organically incapable of overcoming the tragic duality and gaining at least some filling emptiness of the soul “the fullness of faith”.
In the Writer's Diary, Dostoevsky wrote that without faith in the immortality of the soul and eternal life, the being of a person, a nation, the whole of humanity becomes unnatural, unthinkable, intolerable: "only with faith in his immortality does a person comprehend his entire rational goal on earth. Without beliefs in their immortality of a person's connection with the earth break, become thinner, more rotten, and the loss of the higher meaning of life undoubtedly leads to suicide. "
Dostoevsky shows that the “fire in the minds” captivates, following the “meanest people”, not only any “scum”, “filibusters” and “buffet personalities”. With deep regret, he discovers that in times of upheaval and change, doubt and denial, innocent, pure-hearted people are also involved in atrocious social atrocities. "That's the horror that we can do the most dirty and disgusting act, without being at all sometimes a bastard!.."
The absence of a fundamental spiritual and moral core and a truly great beginning of life determines, according to the author’s logic, the formation of an incomplete, incomplete, incomplete person capable of ambiguous actions.
|
|
|
Without perfect personalities, there can be no perfect society.
And Verkhovensky-the father in the next bewilderment asks his son: "Surely you want to offer yourself such as you are, instead of Christ, to people?"
The author considered the question of Stepan Timofeevich as the main problem, on the solution of which the future of Russia and all mankind depends and which in its own way is put in the epilogue. The series of large and small catastrophes in the last part of the work ends with Stavrogin’s cold-rational suicide, which coagulates the novel’s artistic perspective into a hopeless apocalyptic circle.
But it was precisely in the loss of age-old ideals, great thoughts, in the absence of higher consciousness, higher development, higher meaning, higher life goals, and the disappearance of “higher types” around Dostoevsky saw the roots and the main cause of the spiritual diseases of his age. "Why are we rubbish?" - He asked and answered: "There is nothing great." And not by education, not by external culture and secular gloss, not by scientific and technical achievements, but only by “stirring up higher interests”, one can rebuild the deep structure of egoistic thinking.
In the writer's view, the choice of the path of all mankind is associated with spiritual beautification, an increase in light and love in the soul of an individual. The creative experience of "The Devils" teaches us, everywhere and in everything, to look for a moral center, a scale of values that guide the thoughts and actions of people to determine which, dark or bright, sides of the human soul are based on various phenomena of life. Speaking about his work and the dramatic quest for modern youth, Dostoevsky emphasized:
“To sacrifice with oneself and for all the truth is the national trait of a generation. God bless him and send him an understanding of the truth. For the whole question is what is to be considered the truth. That is why the novel was written.”
Перевод:
|
|
|
