The nobility in Turgenev's depiction of fathers and sons. The image of a Russian noble estate in Turgenev's novel The Noble Nest. Pavel Petrovich is a man with “principles”

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was born into a noble noble family. He knew this class from the inside, which is why he wrote about it so often. His mother came from a wealthy landowner family, and his father from an old noble family. The future writer spent his childhood on his parents' estate Spassky-Lutovinovo. Here he first encountered the cruelty and arbitrariness of serfdom.

His mother was cruel with her peasants and often punished them with flogging for the most insignificant offenses. Even then, the future writer developed a hatred of serfdom, which he carried throughout his life. And it was she who pushed him to create such masterpieces of Russian literature as “Mumu”, “First Love”, “Notes of a Hunter” and “Fathers and Sons”. One of the leading themes of the latter is the confrontation between two political views: revolutionary democrats, ideologists of the peasant masses and the liberal nobility, which arose with the need to reform serfdom.

The novel takes place in the spring of 1859. Serfdom has not yet been formally abolished. But all of Russia lives in anticipation of imminent changes in the fate of the country and the entire people. And during the preparation of the reform, two opposing positions of liberal nobles and revolutionary democrats were formed. The former had high hopes for the reform, advocated a softening of the political regime and pinned their hopes on the new emperor, while the latter believed that not reforms were needed, but radical changes. In the novel, the writer contrasted, on the one hand, the liberal nobles - the Kirsanov brothers, and on the other hand, the nihilist Bazarov, who helps the reader see the other side of the nobility. The novel exhibits a critical attitude towards this layer. Reading the novel, you really understand that Russia needs changes that will be associated with abandoning the traditions that the older generation so defends. Their views, whatever one may say, are turned to the past, which means that this entire social stratum cannot be absolutely wealthy and cannot act as an “advanced class.” Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov is one of the representatives of the nobility. His views mixed Westernism and Slavophilism. He considers the nobility to be the force that preserves the norms and traditions of Russian society, that it is the basis. Pavel Petrovich sees in aristocrats a highly developed sense of self-worth and self-respect, and finds this very important, because society is built on the individual. But this opinion is opposed by Bazarov’s opinion. He claims that the nobles are slackers and can only talk without doing anything; they are simply of no use. “You respect yourself and sit back; What good is this for the bien public? You wouldn’t respect yourself and do the same thing.” One might even say that nobles are despised by a nihilist. “Aristocracy, liberalism, progress, principles,” he said meanwhile

Bazarov, just think, how many foreign... and useless words there are! Russian people don’t need them for nothing.”

What to do? The writer does not give an answer. The nobility is dead from the inside, incapable of action and change. It is frozen with its traditions and “principles”. But the younger generation with new views and revolutionary ideas cannot fully establish themselves. Both of these worldviews have no chance of success in their pure form. Therefore, we can assume that the author sees a solution in their merger.

Updated: 2018-01-16

Attention!
If you notice an error or typo, highlight the text and click Ctrl+Enter.
By doing so, you will provide invaluable benefit to the project and other readers.

Thank you for your attention.

Russian nobility in the novel “Fathers and Sons and Children.”

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was a great playwright, an amazing publicist and a magnificent prose writer. He wrote one of his best works, the novel “Fathers and Sons,” in 1860-1861, that is, during the period of the peasant reform. A fierce struggle divided Russian society into 2 irreconcilable camps: on one side were the democrat-revolutionaries, who believed that Russia needed a radical change in the state structure, on the other, conservatives and liberals, according to whom, the foundations of Russian life should have remained unchanged: landowners - with their land holdings, peasants are more or less dependent on their masters. The novel reflects the ideological struggle between the liberal nobility and revolutionary democracy, and the author sympathizes with the latter. “My whole story is directed against the nobility, as an advanced class,” wrote I.S. Turgenev in a letter to K. Sluchevsky. The characteristic types of nobles of this period are represented in the Kirsanov family. “Look at the faces of Nikolai Petrovich, Pavel Petrovich, Arkady. Weakness and lethargy or limitation. An aesthetic feeling forced me to take specifically good representatives of the nobility in order to prove my theme all the more accurately: if cream is bad, what about milk? The author chooses far from the worst representatives of conservatism and liberalism in order to emphasize even more clearly that the discussion will then be about the fight not against bad people, but against outdated social views and phenomena.

Pavel Petrovich is an intelligent and strong-willed person who has certain personal merits: he is honest, noble in his own way, faithful to the beliefs he acquired in his youth. But at the same time, Pavel Kirsanov does not accept what is happening in the life around him. The strong principles that this man adheres to are in conflict with life: they are dead. Pavel Petrovich calls himself a man “who loves progress,” but by this word he means admiration for everything English. Having gone abroad, he “gets to know the British more”, does not read anything Russian, although on his table there is a silver ashtray in the shape of a bast shoe, which actually exhausts his “connection with the people.” This man has everything in the past, he has not yet aged, but he already takes for granted his death during his lifetime...

Outwardly, his brother is directly opposite to Pavel Petrovich. He is kind, gentle, sentimental. Unlike the idle Pavel, Nikolai tries to do housework, but in doing so he shows complete helplessness. His “economy creaked like an ungreased wheel, crackled like homemade furniture from damp wood.” Nikolai Petrovich cannot understand the reason for his failures. He also does not understand why Bazarov called him a “retired man.” “It seems,” he tells his brother, “I’m doing everything to keep up with the times: I’ve organized peasants, started a farm... I read, I study, in general I’m trying to keep up with modern requirements,” but they say that my song is finished. Why, brother, I myself am beginning to think that it is definitely sung.”

Despite all the efforts of Nikolai Petrovich to be modern, his entire figure gives the reader a feeling of something outdated. This is facilitated by the author’s description of his appearance: “chubby; sits with his legs tucked under him.” His good-natured patriarchal appearance sharply contrasts with the picture of peasant poverty: “... the peasants were met, all shabby, on bad nags...”

The Kirsanov brothers are people of a completely established type. Life has passed them by, and they are unable to change anything; they obediently, albeit with helpless despair, submit to the will of circumstances.

Arkady poses as a follower of Bazarov, whom he revered at the university. But in fact, he is only an imitator, that is, he is not an independent person. This is emphasized many times in the novel. The ostentatious desire to keep up with the times forces him to repeat Bazarov’s thoughts that are completely alien to him; the feelings and views of his father and uncle are much closer to him. On his native estate, Arkady gradually moves away from Evgeniy. Meeting Katya Lokteva finally alienates the two friends. Subsequently, the younger Kirsanov becomes a more practical master than his father, but his master's well-being means spiritual death.

The nobles Kirsanov are opposed by the nihilist Evgeniy Bazarov. He is the force that can break the old life. By exposing social antagonism in Bazarov's disputes with Pavel Petrovich, Turgenev shows that relations between generations here are wider and more complex than the confrontation of social groups. In the verbal battle between Kirsanov and Bazarov, the inconsistency of the noble foundations is exposed, but there is a certain correctness in the position of the “fathers” who defend their views in disputes with young people.

Pavel Petrovich is wrong when he clings to his class privileges, to his speculative idea of people's life. But perhaps he is right in defending what should remain immutable in human society. Bazarov does not notice that Pavel Petrovich’s conservatism is not always and not in everything self-interested, that in his discussions about the house, about the principles born of a certain cultural and historical experience, there is some truth. In disputes, everyone resorts to using “opposite platitudes.” Kirsanov talks about the need to follow authorities and believe in them, insists on the need to follow principles, but Bazarov rejects all this. There is a lot of caustic truth in Bazarov’s ridicule of noble forms of progress. It’s funny when noble claims to progressiveness are limited to the acquisition of English washstands. Pavel Petrovich argues that life with its ready-made, historically established forms can be smarter than any person, more powerful than an individual, but this trust needs to be tested for compliance with an ever-renewing life. The emphatically aristocratic manners of Pavel Kirsanov are caused rather by internal weakness, a secret consciousness of his inferiority. The efforts of the Kirsanov father and son, trying to prevent the escalating conflict, only increase the drama of the situation.

Using the example of several bright characters, Turgenev managed to describe the entire noble world and show its problem of that time. In the middle of the 19th century, it stood at a crossroads, not knowing how to develop further, and Ivan Sergeevich very colorfully described this state.

“Fathers and Sons” is one of the best novels by I. S. Turgenev. In this work, the writer brought to the stage a new man of the era, the “Russian Insarov.” This is the main character of the novel, Yevgeny Bazarov, a commoner and a democrat by conviction.

Bazarov is contrasted with all the other characters, and above all the Kirsanov family. In the images of the Kirsanovs, the author truthfully depicted the life and customs of the Russian nobility.

An introduction to the life of the Kirsanovs begins with a description of Nikolai Petrovich’s estate. Villages with low huts, collapsing roofs, ruined cemeteries, rickety churches. Men in rags, looking like beggars, pitiful, stunted trees complete the picture of the decline of Maryino, where Nikolai Kirsanov and his brother Pavel live.

External signs only serve as confirmation of internal troubles. The owner of the estate, Nikolai Petrovich, is trying to keep up with the times, making changes in the farm, but he himself feels that his labors are in vain. He starts a farm, is proud that he is “called red in the province,” but cannot find a common language with the peasants. Nikolai Petrovich complains to his son Arkady: “It’s impossible to fight on your own, sending for the police officer is not allowed by principles, and without fear of punishment nothing can be done!”

A gentle and kind person by nature, Nikolai Petrovich is trying to reconcile the old with the new both in himself and in those around him. He tries to smooth out the contradictions between his brother and Bazarov; he does not know how to behave in a conversation with his son. But Nikolai Petrovich himself feels that he is “a retired man, his song is finished.” It pains him to realize this, he does not want to believe that Bazarov’s words are right, but he says to Pavel Petrovich: “It seems to me that they are further from the truth than we are, but at the same time I feel that behind them there is something that we We don’t have any advantage over us..."

Nikolai Petrovich is afraid to admit that he is a man of the past, but all his actions prove that he cannot keep up with the times. This simple Russian gentleman evokes a smile and a feeling of pity. Nikolai Petrovich’s attitude towards Fenechka, his love for music and literature confirm the kindness of this man, who is in many ways close and understandable to Turgenev.

His brother Pavel differs sharply from Nikolai Petrovich. He has no doubt that he lives with correct ideas about people and events. Pavel Petrovich considers himself an aristocrat and puts the rights of the nobility at the forefront. He lives in the village with his brother, but retains all his aristocratic habits.

Pavel Petrovich dresses in the English manner and reads only English newspapers. A sleek face, hands with “long pink nails,” and a fragrant mustache set him apart from the other heroes of the novel. Already from the first description of Pavel Petrovich it is clear that he is a gentleman who knows his worth. The impression created by appearance is strengthened after the story about the life of Pavel Petrovich in Maryino. He inspires fear in the servants and Fenechka. The man, according to Bazarov, does not see his “compatriot” in Pavel Petrovich, because he “doesn’t even know how to talk to him.”

Zealously protecting his life from external invasion, Pavel Petrovich immediately saw an enemy in Bazarov. Already when meeting with the “nihilist,” he does not shake hands with him, and then asks his brother: “Who is this?” Pavel Petrovich feels what opinion Bazarov has about him. This irritates the “district aristocrat.” Politeness betrays him; in disputes he becomes harsh and rude. Trying to defend my principles. Pavel Petrovich is constantly defeated. His “principles are crumbling under the influence of Bazarov’s words. Having failed to defeat Evgeny in an argument, Pavel Petrovich began to hate him even more.

The apotheosis of the clash of heroes is a duel, for which Pavel Petrovich chooses an insignificant reason and tries to hide the true reason. The duel shows the complete inconsistency of Pavel Petrovich’s noble “principles”. This honest, well-mannered man is a thing of the past. Turgenev, speaking about Pavel Petrovich lying in bed after a duel, writes: “...His beautiful, emaciated head lay on a white pillow, like the head of a dead man... Yes, he was a dead man.” I immediately remember the words of Bazarov, who calls it an “archaic phenomenon.” And if Nikolai Petrovich evokes a kind smile with a tinge of sadness, then his brother is worthy only of pity.

Pavel Petrovich's soul has long been devastated, he has no future, but only the past. You understand this especially acutely when reading the epilogue of the novel. Pavel Petrovich lives in Dresden, he is as respectable as before, neat and noble, does not read anything Russian. But “life is hard for him... harder than he himself suspects.” Bitterly gritting his teeth, Pavel Petrovich stands motionless in the Russian church, thoughtfully, “then he suddenly comes to his senses” and begins to pray. Only the Russian church in the center of Germany and an ashtray in the shape of a peasant's bast shoe remained with this man.

But the fate of Nikolai Petrovich is by no means cloudless. His views and the activities of the world mediator “do not completely satisfy either the educated or the uneducated nobles.” Nikolai Kirsanov also cannot get into the mainstream of fast-paced life.

The fate of the Kirsanov brothers is a reflection of the life of the Russian nobility of the post-reform era. I. S. Turgenev masterfully depicted the process of gradual destruction of the “nests of the nobility” and the death of the patriarchal way of life. A new, young force invaded the environment dear to the writer’s heart.

Original document?

Introduction 3

Chapter 1. The image of a Russian estate as a literary heritage of the 18th-20th centuries 6

Conclusion 28

Introduction

“The Russian estate, its culture, paradoxically, remains a poorly understood and poorly interpreted area of Russian history,” notes a study on the history of estates. The idea of a Russian estate will not be complete if one does not define its poetic image, which developed in Russian poetry at the time of the creation and heyday of estate construction, that is, at the end of the 18th - the first third of the 19th centuries.

The relevance of the study is due, first of all, to the increased interest of modern humanities in the heritage of Russian estate culture, recognition of the need for its comprehensive study, in particular, the study of the multidimensional influence of estate life on literature and art. Significant in this context is the figure of I. S. Turgenev as the creator of the pinnacle examples of Russian estate prose.

The appearance of the image of a noble estate in fiction was a consequence of Catherine II’s decree (“Charter Granted to the Nobility,” 1785) on the exemption of the nobility from military service, after which the role and significance of noble estate life in Russian culture began to strengthen. At the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries, the noble estate experienced its heyday, after which its gradual decline began, until 1917.

During the first half of the 19th century, the noble estate was included in works of art, mainly as a human habitat, a certain way of life characterizing the owner of the estate (nobleman), his moral and spiritual foundations, way of life and culture, although already during this period the process began symbolizing the image of a noble estate, which, in particular, finds expression in the works of A.S. Pushkin.

In the second half of the 19th century, when the crisis of this way of life became most noticeable, the noble estate declared itself as a special cultural phenomenon, which they began to actively study, describe, and strive to preserve. In the 80-90s of the 19th century, people began to talk about estates as cultural monuments; from 1909 to 1915, the Society for the Protection and Preservation of Monuments of Art and Antiquities in Russia operated in St. Petersburg.

In the fiction of the second half of the 19th century, estate masterpieces by S.T. Aksakov, I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov, and L.N. Tolstoy were created. The concept of a family noble nest, introduced into culture by the Slavophiles (Shchukin, 1994, p. 41), is gaining more and more strength and significance and by the end of the 19th century is perceived as one of the central symbols of Russian culture.

At the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries, writers of various views, belonging to different literary movements and associations, paid increased attention to the image of a noble estate. Among them we can name the names of such literary artists as A.P. Chekhov, I.A. Bunin, B.K. Zaitsev, A.N. Tolstoy, M.A. Kuzmin, N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky, A. Bely, F.K. Sologub, G.I. Chulkov, S.N. Sergeev-Tsensky, B.A. Sadovskoy, S.A. Auslender, P.S. Romanov, S.M. Gorodetsky and many others. As a result, a huge layer of fiction was created, in which the image of a noble estate received detailed development and multifaceted coverage.

The relevance of the study is also due to the active growth of interest in the lost values of national culture and attempts to revive them. Appeal to the image of a noble estate is necessary, in our opinion, to solve the problem of self-identification of Russian culture.

Comprehension of the image of a noble estate as one of the fundamental symbols of Russia is a way of national self-knowledge and self-preservation and represents the possibility of restoring a vast complex of moral and aesthetic norms, largely lost in the vicissitudes of recent centuries.

The object is images of a noble estate in the novel by I.S. Turgenev - “The Noble Nest”. The subject of the course work is the noble estate as a phenomenon of the Russian literary process XVIII century. Prose and poetic works of other writers and poets are also used as material for comparative analysis.

The purpose of the course work is to examine the image of a noble estate as one of the central symbols of Russian culture, in I. S. Turgenev’s novel “The Noble Nest.” Achieving this goal involves solving the following tasks:

Identify and describe the general system of universals in which the image of the Russian noble estate in I. S. Turgenev’s novel “The Noble Nest” is interpreted and evaluated;

To create a typology of the image of a noble estate in the fiction of the designated period, revealing the main trends of artistic comprehension;

Analyze the features of the artistic depiction of a noble estate by I.S. Turgenev.

The methodological basis of the work is an integrated approach to the study of literary heritage, focused on a combination of several methods of literary analysis: historical-typological, cultural-contextual, structural-semiotic, mythopoetic.

The solution to the research problems formulated above led to an appeal to the works of M.M. Bakhtin, V.A. Keldysh, B.O. Korman, D.S. Likhachev, A.F. Losev, Yu.M. Lotman, E.M. Meletinsky , V.N. Toporova, V.I. Tyupa. The theoretical categories used in the course work (artistic image, artistic world, mode of artistry, chronotope, symbol, myth) are interpreted by us according to the developments of the named scientists.

Chapter 1. The image of a Russian estate as a literary heritage XVIII- XXcenturies

The noble estate in pre-revolutionary and modern science has been and is being studied to a greater extent from a historical and cultural perspective. Since the 70s of the 19th century, as G. Zlochevsky notes, guidebooks to Moscow have appeared, which necessarily include a section on estates (for example, guidebooks by N.K. Kondratiev “The Hoary Antiquity of Moscow” (1893), S.M. Lyubetsky “ Neighborhoods of Moscow. "(2nd ed., 1880)". From 1913 to 1917, the magazine “Capital and Estate” was published (the title of this magazine already reflected the contrast between the estate and capital worlds in Russian culture); publications about estates are also published in a number of other magazines. Monographs devoted to the history and architecture of individual estates also appeared before the revolution. In particular, in 1912 the book of the book was published. M.M. Golitsyn about the Petrovskoye estate, Zvenigorod district, Moscow province (“Russian estates. Issue 2. Petrovskoye”), in 1916 - the work of P.S. Sheremetev “Vyazemy”. Memoirs of individual representatives of the nobility, as well as collections including memoirs of a number of authors, are published. So in 1911, edited by N.N. Rusov, the book “Landlord Russia according to the Notes of Contemporaries” was published, which collected memoirs of representatives of the nobility of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. But in pre-revolutionary science, according to G. Zlochevsky, a comprehensive study of estate culture was not carried out; publications about estates were mainly of a descriptive nature; the authors of articles and monographs acted more as historians and chroniclers (Zlochevsky, 1993, p. 85).

During the Soviet period, the study of the noble estate practically ceased, or was carried out from an ideological standpoint. In 1926, for example, E.S. Kots’ book “The Serf Intelligentsia” was published, in which local life is presented from a negative side (in particular, the author examines in detail the issue of serf harems). Memoirs written in Soviet times become available to readers, as a rule, only after many years. So, for example, in 2000, the memoirs of L.D. Dukhovskaya (nee Voyekova) were published, the author of which is trying to rehabilitate the estate culture in the eyes of his contemporaries: “I still saw the life of the last “Noble Nests” and in my notes about them I am looking for justification for them and yourself. . . ." (Dukhovskaya, 2000, p. 345).

An active revival of interest in the noble estate began in the last decade of the 20th century. There are many historical and cultural works devoted to the study of life, culture, architecture, and the history of noble estates. Among them, one should name the work of Yu.M. Lotman “Conversations about Russian culture. Life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII - early XIX centuries)" (St. Petersburg, 1997), as well as collections of the Society for the Study of Russian Estates, which include the works of many researchers (G.Yu. Sternin, O.S. Evangulova, T. P. Kazhdan, M. V. Nashchokina, L. P. Sokolova, L. V. Rasskazova, E. N. Savinova, V. I. Novikova, A. A. Shmeleva, A. V. Razina, E. G. Safonov, M.Yu. Korobki, T.N. Golovin and others). It is also necessary to note the fundamental collective work “Noble and merchant rural estates in Russia in the 16th - 20th centuries.” (M., 2001); collections “The World of the Russian Estate” (M., 1995) and “Noble Nests of Russia. History, culture, architecture" (Moscow, 2000); works by L.V. Ershova (Ershova, 1998), V. Kuchenkova (Kuchenkova, 2001), E.M. Lazareva (Lazareva, 1999), S.D. Okhlyabinin (Okhlyabinin, 2006), E.V. Lavrentieva (Lavrentieva , 2006).

The image of a noble estate in Russian literature of the 18th - 20th centuries receives a broader and more multifaceted coverage in the book by E.E. Dmitrieva and O.N. Kuptsova “The Life of an Estate Myth: Paradise Lost and Found” (M., 2003). The authors turn to a huge number of literary sources, including few or completely unknown ones. However, this work is more art criticism than literary criticism. Works of fiction are often used as illustrative material for cultural aspects, showing how a real estate influenced Russian literature, or, conversely, how literature shaped “manor life, and the real estate space, and the very way of living in the estate” (Dmitrieva, Kuptsova, 2003, p. 5).

A comprehensive literary study of the image of a noble estate in prose at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries as a phenomenon of the Russian literary process has not yet been created.

The image of a noble estate was most fully studied in Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century, in the works of S.T. Aksakov, I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov, L.N. Tolstoy (see, for example, the works of V.M. Markovich “I.S. Turgenev and the Russian realistic novel of the 19th century” (L., 1982), V.G. Shchukin “The Myth of the Noble Nest. Geocultural research on Russian classical literature” (Krakow, 1997); The image of a noble estate in the works of S.T. Aksakov, I.S. Turgenev and L.N. Tolstoy" (Magnitogorsk, 1991); G.N. Popova's "The World of the Russian Province in the Novels of I.A. Goncharov" (Elets, 2002); )).

In Russian prose of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, the image of a noble estate is considered based on the material of the works of a limited circle of authors. Thus, critics of the early 20th century focused on the depiction of local life in the works of I.A. Bunin and A.N. Tolstoy, as well as A.V. Amfiteatrov and S.N. Sergeev-Tsensky. However, in the critical works of the early 20th century there is no consideration of the image of the noble estate as a phenomenon of Russian culture in the literature of a certain period as a whole. Critics such as K. Chukovsky (Chukovsky, 1914, p. 73-88), V. Lvov-Rogachevsky (Lvov-Rogachevsky, 1911, p. 240-265), G. Chulkov (Chulkov, 1998, p. 392- 395), N. Korobka (Korobka, 1912, p. 1263-1268), E. Koltonovskaya (Koltonovskaya, 1916, p. 70-84), V. Cheshikhin-Vetrinsky (Cheshikhin-Vetrinsky, 1915, p. 70-84 ), E. Lundberg (Lundberg, 1914, p. 51), A. Gvozdev (Gvozdev, 1915, p. 241-242), characterizing the image of local life in the works of the above-mentioned writers, limit themselves to one or two phrases, only mentioning conversion authors to the depiction of local life. So, for example, G. Chulkov, analyzing I. A. Bunin’s story “New Year,” speaks of the miraculous power of the estate, awakening a feeling of love in the characters (Chulkov, 1998, p. 394). V. Cheshikhin-Vetrinsky, considering such works of A.N. Tolstoy as “The Lame Master” and “Ravines,” emphasize the “warm, sincere attitude of the author” towards the provincial noble life and “the people of this life” (Cheshikhin-Vetrinsky, 1915, p.438). E. Koltonovskaya writes about the writer’s attempt in the “Trans-Volga” cycle to “look into the elemental depths of the Russian man, his nature, his soul” through the depiction of the local nobility (Koltonovskaya, 1916, p. 72).

Having been noticed in the works of I.A. Bunin, A.N. Tolstoy, A.V. Amfitheatrov and S.N. Sergeev-Tsensky, but not having received sufficient development here, the image of a noble estate in the works of other writers we are considering at the end of the 19th century - the beginning of the 20th century was completely unstudied by criticism of the “Silver Age”.

In modern literary scholarship, the image of a noble estate in the works of many authors at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries still remains unstudied. Scientists such as N.V. Barkovskaya (Barkovskaya, 1996), L.A. Kolobaeva (Kolobaeva, 1990), Yu.V. Maltsev (Maltsev, 1994), M.V. Mikhailova (Mikhailova, 2004), O. V. Slivitskaya (Slivitskaya, 2004), R.S. Spivak (Spivak, 1997), turn to the image of a noble estate in the works of I.A. Bunin, A. Bely, F.K. Sologub, I.A. Novikov. But in the works of these scientists, the image of a noble estate is not the object of a special, detailed analysis.

Literary scholarship identifies the reasons for the destruction and decline of the noble estate in the works of I.A. Bunin, notes the dialectical nature of Bunin’s concept of the estate, as well as the idealization of estate life in the emigrant work of the writer.

L.V. Ershova in the article “Images-symbols of the estate world in the prose of I.A. Bunin” speaks about the writer’s ambivalent attitude towards the world of the noble estate and divides the symbols in the works of I.A. Bunin into two rows: negative, “reflecting desolation and the death of the former “golden mine” of the Russian province,” and positive, “associated with deep and sincere nostalgia, with memory, which tends to idealize the past, elevate and romanticize it” (Ershova, 2002, p. 105). In the emigrant period, from the researcher’s point of view, the positive and negative rows of images-symbols opposed to each other come to a dialectical unity - “the estate culture is presented in them as part of all-Russian history” (Ershova, 2002, p. 107). In the article “Bunin's Lyrics and Russian Estate Culture” by L.V. Ershova, the simultaneous depiction of the decline of the noble estate and its poeticization in the poetry of I.A. Bunin is noted. As the researcher writes, the antithesis “estate-capital” is reflected in I.A. Bunin’s lyrics; The imagery system external to the estate contrasts with the artist’s warmth of the house, which is a protection and talisman for the lyrical hero.

A different point of view on the image of a house by I.A. Bunin is presented in the work of G.A. Golotina. Considering the theme of the house in the lyrics of I.A. Bunin, the author talks about the doom of the family nest to destruction and death and believes that if in the early poems the house is a reliable protection in all the vicissitudes of life, then from the beginning of the 1890s the house is with I. A. Bunina was never a prosperous family nest.

N.V. Zaitseva traces the evolution of the image of a noble estate in I. A. Bunin’s prose of the 1890s - early 1910s, and concludes that the estate in the writer’s works is small-scale.

In the prose of A.N. Tolstoy, the image of a noble estate is considered in the works of L.V. Ershova (Ershova, 1998), N.S. Avilova (Avilova, 2001), U.K. Abisheva (Abisheva, 2002). But the range of the writer’s works that these researchers turn to is limited (“Nikita’s Childhood”, “The Dreamer (Haggai Korovin)”). Many aspects of the artistic depiction of a noble estate in the works of A.N. Tolstoy remain unstudied.

L.V. Ershova in her article “The World of the Russian Estate in the Artistic Interpretation of the Writers of the First Wave of Russian Emigration” notes a strong tendency to idealize the image of the noble estate in A.N. Tolstoy’s “The Childhood of Nikita”, which is explained, according to the researcher, by the depiction of the world of childhood in the work . N.S. Avilova writes about the contrast in “Nikita’s Childhood” with the image of the estate as reliable security and protection of the heroes with the image of the surrounding steppe. U.K. Abisheva in the article “Artistic reception of Russian estate prose in the story “The Dreamer (Haggai Korovin)” by A. Tolstoy” reveals the traditional and innovative in Tolstoy’s understanding of estate life.

In Russian prose of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, there were three concepts of the noble estate: idealizing, critical, dialectical, which together recorded the dynamics of the historical process in the Russian public consciousness at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries.

Each concept forms its own image of the artistic world. Three artistic models of a noble estate are created through the writers’ interpretation and assessment of the estate’s way of life in the general system of universals, which are childhood, love, and ancestral memory.

The image of a noble estate in works with a prevailing idealizing concept is depicted as the embodiment of moral and aesthetic norms that are of decisive importance for Russian culture: stability, the value of the personal principle, a sense of connection between times, reverence for traditions, life in unity with the earthly and heavenly world.

The critical concept destroys the idyllic-mythologized image of a noble estate and debunks the moral foundations of estate culture. The childhood and love of noble heroes are depicted by the authors as “distorted”; the burden of the consciousness of the inhabitants of the noble estate with ancestral memory is thought of as the reason for its death.

The works of the dialectical concept are characterized by a synthesis of an idealizing and critical view of the phenomenon of the noble estate in the history and culture of Russia. In the image of a noble estate, the same spiritual values and foundations are affirmed as in the works of an idealizing concept. However, the estate world in the works of this group is no longer ideal; it includes an element of disharmony.

The artistic interpretation of the image of a noble estate by representatives of various literary movements reflected the main features of the Russian literary process of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The moral code of the noble estate left a big mark on Russian culture in subsequent periods: it had a noticeable influence on the literature of the Russian diaspora, as well as on the formation of both the opposition line of Soviet literature and literature biased by the official ideology.

Chapter 2. The influence of the everyday life of the 19th century. on the work of Turgenev

By the beginning of the 19th century. The Turgenevs suffered the fate of many high-born noble families: they went bankrupt and became impoverished, and therefore were forced to look for rich brides to save themselves. Turgenev's father took part in the Battle of Borodino, where he was wounded and awarded the St. George Cross for his bravery. Returning in 1815 from a trip abroad to Orel, he married V.P. Lutovinova, an orphaned and overstayed rich bride, who had 5 thousand souls of serfs in the Oryol province alone.

Thanks to parental care, Turgenev received an excellent education. Since childhood, he read and spoke fluently in three European languages - German, French and English - and became familiar with the book treasures of the Spasskaya Library. In the Spassky Garden, which surrounded the noble manor house, the boy met experts and connoisseurs of bird singing, people with a kind and free soul. From here he took away a passionate love for Central Russian nature, for hunting wanderings. Home-grown actor and poet, street servant Leonty Serebryakov, became a real teacher of his native language and literature for the boy. Turgenev wrote about him, under the name Punin, in the story “Punin and Baburin” (1874).

In n. 1827 The Turgenevs purchased a house in Moscow, on Samotek: the time had come to prepare their children for admission to higher educational institutions. Turgenev studied at the Weidenhammer private boarding school, and in 1829, in connection with the introduction of a new university charter, at the Krause boarding school, which provided deeper knowledge of ancient languages. In the summer of 1831, Turgenev left the boarding school and began to prepare for admission to Moscow University at home with the help of famous Moscow teachers P.N. Pogorelsky, D.N. Dubensky, I.P. Klyushnikov, an aspiring poet, member of the philosophical circle N.V. Stankevich.

Turgenev's years of study at the verbal department of Moscow University (1833-34), and then at the historical and philological department of the philosophical faculty of St. Petersburg University (1834-37) coincided with the awakened interest of Russian youth in German classical philosophy and the “poetry of thought.” Turgenev the student tries his hand at poetry: along with lyrical poems, he creates the romantic poem “Wall”, in which, according to later admission, he “slavishly imitates Byron’s Manfred.” Among the St. Petersburg professors, P.A. stands out. Pletnev, friend of Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Baratynsky, Gogol. He gives him his poem for judgment, for which Pletnev scolded him, but, as Turgenev recalled, “he noticed that there was something in me! These two words gave me the courage to attribute several poems to him. . . Pletnev not only approved of Turgenev’s first experiments, but also began to invite him to his literary evenings, where the aspiring poet once met Pushkin, talked with A.V. Koltsov and other Russian writers. Pushkin's death shocked Turgenev: he stood at his coffin and, probably with the help of A.I. Turgenev, his father’s friend and distant relative, begged Nikita Kozlov to cut off a lock of hair from the poet’s head. This lock of hair, placed in a special medallion, was kept by Turgenev as a sacred relic throughout his life.

In 1838, after graduating from the university with a candidate's degree, Turgenev, following the example of many young men of his time, decided to continue his philosophical education at the University of Berlin, where he became friendly with N.V. Stankevich, T.N. Granovsky, N.G. Frolov, Ya.M. Neverov, M.A. Bakunin - and listened to lectures on philosophy from Hegel’s student, the young professor K. Werder, who was in love with his Russian students and often communicated with them in a relaxed atmosphere at N.G.’s apartment. Frolova. “Just imagine, about five or six boys have come together, one tallow candle is burning, the tea served is very bad and the crackers for it are old, old; If only you could look at all our faces and listen to our speeches! There is delight in everyone’s eyes, and their cheeks are glowing, and their hearts are beating, and we are talking about God, about truth, about the future of humanity, about poetry. . . “- this is how Turgenev conveyed the atmosphere of student evenings in the novel “Rudin”.

Schelling and Hegel gave Russian youth around 1830 - n. The 1840s, a holistic view of the life of nature and society, instilled faith in the reasonable expediency of the historical process, aimed at the final triumph of truth, goodness and beauty. Schelling perceived the universe as a living and spiritual being that develops and grows according to expedient laws. Just as the grain already contains the future plant, so the world soul contains the ideal “project” of the future harmonious world order. The coming triumph of this harmony is anticipated in the works of brilliant people, who are, as a rule, artists or philosophers. Therefore, art (and Hegel’s philosophy) is a form of manifestation of the highest creative forces.

Unlike epic writers, Turgenev preferred to depict life not in its everyday and time-extended flow, but in its acute, culminating situations. This introduced a dramatic note into the writer’s novels and stories: they are distinguished by a rapid beginning, a bright, fiery climax and a sharp, unexpected decline with a tragic ending, as a rule. They capture a small period of historical time, and therefore precise chronology plays a significant role in them. Turgenev’s novels are included in the strict rhythms of the annual natural cycle: the action in them begins in the spring, reaches its climax on the hot days of summer, and ends with the whistle of the autumn wind or “in the cloudless silence of the January frosts.” Turgenev shows his heroes in happy moments of maximum development and flowering of their vital forces, but it is here that their inherent contradictions are revealed with catastrophic force. That’s why these minutes turn out to be tragic: Rudin dies on the Parisian barricades, during a heroic takeoff, the life of Insarov, and then Bazarov and Nezhdanov, is unexpectedly cut short.

The tragic endings in Turgenev's novels are not a consequence of the writer's disappointment in the meaning of life, in the course of history. Rather, on the contrary: they testify to such a love for life, which reaches the belief in immortality, to the daring desire that human individuality does not fade away, so that the beauty of a phenomenon, having reached fullness, turns into beauty that is eternally present in the world.

The fates of the heroes of his novels testify to the eternal search, the eternal challenge that the daring human personality poses to the blind and indifferent laws of imperfect nature. Insarov suddenly falls ill in the novel “On the Eve”, without having time to carry out the great work of liberating Bulgaria. The Russian girl Elena who loves him cannot come to terms with the fact that this is the end, that this disease is incurable.

"Oh my God! - thought Elena, - why death, why separation, illness and tears? or why this beauty, this sweet feeling of hope, why the calming consciousness of a lasting refuge, unchanging protection, immortal protection? Unlike Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Turgenev does not give a direct answer to this question: he only reveals the secret, bowing his knees before the beauty that embraces the world: “Oh, how quiet and gentle the night was, what dovelike meekness the azure air breathed, like all suffering, all grief.” should have fallen silent before this clear sky, under these holy, innocent rays!

Turgenev does not formulate Dostoevsky’s winged thought: “beauty will save the world,” but all his novels affirm faith in the world-transforming power of beauty, in the creative power of art, give rise to hope for the steady liberation of man from the power of the blind material process, the great hope of humanity for the transformation of mortals into immortal, temporary into eternal.

Chapter 3. Analysis of the image of a Russian noble estate

The problematic of Turgenev's "Nest of Nobility" received a unique development in "Poshekhon Antiquity" by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1887-1889). “Turgenev’s heroes do not finish their work,” Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote about “The Noble Nest” in the already quoted letter to Annenkov.

In his own way, Shchedrin himself brought to the end the story about the inhabitants of the “noble nests”, showing, using the example of the Poshekhonsky nobles from the Zatrapezny family, to what degree of mental impoverishment, moral deformity and inhumanity the local nobility reached in its mass, and not the best, like Turgenev, samples.

The continuity from Turgenev's novel is emphasized in Shchedrin both by the title of individual chapters (the work opens with the chapter "The Nest") and by selected aspects of the narrative (the origin of the hero, the system of his upbringing, the moral influence of nature and communication with people, religion, the emotional sphere - love and marriage).

At the same time, the author constantly chooses a polemical coverage of the topic in relation to Turgenev, a negative interpretation of it: in the upbringing of the Zatrapezny children, the absence of any system is emphasized, in the landscape of family nests - the absence of any poetic charm, as well as in the very way of life of their inhabitants - the lack of communication with nature. The parallel episode of fishing is described as a purely commercial enterprise. The endlessly changing nannies, downtrodden and embittered, did not tell the children fairy tales. Love and marriage, devoid of even a hint of poetry, took on monstrously ugly forms. The legacy of serfdom, “overgrown with bygone days” during the period when “Poshekhon Antiquity” was created, determined many habits and “folds” in the characters and destinies of Shchedrin’s contemporaries - this brought to life the work, the starting point for which was Turgenev’s “Noble Nest” . “In modern Russian fiction,” wrote Saltykov-Shchedrin in his obituary dedicated to Turgenev, “there is not a single writer who did not have a teacher in Turgenev and for whom the works of this writer did not serve as a starting point.”

In the same continuity, the influence that Turgenev’s work, and in particular the novel “The Nest of Nobles,” had on Chekhov is established.

It was noted in the literature that Chekhov, who largely accepted Turgenev’s lyricism, his sensitivity to issues of the “moral composition” of the individual, and civic demands, had different attitudes to “The Noble Nest” in different periods, but always valued it as deep and poetic work. In the stories “Hopeless”, “Double Bass and Flute” (1885) he ridicules ordinary people who superficially and hearsay judged the beauties of “The Noble Nest” or fell asleep over its pages.

Turgenev’s novel “The Noble Nest” is another attempt by the writer to find a hero of his time among the nobility.

The writer in his works creates a numerous gallery of images and explores the psychology of their behavior.

In the novel “The Noble Nest,” readers are presented with cultured, educated representatives of the noble class, who are incapable of decisive action even in the name of personal happiness.

Each nobleman had his own estate. The writers did not ignore the problem of “their estate.” We can find a description of a noble estate in Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”, in Goncharov’s “Oblomov”, and also in Turgenev’s “The Noble Nest”.

Estate culture is one of the highest achievements of Russian civilization. Unfortunately, in many ways we have lost these national values, both in their material and spiritual dimensions.

The estate was the home of many nobles of the 18th–19th centuries - military men, politicians, and cultural figures. Nobles were born and raised in the estate, and there they first fell in love.

The estate became a reliable refuge for the landowner in the event of ruin, disgrace, family drama, or epidemic. In his estate, the nobleman rested in body and soul, because life here, devoid of many urban conventions, was simpler and calmer. Free from public service, he spent more time with his family and loved ones, and if he wanted, he could retire, which is always difficult in a crowded city.

The landowners, due to their wealth, taste, and imagination, transformed ancient parental houses into fashionable classic mansions, brought here new, often imported, furniture, dishes, books, sculptures, laid out gardens and parks around them, dug ponds and canals, erected gardens. pavilions and gazebos. The lordly life in the village was being rebuilt in a new way.

The center of any estate was the manor's house, usually wooden, but decorated with stone. It was visible from the road, long before the entrance to the estate. A long shady alley framed by tall trees led to an elegant gate - the entrance to the estate.

The inhabitants of the “noble nests”, poetic, live in dilapidated estates.

“...The small house where Lavretsky came when Glafira Petrovna died two years ago was built in the last century, from durable pine forest; it looked dilapidated, but could stand for another fifty years or more. Everything in the house remained as it was. The thin-legged white sofas in the living room, upholstered in glossy gray damask, worn and dented, vividly recalled Catherine’s times; in the living room stood the hostess’s favorite armchair, with a high and straight back, against which she did not lean in her old age.

On the main wall hung an old portrait of Fedorov’s great-grandfather, Andrei Lavretsky; the dark, bilious face was barely separated from the blackened and warped background; small evil eyes looked gloomily from under drooping eyelids, as if swollen; black hair, without powder, rose like a brush over a heavy, pitted forehead. On the corner of the portrait hung a wreath of dusty immortels.

In the bedroom there was a narrow bed, under a canopy made of ancient, very good striped fabric; A pile of faded pillows and a quilted thin blanket lay on the bed, and from the head hung the image of “The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary into the Temple” - the same image to which the old maid, dying alone and forgotten by everyone, pressed her already cold lips for the last time. A dressing table made of pieced wood, with copper plaques and a crooked mirror, with blackened gilding, stood by the window. Next to the bedroom there was a figurative, small room, with bare walls and a heavy icon case in the corner; on the floor lay a worn, wax-stained rug.

The estate is all overgrown with weeds, burdocks, gooseberries and raspberries; but there was a lot of shade in it, a lot of old linden trees, which amazed with their enormity and the strange arrangement of the branches; they were planted too closely and had once been trimmed a hundred years ago. The garden ended with a small bright pond with a border of tall reddish reeds. Traces of human life fade away very soon: Glafira Petrovna’s estate did not have time to go wild, but she already seemed immersed in that quiet slumber that everything on earth slumbers, wherever there is no human, restless infection.

People have been talking about the Russian estate as a kind of semantic phenomenon for a long time: publications were accumulated, conferences were held, a special Foundation for the revival of the Russian estate was created... The book by O. Kuptsova and E. Dmitrieva is by no means the first and not the only study of the estate myth. But among other “estate” works, “Paradise Lost and Found” will take its rightful place. This work took place as a study of a special type - within the framework of semantic analysis and a cultural approach, but in an absolutely non-special language.

Discourse is the main achievement of the authors. They skillfully avoided the temptation to speak in the “bird” language of strict science, as well as to move on to emotional exclamations: “Regardless of the priority that in certain eras was given either to nature or to art, the estate synthesized both. In the second half of the 18th century, in the triad “man - art - nature,” the natural was considered as a material for art: the nature surrounding the estate buildings was influenced so that it looked like a continuation of the palace (house).”

Questions about the myth of the estate (“The debate about the merits of urban and rural life”), then the reader finds himself in the world of philosophy (“The game of mind and chance: French and English garden style”), then ontological questions are resolved - “estate love”, “estate death” , then we talk about holidays in the estate and estate theaters, after which we plunge into the world of literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and for dessert there are “estate names”, “estate eccentrics” and “smells in the estate”.

The estate is a world arranged to surprise guests and neighbors, so the owner turned into the God of his own Eden, felt like a sovereign owner, conductor of an orchestra obedient to his will. Being a complexly designed resultant of city and village, the Russian “villa” is a cultural space among wild nature and fits into the landscape. It is important that the work shows not only the “poetry of gardens,” as D.S. called his research. Likhachev, but also “prose” - estates tend to decay, run wild, and collapse, symbolizing the age of the owner or his departure. Thus, it allows us to see all stages of the life of the estate organism itself - from a plan oriented towards Versailles or English parks, perhaps opposing them, through the very creation of the estate to its heyday, decline and death. “The life of the estate myth” is visible, so to speak, both in phylogenesis and ontogenesis: an individual estate is deteriorating, but the estate life itself is degenerating, being replaced by a dacha life, which is ensured by a completely different ideology.

Chapter 4. The meaning of the image of the garden near the manor house

A garden near the manor house with a large number of flowers (including, of course, roses), shrubs (raspberry, acacia, bird cherry), and fruit trees. Indispensable attributes of the estate landscape are shady linden alleys, large and small ponds, sand-strewn paths, garden benches, sometimes a separate tree that is so important for the owners (and often an oak). And further - groves, fields with oats and buckwheat, forests (what constitutes the natural landscape). Turgenev has all this, all this is important both for him and for his heroes.

Tropachev. And your garden is amazingly beautiful<…>Alleys, flowers - and everything in general... (169).

Natalya Petrovna . How nice it is in the garden! (301)

Kate. How nicely the grass has washed itself... how good it smells... It's the bird cherry that smells so... (365)

The dialogue between Rakitin and Natalya Petrovna in “A Month in the Village” is indicative in this regard:

Rakitin. ...how beautiful this dark green oak tree is against the dark blue sky. It is all flooded with the rays of the sun, and what powerful colors... How much indestructible life and strength there is in it, especially when you compare it with that young birch... It’s as if it’s all ready to disappear in the radiance; its small leaves shine with some kind of liquid shine, as if they are melting...

Natalya Petrovna . You feel very subtly the so-called beauties of nature and speak about them very gracefully, very intelligently<…>nature is much simpler, even rougher, than you imagine, because, thank God, it is healthy... (318).

It seems to be echoed by Gorsky in the play “Where it is thin, there it breaks”: “What kind of fiery, most creative imagination will keep pace with reality, with nature?” (93).

But already in the middle of the century, Turgenev outlined a theme that would later become important for many writers - the theme of the ruin of noble estates, the extinction of estate life. The house in Spassky, the once rich estate of Count Lyubin, is deteriorating. Guardianship was imposed on Mikhryutkin's estate (“Conversation on the High Road”). In the same scene, the coachman Efrem’s story about the neighboring landowner Fintrenblyudov is typical: “What an important gentleman he was! The footmen are a cubbic fathom tall, as tall as one galloon, the servant is just a picture galdaree, the horses are thousand-thousand trotters, the coachman is not a coachman, just a unicorn sitting! The halls are there, the French trumpeters in the choirs are the same araps; well, just all the conveniences that life has. And how did it end? They sold his entire estate to the auction house.”

Chapter 5. Interior of a noble estate

An insignificant at first glance, but quite a definite role in Turgenev’s novels is played by the description of the structure, furnishings of the estates, and everyday details of the heroes’ lives. “Noble Nests” are, first of all, family estates: ancient houses surrounded by magnificent gardens and alleys with centuries-old linden trees.

The writer shows us life in a specific real objective environment. The furnishings of the house, its atmosphere, are of great importance for the formation of personality at an early age, when a person intensively absorbs visual and sound images, therefore the author pays attention to the description of the estate environment and life in order to more fully characterize his heroes who grew up here. Indeed, in those days the way of life was quite stable and the inhabitants of the estates were surrounded by objects and things that were familiar from childhood and evoked memories.

An example is the detailed and detailed description of the room in the novel “Fathers and Sons”: “The small, low room in which he [Kirsanov Pavel Petrovich] was located was very clean and comfortable. It smelled of recently painted floors, chamomile and lemon balm. Along on the walls there were chairs with backs in the shape of lyres; they were bought by the deceased general in Poland; in one corner there was a crib under a muslin canopy, next to a forged chest with a round lid. In the opposite corner there was a burning lamp in front of a large dark image of Nicholas. a miracle worker; a tiny porcelain egg hung on a red ribbon on the saint’s chest, attached to the light; on the windows, jars with last year’s jam, carefully tied, showed a green light; on their paper lids Fenichka herself wrote in large letters: “Nikolai Petrovich especially loved this jam.” .

Under the ceiling, on a long cord, hung a cage with a short-tailed siskin; he incessantly chirped and jumped, and the cage incessantly swayed and trembled: the hemp grains fell to the floor with a slight thud." Such national features of everyday life, such as the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, one of the most revered saints in Rus', or jars of gooseberry jam, do not give to doubt that we are in the house of a Russian person.

But in Turgenev’s works the concept of a “noble nest” is revealed not only in the literal sense, as a place and way of life of a noble family, but also as a social, cultural and psychological phenomenon.

And, without a doubt, this phenomenon was most fully embodied in the 1858 novel “The Noble Nest.” The main character of the novel, Fyodor Ivanovich Lavretsky, begins his adult life with social entertainment, useless trips abroad, he falls into the love networks of the cold and calculating egoist Varvara Pavlovna. But soon he finds himself deceived by his wife and returns from France to his homeland, disappointed. But life abroad did not make him a Westerner, although he did not completely deny Europe, he remained an original person and did not change his beliefs. Immersing himself in measured Russian village life, full of harmony and beauty, Lavretsky is healed from the vanity of life. And he immediately notices this; already on the second day of his stay in Vasilyevskoye, Lavretsky reflects: “When I’m at the bottom of the river. And always, at all times, life here is quiet and unhurried; whoever enters its circle, submit: there’s no need to worry here, there’s nothing muddy; here only the one who succeeds is the one who plows his path slowly, like a plowman plowing a furrow.” Lavretsky felt that this was his home, he was saturated with this silence, dissolved in it. These are his roots, whatever they may be. Turgenev sharply criticizes the separation of classes from their native culture, from the people, from Russian roots. This is Lavretsky’s father, he spent his entire life abroad, this is a man in all his hobbies infinitely far from Russia and its people.

Lavretsky enters the novel as if not alone, but behind him is the prehistory of an entire noble family, so we are talking not only about the personal fate of the hero, but about the fate of an entire class. His genealogy is told in great detail from the beginning - from the 15th century: “Fyodor Ivanovich Lavretsky came from an ancient noble tribe. The ancestor of the Lavretskys left Prussia for the reign of Vasily the Dark and was granted two hundred quarters of land in the Bezhetsky region.” And so on, throughout the whole chapter there is a description of Lavretsky’s roots. In this detailed prehistory of Lavretsky, Turgenev is interested not only in the hero’s ancestors; the story about several generations of Lavretskys reflects the complexity of Russian life, the Russian historical process.

Reviving to a new life, rediscovering a sense of homeland, Lavretsky experiences the happiness of pure spiritualized love. The romance between Lisa and Lavretsky is deeply poetic, it merges with the general silence and harmonizes with the peaceful atmosphere of the estate. Communication with nature plays an important role in the formation of this peaceful atmosphere, this calm, measured rhythm of life, because not everyone can live in this rhythm, but only those who have peace and harmony in their soul, and here contemplation of nature and communication with it are the best helpers.

For Russian people, the need to communicate with nature is especially strong. It saturates the soul with beauty, gives new strength: “The stars disappeared in some kind of light smoke; the less than full month shone with a solid shine; its light spread like a blue stream across the sky and fell like a spot of smoky gold on thin clouds passing nearby; the freshness of the air caused a slight dampness to the eyes , affectionately enveloped all members, poured in a free stream into the chest.

L Avretsky enjoyed and rejoiced in his pleasure. “Well, we’ll live a while longer,” he thought.” It was not without reason that the most common types of leisure activities in Russia were walking and horseback riding, hunting, and fishing: “In the evening, the whole group went fishing. . . The fish were biting incessantly; the captured crucian carp continually sparkled in the air with their golden or silver sides... Tall reddish reeds rustled quietly around them, still water shone quietly in front of them, and their conversation was quiet."

Despite the fact that the life of Turgenev’s “nests of nobility” is provincial, his heroes are educated and enlightened people, they were aware of the main social and cultural events, thanks to the journals they subscribed to, had large libraries, many were engaged in economic transformations and therefore studied agronomy and other applied sciences. Their children received an education and upbringing that became traditional for that time and was not much inferior to that of the city. Parents spent a lot of money hiring teachers and tutors to educate their children. Turgenev describes in detail the upbringing of Lisa Kalitina: “Liza studied well, that is, diligently; God did not reward her with particularly brilliant abilities or great intelligence; nothing was given to her without difficulty. She played the piano well; but only Lemm knew what it cost her. She read a little; she did not have “her own words,” but she had her own thoughts, and she went her own way.”

Lisa is one of the heroines of Russian literature who has risen to the highest spiritual level. She was dissolved in God and in her loved one, she did not know such feelings as envy or anger. Lisa and Lavretsky are heirs to the best features of the patriarchal nobility. They emerged from the nests of the nobility as whole and self-sufficient individuals. They are alien to both the barbarity and ignorance of former times, and blind admiration for the West.

The characters of the honest Lavretsky and the modest religious Liza Kalitina are truly national. Turgenev sees in them that healthy beginning of the Russian nobility, without which the renewal of the country cannot take place. Despite the fact that Turgenev was a Westerner by conviction and a European by culture, in his novel he affirmed the idea that it was necessary to understand Russia in all its national and historical originality.

Conclusion

The philosophical and romantic school that Turgenev went through in his youth largely determined the characteristic features of the writer’s artistic worldview: the pinnacle principle of the composition of his novels, capturing life in its highest moments, in the maximum tension of its inherent forces; the special role of the love theme in his work; the cult of art as a universal form of social consciousness; the constant presence of philosophical themes, which largely organizes the dialectic of the transitory and the eternal in the artistic world of his stories and novels; the desire to embrace life in all its fullness, generating the pathos of maximum artistic objectivity. Sharper than any of his contemporaries,

Turgenev felt the tragedy of existence, the short duration and fragility of man’s stay on this earth, the inexorability and irreversibility of the rapid flight of historical time. But precisely because Turgenev possessed an amazing gift of unselfish, nothing relative and transient, unlimited artistic contemplation. Extraordinarily sensitive to everything topical and momentary, able to grasp life in its beautiful moments, Turgenev simultaneously possessed the rarest sense of freedom from everything temporary, finite, personal and egoistic, from everything subjectively biased, clouding the acuity of vision, breadth of vision, completeness of artistic perception.

His love for life, for its whims and accidents, for its fleeting beauty, was reverent and selfless, completely free from any admixture of the author’s proud “I,” which made it possible for Turgenev to see further and more clearly than many of his contemporaries.

“Our time,” he said, “requires to capture modernity in its transitory images; You can’t be too late.” And he was not late. All his works not only fell into the current moment of Russian social life, but at the same time were ahead of it.

Turgenev was especially susceptible to what was “on the eve”, what was still in the air.

A keen artistic sense allows him to grasp the future from the still vague, vague strokes of the present and recreate it, ahead of time, in unexpected specificity, in living completeness. This gift was a heavy cross for Turgenev the writer, which he carried all his life. His farsightedness could not help but irritate his contemporaries, who did not want to live knowing their fate in advance. And stones were often thrown at Turgenev. But such is the lot of any artist endowed with the gift of foresight and premonition, a prophet in his homeland. And when the struggle died down, there was a lull, the same persecutors often went to Turgenev with a guilty head. Looking ahead, Turgenev determined the paths and prospects for the development of Russian literature of the 2nd half. XIX century. In “Notes of a Hunter” and “The Noble Nest” there is already a premonition of the epic “War and Peace” by L. N. Tolstoy, “folk thought”; the spiritual quests of Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov were outlined in the dotted line in the fate of Lavretsky; in "Fathers and Sons" Dostoevsky's thought and the characters of his future heroes from Raskolnikov to Ivan Karamazov were anticipated.

Despite the fact that I.S. Turgenev often lived far from the “family nest”; the estate was a specific place for him, not at all ideal. Turgenev already then foresaw the destruction of the old “nests of the nobility,” and with them the highest noble culture.

List of used literature

1. Ananyeva A.V., Veselova A.Yu. Gardens and texts (Review of new research on gardening art in Russia) // New Literary Review. 2005. No. 75. P. 348-375.

2. Noble nests of Russia: History, culture, architecture / Ed. M.V. Nashchokina. M., 2000;

3. Dmitrieva E.E., Kuptsova O.N. The life of an estate myth: paradise lost and found. M.: OGI, 2003 (2nd ed. - 2008).

4. Life in a Russian estate: Experience of social and cultural history. - St. Petersburg: Kolo, 2008.

5. Russian estate: Collection of the Society for the Study of Russian Estate. M., 1994-2008. Vol. 1-14.

6. Tikhonov Yu.A. Noble estate and peasant courtyard in Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries: coexistence and confrontation. M.; St. Petersburg: Summer Garden, 2005.

7. Three centuries of the Russian estate: Painting, graphics, photography. Fine chronicle. XVII - early XX century: Album-catalog / Ed.-comp. M.K. Little goose. M., 2004.

8. Turchin B.S. Allegory of everyday life and celebrations in the class hierarchy of the 18th - 19th centuries: from the estate culture of the past to the culture of our days / B.C. Turchin II Russian estate. - M., 1996. Issue. 2(18). P. 16.

9. Shchukin V. The myth of the noble nest: Geocultural research on Russian classical literature. Krako´w, 1997. (Republished in the book: Shchukin V. Russian genius of enlightenment. M.: ROSSPEN, 2007.)

10. Le jardin, art et lieu de mémoire / Sous la direction de Monique Mosser et Philippe Nyss. Paris: Les editions de l'imprimeur, 1995.

Russian nobility in the novel “Fathers and Sons and Children.”