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In the summer of 1893, Leo Tolstoy, a living classic of Russian prose, an internationally recognized writer, wrote in his diary: “The form of the novel is not only not eternal, but it passes. It’s shameful to write a lie, that something happened that didn’t happen. If you want to say something, say it directly.” In 1909, a similar entry appeared on the page of his diary, which has now become one of many: “What suggests itself is to write outside of any form: not as articles, arguments, and not as art, but to express, pour out, as best you can, what you strongly feel.” .
Marina Tsvetaeva was born in the fall of 1892, and in 1909 she was just entering the literary world: her debut poetry collection “Evening Album” was still ahead... But Tsvetaeva was destined, along with many other worthy talents, to fulfill Tolstoy’s predictions (I note, all whose prose she called “excellent”), change the tone, style, the entire system of prose storytelling, open up its new possibilities and abandon many traditions.
Having directly stated on the slope of fate: “All my prose is autobiographical,” Tsvetaeva did not at all point out that it was of secondary importance; moreover, based in her prose on direct experience, she only confirmed her own thesis that prose is “life worked out in words. That is, like any completion, it is already above life” (letter to V.A.A., an unidentified addressee, which is why this text reads like a manifesto). Hence her early call, first of all to herself: “Write, write more! Capture every moment, every gesture, every breath! And further: “The color of your eyes and your lampshade, the cutting knife and the pattern on the wallpaper, gem on your favorite ring - all this will be the body of your poor, poor soul left in the vast world” (preface to the collection “From Two Books”).
Tsvetaeva’s writing in prose – from her own chronicle of the fateful days of Russia, drowning in Bolshevism, to the transparent essay “My Pushkin” – is marked by the stamp of her lyrical experience, conveys her life movement, her gesture, excited by her sighs and spiritual impulses.
Therefore, Tsvetaeva’s prose, with all its thematic diversity, maintains the unity of this very “super-life”, built by the author’s will, held together by the energy of the word.
“The poet in prose is a king who has finally taken off his purple, deigning (or being forced) to appear among us as a man. What was your royalty?.. Horror and curiosity, passion for knowledge and fear of it, this is what pushes every lover to the poet’s prose. ...will you be able to be a king without purple (and be a poet without verse)?”
Marina Tsvetaeva expressed such judgments after reading the autobiographical book of Osip Mandelstam. And these were not outside reflections, not rhetorical questions. Since Tsvetaeva herself wrote prose, she sought to verify it according to the same strict account that she presented to the poet she highly valued.
And now, alone with the reader, she is ready to answer on this score.
Sergey Dmitrienko
Autobiography
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva.
Born on September 26, 1892, in Moscow. Father - Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev - professor at Moscow University, founder and collector of the Museum of Fine Arts (now the Museum of Fine Arts), an outstanding philologist. Mother - Maria Alexandrovna Main - is a passionate musician, passionately loves poetry and writes them herself. Passion for poetry - from my mother, passion for work and nature - from both parents.
First languages: German and Russian, by the age of seven - French. Maternal reading aloud and music. Ondine, Rustem and Zorab, Princess in the Greens - from what I read on my own. Nello and Patrash. My favorite activity since the age of four has been reading, and since the age of five, writing. She loved everything she loved until she was seven, and she never loved anything else. Being forty-seven years old, I can say that I learned everything that I was destined to learn before I was seven years old, and for the next forty years I realized it.
Mother is the lyrical element itself. I'm at my mother's eldest daughter, but my beloved is not me. She is proud of me, she loves the other one. Early resentment at the lack of love.
Childhood up to ten years - an old house in Trekhprudny Lane (Moscow) and the lonely dacha Pesochnaya, on the Oka River, near the city of Tarusa, Kaluga province.
The first school was the Zograf-Plaksina music school on Merzlyakovsky Lane, where I entered as the youngest student, less than six years old. The next one is the IV gymnasium, where I enter the preparatory class. In the fall of 1902, I went with my sick mother to the Italian Riviera, to the town of Nervi, near Genoa, where I first became acquainted with Russian revolutionaries and the concept of Revolution. I write Revolutionary poems, which are published in Geneva. In the spring of 1902 I entered a French boarding school in Lausanne, where I stayed for a year and a half. I write French poetry. In the summer of 1904, I went with my mother to Germany, to the Black Forest, where in the fall I entered a boarding school in Freiburg. I write German poetry. The most favorite book of those times was “Liechtenstein” by V. Gauff. In the summer of 1906 I returned with my mother to Russia. The mother, before reaching Moscow, dies at the Pesochnaya dacha, near the city of Tarusa.
In the fall of 1906 I entered the boarding school of the Moscow Von-Derviz gymnasium. I write revolutionary poems. After boarding school, Von-Derviz - boarding school at the Alferovsky gymnasium, after which grades VI and VII at the Bryukhonenko gymnasium (coming). Summer - abroad, in Paris and Dresden. Friendship with the poet Ellis and philologist Nylender. In 1910, while still at the gymnasium, I published my first book of poems - “Evening Album” - poems 15, 16, 17 years old - and met the poet M. Voloshin, who wrote the first (if I’m not mistaken) long article about me. In the summer of 1911, I went to see him in Koktebel and met there my future husband, Sergei Efron, who was 17 years old and with whom I was no longer separated. I married him in 1912. In 1912, my second book of poems, “The Magic Lantern,” was published and my first daughter, Ariadne, was born. In 1913 - the death of his father.
From 1912 to 1922 I wrote continuously, but did not publish books. From the periodical press I am published several times in the journal “Northern Notes”.
From the beginning of the revolution to 1922 I lived in Moscow. In 1920, my second daughter, Irina, died in an orphanage, three years old. In 1922 I went abroad, where I stayed for 17 years, of which 3 and a half years in the Czech Republic and 14 years in France. In 1939 I returned to the Soviet Union - following my family and to give my son Georgy (born in 1925) a homeland.
Favorite writers: Selma Lagerlöf, Sigrid Undseth, Mary Webb.
From 1922 to 1928, the following of my books appeared in print: in the State Publishing House “Tsar-Maiden”, “Versts” of 1916 and the collection “Versts”; in Berlin, in various publishing houses - the poem “The Tsar-Maiden”, books of poems “Separation”, “Poems to Blok”, “Craft” and “Psyche”, which by no means include everything written from 1912 to 1922. In Prague , in 1924, I publish the poem “Well done”, in Paris, in 1928, a book of poems “After Russia”. I don't have any more separate books.
In the periodical press abroad I have: lyrical plays written in Moscow: “Fortune”, “Adventure”, “The End of Casanova”, “Blizzard”. Poems: “Poem of the Mountain”, “Poem of the End”, “Staircase”, “From the Sea”, “Attempt of the Room”, “Poem of the Air”, two parts of the “Theseus” trilogy: Part I “Ariadne”, Part II “Phaedra” ", "New Year's Eve", "Red Bull", poem "Siberia". Translations into French: “Le Gars” (a translation of my poem “Well done” in original size) with illustrations by N. Goncharova, translations of a number of poems by Pushkin, translations of Russian and German revolutionary, as well as Soviet songs. Upon returning to Moscow, she translated a number of Lermontov’s poems. No more translations of mine have been published.
Prose: “Hero of Labor” (meeting with V. Bryusov), “Living about Living” (meeting with M. Voloshin), “Captive Spirit” (meeting with Andrei Bely), “Natalia Goncharova” (life and creativity), stories from childhood: “House at Old Pimen”, “Mother and Music”, “Devil”, etc. Articles: “Art in the light of conscience”, “Tsar of the Forest”. Stories: “Whips”, “Opening of the Museum”, “Tower in the Ivy”, “The Groom”, “Chinese”, “Mother’s Tale” and much more. All my prose is autobiographical.
Introduction. 3
Chapter I. Theoretical foundations of the problem of researching autobiographical prose.. 8
1.1. Development of autobiographical prose in world literature. 8
1.2. Autobiography of Russian prose.. 17
1.3. Genre and specific features of autobiographical works. 21
1.4. Conclusions on Chapter I. 28
ChapterII.Psychological and pedagogical features of middle school age in teaching literature. 30
2.1. The role of the transition stage in the development and education of a sixth grader. thirty
2.2. Taking into account the psychological characteristics of younger adolescents in the learning process 34
2.3. Specifics of teaching literature to students. 41
2.4. Conclusions on Chapter II. 45
ChapterIII. Methodological principles for studying autobiographical prose in literature lessons in 6th grade. 46
3.1. A system for studying autobiographical works taking into account the characteristics of reader perception. 46
3.2. Methods for studying autobiographical prose in 6th grade. 60
3.3. Autobiographical story as a genre of students’ creative work. 90
3.4. Ways to overcome difficulties in studying autobiographical works 94
3.5. Conclusions on Chapter III……………………………………………………… 96
Conclusion. 97
Bibliography. 99
Introduction
The basis of all literature studies is reading a work. Literature is capable of reflecting the diversity of human life and society. And in this regard, the leading role belongs to prose. It is prose that reveals, on the one hand, all the depths and diversity of human psychology, and on the other, all the richness and complexity of a person’s connections with the world, with society, with history.
The prose itself is extremely diverse: from short miniatures and small sketches to multi-volume epics or cycles of novels, from descriptive essays and action-packed stories to complex philosophical and psychological works. All this diversity is characteristic of Russian classical and Soviet literature.
The writer does not just describe life. A literary image and a work of art as a whole is a complex act of reflecting reality. Life in a literary work is life, comprehended by the artist, experienced and felt by him. Hence the obligatory attention to the views of the artist, his personality.
Autobiographical prose occupies a large place in the school curriculum. It is here that it is most often possible to reduce the meaning and content of a work to a superficial retelling of not even the plot, but simply the outline of events. The conversation about the heroes of the work is conducted not as about artistic images, but as about living familiar people; Formal characteristics of the characters are drawn up, divorced from the artistic fabric of the work, and a conversation about the artistic features of the work sometimes looks like an optional addition to the main material.
Currently, in literary criticism, many problems of autobiographical prose are being considered, the solution to which should be known to teachers.
Thus, relevance The chosen topic is determined by the need to specify a scientifically based methodology for studying the features of autobiographical prose.
The intensive development of autobiographical literature these days and at the same time insufficiently deep understanding of it require the solution of a number of issues. There is also a continuing lack of theoretical work, and there is little study of the genre in the works of individual authors.
Of particular importance for our research is the fact that in literary criticism a genre is considered as a unit of communication, the meaning of which is known to the communicating parties. That is why we consider it necessary for the theory of genre to move from the field of “pure science” into the sphere of interests of school methods of teaching literature.
The need to take into account genre specifics work of art for an adequate comprehension of its ideological and aesthetic content is emphasized in the works of many literary scholars (Bakhtin, Tynyanov, Shklovsky, Likhachev, Khrapchenko, Kozhinov, Gachev, Pospelov, Leiderman, Esin, Nikolina, M. Zaltsman, etc.), methodologists (Rybnikova, Golubkov, Kudryashev, Nikolsky, Kurdyumova, Marantsman, Bogdanova, Kachurin, Sigaeva, Prantsova, etc.), as well as in educational and methodological complexes edited by Kutuzov.
The methodology for analyzing a literary work has been widely developed in literary criticism. Analyzing a work means not only understanding the characters of individual characters and the relationship between them, revealing the plot mechanism and composition, seeing the role of an individual detail and the features of the writer’s language, but most importantly, finding out how all this is determined by the writer’s idea, what Belinsky called “ the pathos of the work." The more significant the work of art, the more inexhaustible the possibilities for its analysis.
That's why target our work: to identify the features of studying autobiographical prose in the 6th grade.
Object of study is a methodology for studying autobiographical works in secondary schools.
Subject of study: Features of the system for studying autobiographical prose in literature lessons in the 6th grade.
Based on the stated goal, we need to solve a number of tasks tasks:
1) conduct an analysis of literary, methodological, psychological - pedagogical literature in terms of the research topic, in order to theoretically substantiate the methodology for studying autobiographical works and analysis current state Problems;
2) select educational material, promoting the formation of an individual worldview and moral guidelines in schoolchildren, the development of emotional and intellectual personal spheres and the formation of self-awareness;
3) develop forms and techniques of educational activities that contribute to the development of schoolchildren’s analytical thinking, their artistic taste, and general reading and speech culture;
4) improve the ability to analyze a literary work, taking into account its specifics.
Research hypothesis is based on the assumption that the effectiveness of studying the features of autobiographical prose in the 6th grade increases provided that:
Consistent (taking into account the age psychology of 6th grade schoolchildren) study of a cycle of autobiographical works of a “small genre” belonging to one writer, and incidental familiarization with the facts of the author’s biography, reflected in the stories;
Thoughtful selection of educational material,
Introducing elements of students' search and research activities to study the features of the poetics of autobiographical prose related to the individual style of the writer;
Development of active techniques and forms of educational activities.
To solve the problems and test the hypothesis, the following were used: scientific research methods:
1. Theoretical, or descriptive (study of psychological, pedagogical, literary, methodological literature on the topic of work);
2. Sociological and pedagogical (analysis of curricula and textbooks in the aspect of the problem under study, conversations with students and teachers, analysis of creative works of students, study of advanced pedagogical experience, modeling of a teaching system that helps solve the problem posed);
3. Empirical (observation, conversation (with methodologists, teachers, long time working in high schools), studying students' written work, studying school documentation).
The methodological basis for writing this work was the works of famous literary scholars (Bakhtin, Tynyanov, Ginzburg Shklovsky, Likhachev, Khrapchenko, Kozhinov, Elizavetina, Pospelov Esin, Nikolina, M. Zaltsman, etc.) and methodologists (Rybnikova, Golubkov, Kudryashev, Nikolsky, Kurdyumova , Marantsman, Bogdanova, Kachurin, Sigaeva, Prantsova, etc.), as well as in educational and methodological complexes edited by Polukhina.
The practical significance of this work is determined by the possibility of using its findings in the practice of school teaching of literature.
This work has a traditional structure and includes an introduction, a main part consisting of three chapters divided into paragraphs, conclusions and bibliographies.
In administered the relevance, scientific novelty, theoretical and practical significance of the research are indicated, its object, subject, purpose, objectives and research methods are defined.
IN first chapter summarized and systematized theoretical aspects studying autobiographical prose.
In second chapter The psychological and pedagogical features of middle school age are considered.
IN third chapter An analysis of the peculiarities of studying autobiographical prose in the 6th grade is presented.
IN conclusion contains the main conclusions obtained during the study.
Bibliography includes 83 sources.
Chapter I Theoretical foundations of the problem of researching autobiographical prose
1.1. Development of autobiographical prose in world literature
“Poetry speaks more about the general, history speaks about the individual” - throughout the existence of civilization and literature, this idea of Aristotle was confirmed and refuted dozens, hundreds of times, since literature, like other types of art, is characterized by variability due to the need to master the life of a person, a people , the world in their versatility and dynamics.
Over the centuries, literature has gravitated either to depicting the general, to a philosophical understanding of the foundations of existence, or to stories about the individual, the accidental, thus fulfilling both its own inherent functions and the functions of history, since literature, like art in general, is inevitably connected with history, the human factor, which means that the focus of its depiction is inevitably a person.
The art of words developed on the basis of a combination of two principles: artistic fiction, fantasy, and historical truth, a fact, on the relationship of which the entire structure, integrity, artistic uniqueness of the work depends, and, above all, the genre-generic features of the work, its ideological and thematic originality , individual author's style.
Aristotle's discussion in Poetics about the functions of the historian (to talk about the real) and the functions of the poet (to talk about the possible) is one of the first attempts to distinguish between historical truth and artistic truth, fact and fiction.
At different times, the role and significance of both artistic means, the text-forming principle, changed, which was immediately reflected in the artistic style of the creator, on the ideological, thematic and artistic specificity works, on his fate.
In modern Western science, the study of autobiographical works has recently become a tradition and has become one of the priority areas. The beginning was made by the famous article of 1956 by the French critic J. Gusdorff, “Conditions and boundaries of autobiography.” In 1971, the French researcher F. Lejeune, in a small book “Autobiography in France,” gave the first definition of the autobiographical genre. This book was followed by a number of other works by F. Lejeune, thanks to which he became the largest specialist in the field of studying autobiography. Moreover, autobiographical texts created not by writers, but by “ordinary” people, and non-fiction works gradually began to be drawn into the orbit of this study - in accordance with the general reassessment of the status of the text and the affirmation of the literary significance of any “letter”, because, as F. Lejeune formulated the principle of this approach , “literature never ends.”
Modern science has not developed a unified understanding of autobiography. This phenomenon is most consistently considered in literary studies.
The process of formation of autobiographical prose is considered in the works of Aleynikova, V. Andreev, S. Bocharov, Bunina, G. Vdovin, Grebenyuk, Elizavetina, Ivanova, Kovyrshina, Kozhina, Kolyadich, Komina, Kostenchik, Lavrov, Litovskaya, Lotman, Nikolina, Panchenko, Plyukhanova , Ranchina, Smolnyakova, Fomenko and others.
Thus, in literary criticism, autobiography is understood as “a literary prose genre; usually a sequential description by the author of his own life.”
There are different opinions among scientists regarding the origin of the genre of autobiography, since some studies trace the emergence of autobiography on Russian soil, while others trace the beginning of its formation in world literature. Among historical eras, researchers in the formation and development of the autobiographical genre highlight antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the 18th–19th centuries. and XX century
The terminological designation of this genre was introduced only in 1809 by R. Southey.
Some scientists are inclined to believe that autobiography appeared as a phenomenon in modern times. However, autobiography special genre the narrative began to take shape very early, during late antiquity. This is also indicated by the Greek roots of the origin of the word autobiography: autys - myself, bios - life, gpaho - I write.
Until this time, that is, until the last centuries of the old and first centuries of the new era, tradition played a decisive role in people’s lives, adherence to generally accepted principles, the laws of the peasant community, the rules of life in the city-state, for example, in the Greek polis, the laws established by Egyptian or Babylonian kings.
The autobiography was to some extent preceded by the solemn inscriptions of the eastern kings, who narrated their victories, but there can be no talk of a real biography here. All such texts followed strictly defined rules and spoke about external events associated with a particular sovereign, but not about his internal life.
Bright heroes attracted ancient biographers. Perhaps the most famous descriptions of life in the Greco-Roman world belong to the philosopher and biographer Plutarch. The writer and warrior of Ancient Greece, Xenophon, in his book “The March,” spoke in the third person about the return of thousands of Greek mercenaries to their homeland, having won this right from the king of Persia, Cyrus.
It is known that Julius Caesar described his military exploits. The predecessor of a true autobiography can be considered the book of Emperor Aurelius. The story contains many discussions about the author’s spiritual world. The spread of Christianity also, willingly or unwillingly, pushed people to confession. One of the famous autobiographies of late antiquity belongs to the philosopher, thinker, bishop Aurelius Augustine. His "Confession" contains a story about childhood and adolescence. All of him autobiographical book– this is a long journey in search of faith, emotional experiences.
Thus, these ancient works, although they influenced the formation of autobiography as a genre, at the same time can rather be classified as memoirs. Memoirs are a genre close to autobiography, however, memoirists pay more attention to external events and people surrounding the author.
During the Middle Ages, many confessions appeared, but these works are more likely to be theological works. In the 10th-13th centuries with the advent big cities In Europe, changes are taking place not only in the political and economic life of the population, but also in the spiritual sphere. One of the most important features of medieval urban culture is rationalism - a worldview that considers reason to be the basis for understanding the world.
Thus, the importance of the individual, endowed with reason, and therefore with reflection, began to increase.
It is characteristic that it was at this time that another bright autobiography appeared, a book by the French philosopher and theologian Pierre Abelard () « The story of my disasters."
Abelard did not hide his own views on spiritual life. He was accused of heresy and his books were burned. Descriptions of Pierre's experiences are truly priceless.
Moreover, Abelard, six centuries after Augustine, turned to writing about his personal life. However, if for a person of the early Middle Ages the story about his own life was only supposed to illustrate the ascent of the soul to God, for a person at the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries his own experiences were valuable in themselves. That is why Abelard spoke in detail about his love for his student Heloise and about the misadventures that befell the unhappy lovers. Abelard and Heloise became one of the most famous couples separated lovers in world culture, and, unlike Tristan and Isolde or Romeo and Juliet, they were real people, the memory of whom was preserved thanks to Abelard’s autobiography.
At first glance, it seems that the selection of material for writing an autobiography is unnecessary. You just need to tell truthfully about yourself. However, the range between the concepts of “truthfulness” and “life” is quite wide. According to experts, sincerity depends on the personality of the author himself, his philosophical attitudes and, of course, on those artistic techniques which he uses in his work.
The Renaissance that replaced the Middle Ages is characterized by an exceptional interest in the individual human personality. Humanism, Renaissance philosophical movement, placed the human personality at the center of the world and abandoned ideas about its sinfulness and insignificance, moving on to praising man for his intelligence, beauty, strength, mastery of the sciences and arts. It is no coincidence that during the Renaissance, such a genre as portrait (and self-portrait) developed in painting, and lyric poetry developed in literature. Renaissance people in different spheres of culture sought to express themselves more fully. It is symbolic that one of the fathers of the Renaissance, the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (), also contributed to the development of the genre of autobiography.
For Petrarch, as a man of the Renaissance, it was quite natural to create his own autobiographies. One of them was written in the form of a letter to descendants and told about the external events of the author’s life. The other was created in the form of a dialogue between the poet and St. Augustine and focused on the spiritual life of Petrarch, describing his moral development and internal struggle With myself.
The Renaissance and the centuries following it are full of autobiographical works, since at this time the value of an individual and his inner world became an unconditional value.
One of the most striking works created in the genre of autobiography during the High Renaissance is the book of the famous Italian jeweler and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (). This work, entitled The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, written by himself, was created by him in his old age. It contains a description of almost the entire turbulent life of this person. Starting with a story about his birth and childhood, Cellini brought his life story almost to his very last years, telling surprisingly vividly and vividly about his many adventures - about the years spent in the service of the Pope, the French king, the Duke of Florence, about his military exploits , love interests, quarrels, crimes, about his imprisonment in the Castle of St. Angel, travel and, of course, about his creativity. Cellini's autobiography is not always reliable - its author was prone to boasting and exaggeration, and not all of his statements can be trusted. However, numerous boastful exaggerations did not harm, but rather only contributed to the enormous popularity of the book. The life of Benvenuto Cellini was not written by the author. Latin, as was customary, but in Italian, which indicates the author’s appeal to a wide audience. The book was first published in 1728 and immediately became widely known.
Cellini's autobiography was translated into most European languages (Goethe himself translated it into German), and in 1848 its first translation into Russian appeared. Cellini's individualism and the adventurous nature of the narrative had a great influence on the development of the autobiographical genre.
Another, more philosophical type of autobiographical writing also emerged in the late Renaissance, primarily thanks to the book of the French philosopher Michel Montaigne. At the beginning of the 1570s, Montaigne retired from business and retired to the family castle, where a special office for scientific studies was equipped for him. Here for many years he worked on his Essays, which were first published in 1580 and quickly became one of the most widely read philosophical works new time. The significance of Montaigne's Experiments for the development of the autobiography genre is enormous. It is important not only that his thoughts about himself and his destiny are closely intertwined in the book with thoughts about the world and man’s place in it. Particularly important is the fact that Montaigne, unlike all previous creators of autobiographies, consciously emphasized his ordinariness. “I put on display a life that is ordinary and devoid of any splendor,” he wrote. Thus, for the first time in world culture, the idea was formulated that “every person has complete possession of everything that is characteristic of the entire human race,” and, therefore, his autobiography may be of interest to potential readers.
All autobiographies created in subsequent centuries can be conditionally divided into two types: following the example of Cellini, that is, emphasizing the originality of their author, and those whose authors to one degree or another imitated Montaigne - sometimes sincerely, and sometimes coquettishly declaring about the ordinariness and ordinariness of their lives, which, in their opinion, was how their autobiographies should have attracted the attention of readers.
During the same period, autobiographers Erasmus of Rotterdam, Gerolamo Cardano, and John Bunyan wrote. The heyday of the autobiographical genre was the Age of Enlightenment.
An important stage in the development of autobiography as a genre and a source of numerous imitations was Confession French writer and thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau, one of the enlightenment philosophers, the founder of sentimentalism, had a huge influence on the development of world philosophy and literature. The cult of naturalness and simplicity, the exaltation of feeling as opposed to reason, the idealization of simple life in the lap of nature, all this gave rise to interest in the inner life of man. Most of Rousseau's works are devoted to the study of human feelings. An innovative view of human nature, naturally, should have led Rousseau to a detailed description of his own life. He created his own Confession, a very heterogeneous work. On the one hand, he seemed to have “turned inside out” his soul. Not all autobiographies are distinguished by such “confession” as Rousseau’s book, in which he described his life with some kind of proud self-deprecation, without hiding and even, on the contrary, describing in detail his bad deeds. In the same time Confession is a poetic story about a person and his relationship with the world around him, nature, and other people. It is no coincidence that many pages are devoted to lyrical descriptions of nature and stories about the author’s love life, in which frank outpourings are interspersed with idealized images. In the same time Confession this is also a pamphlet in which Rousseau furiously attacks his real and imaginary enemies.
The memoirs of the German poet Johann Goethe had an equally strong influence on the development of the autobiographical genre. - All my works are just excerpts of one big confession, said Goethe.
Many autobiographical motifs are present in poetry. It is worth remembering Horace’s “Satires” and “Epistle”, D. Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, Dante’s “New Life”...
Sometimes fictional stories were put into the genre of autobiography. Everyone knows the works of D. Defoe “Robinson Crusoe”, D. Swift “The Adventures of Gulliver”, W. Scott “Rob Roy”, W. Thackeray “The Adventures of Roderick Random”. But the opposite often happened. Writers invited their heroes to go through the trials that they themselves faced in life. Here are examples - “Jane Eyre” by C. Bronte, “Amelia” by G. Fielding, “In Search of Lost Time” by M. Proust, almost all the works of L. Tolstoy...
In the 19th-20th centuries. autobiographies of artists appear (George Sand, Herbert Wells, Somerset Maugham), politicians (Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill), and ordinary people, although in many cases it is difficult to distinguish between autobiography and memoir.
1.2. Autobiography of Russian prose
It is believed that in Russia the formation of memoir-autobiographical literature dates back to the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, and its origins are associated with the Middle Ages and with the works of Vladimir Monomakh, Ivan the Terrible, Archpriest Avvakum and Epiphanius.
However, there is an opinion that autobiography as a concept and as a genre appears only at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries.
The first examples of autobiographical works that appeared at the end of the Middle Ages can be considered the works “Walking across the Three Seas” by A. Nikitin and “The Life of Archpriest Avvakum.” from Tver left notes about his trip to India. In them, he described his adventures in detail, talked about himself, and shared his thoughts on what he saw.
Has an even more vivid autobiographical character Life of Archpriest Avvakum. He was an ideologist of the Russian Old Believers, who for many years fought against the church reforms of Patriarch Nikon. He was subjected to severe persecution for his views, spent many years in exile and harsh imprisonment, and was eventually burned along with several of his supporters by order of the king. In he wrote an autobiography, which, despite its medieval title, is undoubtedly a work of modern times. It deliberately violates strict canons hagiographic genre.
A traditional life involves a story about the exploits of a saint, written according to a scheme developed over centuries, using sublime literary language. Habakkuk wrote the story of his own life, telling about his struggle and suffering, about his feelings, without neglecting numerous everyday details. The language of the Life is emphatically non-canonical - it contains many bright and rich, sometimes even rude, popular expressions.
The real development of the autobiographical genre in Russia began after Peter the Great's reforms, when revolutionary changes took place in culture, manifested, in particular, in the sharp individualization of spiritual life.
Autobiography is always a path of self-discovery.
Analyzing A. Herzen’s work “The Past and Thoughts,” L. Chukovskaya attributes it to the genre of autobiography, although she notices in it a fusion with history and philosophy. In the work of A. Herzen there are real events and people. “Every page,” as L. Chukovskaya notes, “no matter what it is dedicated to, reveals the outlines of the tragic life of the writer...”
It is no coincidence that many literary critics back in the 19th century drew attention to the precariousness of the boundary between fiction and memoir genres, including autobiographies, which emerged in the works of Russian and Western European writers.
The 20th century is characterized by the appearance of a large amount of autobiographical literature, synthesizing the achievements of previous eras. In parallel with the creation of autobiographical works in the twentieth century, there has been intensive research and study of the autobiographical genre. The study of this phenomenon, according to researchers, began in the 50s. twentieth century.
The sustained interest in autobiographical prose at the beginning of the 20th century was due to the fact that, firstly, like no other, such prose of emigrant writers could preserve - “at least in words” (Bunin) - the past, old Russia, which had sunk into oblivion; secondly, the autobiographical prose of writers who remained in the young Soviet state could become part of the history of the new country; thirdly, autobiographical prose made it possible to create a story about a person’s life and, in general, a “philosophical” autobiography, a universal biography, intellectualizing art as a whole. It was the latest trend that predetermined specific feature literature of the beginning and middle of the 20th century, when “the attraction to autobiography in its various manifestations embraced almost all the most significant literary movements of the era.”
Of course, the autobiographical genre in the 20th century became one of the preferred ones by writers who quickly “learned” from the classics of the 19th century, who gravitated not only to reflect life in general, but also to reproduce the most vivid impressions own lives in works that are unique in nature, works about the birth, formation and development of the character of a hero who goes through the school of life and is formed in a social environment or despite its influence. For writers of the 20th century, classic examples of autobiographical prose were “Childhood” (1852), “Adolescence” (1852-54), “Youth” (1855-57) by Tolstoy, “Family Chronicle” (1856) and “Childhood of Bagrov the Grandson.” (1858) by Aksakov, “The Past and Thoughts” (1858-62) by Herzen, “Childhood of Theme” (1892) by Garin-Mikhailovsky, in which the authors tended to capture the process of awakening and formation of the human soul. The beginning of the 20th century, which brought the cult of creative personality, required close attention to the personality of the artist in the context of a rapidly changing cultural and historical reality.
Perhaps the most popular autobiographical works of Russian literature of the first third of the 20th century, bright both in nature and in poetic originality, were “The History of My Contemporary” (1909) by Korolenko, “Childhood” (1913-14), “In People” (1915-16 ), “My Universities” (1922) by M. Gorky, “Kotik Letaev” (1915-16), “The Baptized Chinese” (1921) by A. Bely, “The Summer of the Lord” (1927-31), “Pilgrim” (1931) Shmeleva, “The Life of Arsenyev” (1927-33) by Bunin.
The heyday of autobiographical literature of the 20th century was also the beginning of its study. In the late twenties and early thirties, studies of the autobiographical novel as an independent genre appeared on the pages of the magazines “At the Literary Post”(), “Literary Studies” - the works of I. Anisimov, A. Desnitsky, S. Dinamov, A. Zaprovsky, which laid the foundation domestic research into the nature and essence of autobiographical works. I. Anisimov and S. Dinamov noted such a specific feature of the autobiographical novel as its two-sided formation, the opposition of two principles in it: everyday reality (the area of statics) and the “I” of the author (the area of dynamics). Desnitsky, for example, drew attention to the main motive of “happy childhood”, characteristic of the noble line of the autobiographical genre.
Both the first researchers of autobiographical works (I. Anisimov, A. Desnitsky, S. Dinamov, A. Zaprovsky), and most of their followers, literary critics of the 20th century, sought to show the significance of works of an autobiographical nature, their influence on the development of literature in general and the autobiographical genre in particular .
Throughout the 20th century. the problems of autobiographical, “autopsychological” literature were actively discussed on the pages of “Literary Gazette”, “Literary Russia”, magazines “Russian Literature”, “Questions of Literature”, “Literary Study”, “New World”, “Star”, “Friendship of Peoples” . For a century, scholars have debated the genre, which was coined in 1891 as “memoir.” In our opinion, the discussion became most active in the second half of the 20th century, since it was at this time that the interest of literary scholars in the field of artistic and documentary genres and their role in the historical and literary process increased significantly. In 1970, an international scientific conference “Artistic and Documentary Genres” was held in Ivanovo, which highlighted the urgent need to resolve many issues in the theory and history of genre research.
1.3. Genre-specific features of autobiographical works
The very term “artistic-documentary genres” indicates a pressing problem for philologists: terminological instability, the use of synonymously different concepts - notes, memoirs, autobiographical story, memoir-biographical novel, memoirs, narratives about childhood and the like - as identical ones. This is due to the dominant subject of the image in these studies, rather than the type internal organization text.
In a broad sense autobiography- a work whose main content is image of the process spiritually - moral development author's personality, based on understanding the past from the point of view of an experienced, mature person, wise in life. The writer’s life becomes a proto-plot, and his personality (inner world, behavioral characteristics) becomes the prototype of the main character. Autobiography is characterized by a special type of biographical time and “a specifically constructed image of a person going through his life path.” One of the special advantages of autobiographical works is the reflection in them of historical signs of their time (landscape, description of a home, interior, things, portraits, traditions, transmission of features of speech, manners, etc.).
Observations and analysis of one's own motives and actions constitute an important part of literary and cultural life. One of the main distinguishing qualities of autobiographies is their authenticity, frankness, and self-reflection.
Authors who intend to tell about themselves extremely sincerely in their works are called autobiographies. confessions, bringing his creativity to a certain extent closer to religious ritual. A greater degree of frankness, sincerity and trust in the reader distinguishes confession from autobiography. The author of the confession seeks to comprehend the true motives and reasons for his actions, the true motives, whatever they may be. Confession is inherently dialogical: the author counts on the reader’s understanding and calls him to respond with frankness. One of the striking examples of this is Turgenev’s famous letter after reading Tolstoy’s “Confession” - he would like to meet its author, “in order to, in turn, confess to a person dear to me” (dated December 15, 1882).
I was born in the same year as Charlie Chaplin, Tolstoy's "Kreutzer Sonata", the Eiffel Tower and, it seems, Eliot. This summer, Paris celebrated the centenary of the fall of the Bastille - 1889. On the night of my birth, the ancient Midsummer Night celebrated and continues to celebrate - June 23 (Midsummer Night). They named me Anna in honor of my grandmother Anna Egorovna Motovilova. Her mother was a Chingizid, Tatar princess Akhmatova, whose surname, not realizing that I was going to be a Russian poet, I made my literary name. I was born at the Sarakini dacha (Bolshoi Fontan, 11th steam train station) near Odessa. This dacha (or rather, hut) stood in the depths of a very narrow and downward plot of land - next to the post office. The seashore there is steep, and the train's rails ran along the very edge.
When I was 15 years old and we lived in a dacha in Lustdorf, driving past this place one day, my mother suggested that I get off and look at the Sarakini dacha, which I had never seen before. At the entrance to the hut I said: “There will be a memorial plaque here someday.” I wasn't vain. It was just a stupid joke. Mom was upset. “God, how badly I raised you,” she said.
1957
No one in the family, as far as anyone can see, wrote poetry, only the first Russian poetess Anna Bunina was the aunt of my grandfather Erasmus Ivanovich Stogov. The Stogovs were poor landowners of the Mozhaisk district of the Moscow province, resettled there because of the rebellion under Marfa Posadnitsa. In Novgorod they were richer and more noble.
My ancestor Khan Akhmat was killed at night in his tent by a bribed assassin, and with this, as Karamzin narrates, the Mongol yoke ended in Rus'. On this day, as in memory of a happy event, a procession of the cross took place from the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow. This Akhmat, as is known, was a Genghisid.
One of the Akhmatov princesses, Praskovya Egorovna, married a rich and noble Simbirsk landowner Motovilov in the 18th century. Egor Motovilov was my great-grandfather. His daughter Anna Egorovna is my grandmother. She died when my mother was nine years old, and I was named Anna in honor of her. Her feronnière was used to make several rings with diamonds and one with an emerald, but I could not put on her thimble, although I had thin fingers.
1964
I lived in Tsarskoe Selo from the age of two to sixteen. Of these, the family spent one winter (when sister Iya was born) in Kyiv (Institutskaya St.)* and the other in Sevastopol (Sobornaya, Semenov’s house). The main place in Tsarskoe Selo was the house of the merchant Elizaveta Ivanovna Shukhardina (Shirokaya, second house from the station, corner of Bezymyanny Lane). But the first year of the century, 1900, the family lived (winter) in Daudel’s house (corner of Srednyaya and Leontievskaya. There was measles and maybe even smallpox).
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* There is a story with a bear in Chateau de Fleurs, into whose enclosure my sister Rika and I ended up, having escaped to the mountains. The horror of others. We promised the bonna to hide the event from mom, but little Rika, returning, shouted: “Mom, Mishka is a booth, his face is a window,” and upstairs in the Tsar’s Garden I found a pin in the shape of a lyre. Bonna told me: “This means you will be a poet,” but the most important thing happened not in Kyiv, but in Gungenburg, when we lived at the Krabau dacha - I found the king mushroom. The “Kalutskaya” nanny, Tatyana Ritivkina, spoke about me: “This will be pepper,” “Our affairs are as white as soot,” and “You can’t see enough of it if you turn away.”
