.
1851-1853 - teaching at the Saratov gymnasium.
1853 - start of work in the Sovremennik magazine.
1855, May 10 - defense of the dissertation “Aesthetic relations of art to reality.”
1862, July 7 - arrest and imprisonment in the Alekseevsky rave of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
1862-1863 - creation of the novel “What is to be done?”
1864, May 19 - civil execution on Mytninskaya Square in St. Petersburg.
May 1864, 20 - sent to Katorgy in Eastern Siberia.
1889, October 17 (29) - died in Saratov.

Essay on life and work

The making of a critic.

In his writings, he clearly formulated the positions of the revolutionary democratic movement, which attracted the close attention of the III Department. As N.G. Chernyshevsky foresaw, he was not only arrested, but also long years excluded from active political struggle. Imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress, civil execution, and many years in prison broke his health. In 1883, a man came from Yakutia to Astrakhan who no longer had
strength not only for this struggle, but also for creativity.

Literature. 10 grades : textbook for general education. institutions / T. F. Kurdyumova, S. A. Leonov, O. E. Maryina, etc.; edited by T. F. Kurdyumova. M.: Bustard, 2007.

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Publicist and writer, materialist philosopher and scientist, revolutionary democrat, theorist of critical utopian socialism, Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky was an outstanding personality who left a noticeable mark on the development of social philosophy and literary criticism and literature itself.

Coming from the family of a Saratov priest, Chernyshevsky was nevertheless well educated. Until the age of 14, he studied at home under the guidance of his father, who was well-read and smart person, and in 1843 he entered the theological seminary.

“In terms of his knowledge, Chernyshevsky was not only superior to his peers and fellow students, but also to many teachers at the seminary. Chernyshevsky used his time at the seminary for self-education.", wrote Soviet literary critic Pavel Lebedev-Polyansky in his article.

Without completing the seminar course, Chernyshevsky in 1846 entered the historical and philological department of the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg University.

Nikolai Gavrilovich read with interest the works of major philosophers, starting with Aristotle and Plato and ending with Feuerbach and Hegel, economists and art theorists, as well as the works of natural scientists. At the university, Chernyshevsky met Mikhail Illarionovich Mikhailov. It was he who brought the young student together with representatives of the Petrashevites circle. Chernyshevsky did not become a member of this circle, but he often attended other meetings - in the company of the father of Russian nihilism, Irinarch Vvedensky. After the arrest of the Petrashevites, Nikolai Chernyshevsky wrote in his diary that visitors to Vvedensky’s circle “do not even think about the possibility of an uprising that would free them.”

After graduating from the university course in 1850, the young candidate of sciences was assigned to the Saratov gymnasium. The new teacher used his position, among other things, to promote revolutionary ideas, for which he became known as a freethinker and a Voltairian.

“I have such a way of thinking that I should expect from minute to minute that the gendarmes will appear, take me to St. Petersburg and put me in a fortress for God knows how long. I do things here that smell like hard labor - I say such things in class.”

Nikolai Chernyshevsky

After his marriage, Chernyshevsky returned to St. Petersburg and was appointed as a teacher in the second cadet corps, but his stay there, despite all his pedagogical merits, was short-lived. Nikolai Chernyshevsky resigned after a conflict with an officer.

The first literary works of the future author of the novel “What to do?” began writing in the late 1840s. Having moved to the Northern capital in 1853, Chernyshevsky published short articles in St. Petersburg Gazette and Otechestvennye Zapiski. A year later, having finally ended his career as a teacher, Chernyshevsky came to Sovremennik and already in 1855 began to actually manage the magazine along with Nekrasov. Nikolai Chernyshevsky was one of the ideologists of turning the magazine into a tribune of revolutionary democracy, which turned a number of authors away from Sovremennik, among whom were Turgenev, Tolstoy and Grigorovich. At the same time, Chernyshevsky strongly supported Dobrolyubov, whom he attracted to the magazine in 1856 and handed over to him the leadership of the criticism department. Chernyshevsky was connected with Dobrolyubov not only general work in Sovremennik, but also the similarity of the series social concepts, one of the most striking examples - pedagogical ideas both philosophers.

Continuing active work in Sovremennik, in 1858 the writer became the first editor of the Military Collection magazine and attracted some Russian officers to revolutionary circles.

In 1860 the main philosophical work Chernyshevsky “Anthropological Primacy in Philosophy”, and a year later, after the announcement of the Manifesto on the abolition of serfdom, the author came out with a number of articles criticizing the reform. Although not formally a member of the “Land and Freedom” circle, Chernyshevsky nevertheless became its ideological inspirer and came under secret police surveillance.

In May 1862, Sovremennik was closed for eight months “for its harmful direction,” and in June Nikolai Chernyshevsky himself was arrested. The position of the writer was worsened by Herzen’s letter to the revolutionary and publicist Nikolai Serno-Solovyevich, in which the former declared his readiness to publish a magazine abroad. Chernyshevsky was accused of having connections with revolutionary emigration and was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Investigation into the case of the “enemy” Russian Empire number one” lasted about a year and a half. During this time, the novel “What to do?” was written. (1862–1863), published in Sovremennik, which reopened after a break, the unfinished novel “Tales within a Tale” and several stories.

In February 1864, Chernyshevsky was sentenced to hard labor for 14 years without the right to return from Siberia. And although Emperor Alexander II reduced hard labor to seven years, in general the critic and literary critic spent more than two decades in prison.

In the early 80s of the 19th century, Chernyshevsky returned to the central part of Russia - the city of Astrakhan, and at the end of the decade, thanks to the efforts of his son, Mikhail, he moved to his homeland in Saratov. However, a few months after his return, the writer fell ill with malaria. Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky died on October 29, 1889, and was buried in Saratov at the Resurrection Cemetery.

The parents of the future revolutionary were Evgenia Egorovna Golubeva and Archpriest Gavriil Ivanovich Chernyshevsky.

Until the age of 14, he was educated at home by his father, who had encyclopedic knowledge and was a strongly devout man. He was helped by Nikolai Gavrilovich's cousin L.N. Pypina. During his childhood, Chernyshevsky was assigned a tutor from France. As a child, young Kolya loved to read and spent most of his free time reading books.

Formation of views

In 1843, Chernyshevsky took the first step in obtaining higher education, entering the theological seminary of the city of Saratov. After studying there for three years, Nikolai Gavrilovich decides to quit his studies.

In 1846, he passed the exams and entered the Faculty of History and Philology at the University of St. Petersburg. Here, absorbing the thoughts and scientific knowledge of ancient authors, studying the works of Isaac Newton, Pierre-Simon Laplace and advanced Western materialists, the formation of the future revolutionary took place. According to a short biography of Chernyshevsky, it was in St. Petersburg that the transformation of Chernyshevsky, a subject, into Chernyshevsky, a revolutionary, took place.

The formation of Nikolai Gavrilovich’s socio-political views took place under the influence of I. I. Vvedensky’s circle, in which Chernyshevsky begins to comprehend the basics of writing.

In 1850, his studies at the university ended and the young graduate received an appointment to the Saratov gymnasium. This educational institution Already in 1851, it began to be used as a launching pad for cultivating advanced social revolutionary ideas in its students.

Petersburg period

In 1853, Chernyshevsky met the daughter of a Saratov doctor, Olga Sokratovna Vasilyeva, with whom he married. She gave her husband three sons - Alexander, Victor and Mikhail. After the wedding, the family changed the district Saratov to the capital St. Petersburg, where the head of the family worked for a very short time cadet corps, but soon resigned from there due to a quarrel with an officer. Chernyshevsky worked in many literary magazines, which we will reflect in the chronological table.

After the “Great Reforms” were carried out in Russia, Chernyshevsky acted as the ideological inspirer of populism and going to the people. In 1863 he published in Sovremennik main novel of your life, which is called “What to do?

" This is Chernyshevsky’s most important work.

Exile and death

Chernyshevsky’s biography is replete with difficult moments in his life. In 1864, for his social revolutionary activities and involvement in “People's Will,” Nikolai Gavrilovich was sent to a 14-year exile to work at hard labor. After some time, the sentence was halved thanks to the decree of the emperor. After hard labor, Chernyshevsky was ordered to remain in Siberia for life. After serving hard labor, in 1871 he was assigned the city of Vilyuysk as his place of residence.

In 1874, he was offered freedom and the revocation of his sentence, but Chernyshevsky did not send his petition for clemency to the emperor.

His younger son did a lot to return his father to his native Saratov, and only 15 years later Chernyshevsky still moved to live in his small homeland. Having not lived in Saratov for even six months, the philosopher fell ill with malaria. Chernyshevsky's death occurred from a cerebral hemorrhage. Great philosopher was buried at the Resurrection Cemetery.

Chernyshevsky Nikolai Gavrilovich (1828-1889)

Russian revolutionary, writer, journalist. He was born in Saratov into the family of a priest and, as his parents expected of him, he studied at a theological seminary for three years. From 1846 to 1850 studied at the historical and philological department of St. Petersburg University. The development of Chernyshevsky was especially strongly influenced by the French socialist philosophers - Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier.

In 1853 he married Olga Sokratovna Vasilyeva. Chernyshevsky not only loved his young wife very much, but also considered their marriage to be a kind of “testing ground” for testing new ideas. The writer preached absolute equality of spouses in marriage - a truly revolutionary idea for that time. Moreover, he believed that women, as one of the most oppressed groups of the then society, should have been given maximum freedom to achieve true equality. He allowed his wife everything, including adultery, believing that he could not consider his wife as his property. Later personal experience the writer was reflected in love line novel "What to do".

In 1853 he moved from Saratov to St. Petersburg, where his career as a publicist began. The name of Chernyshevsky quickly became the banner of the Sovremennik magazine, where he began working at the invitation of N.A. Nekrasova. In 1855, Chernyshevsky defended his dissertation “Aesthetic relations of art to reality,” where he abandoned the search for beauty in abstract, sublime spheres “ pure art”, formulating his thesis: “The beautiful is life.”

In the late 50s and early 60s, he published a lot, taking advantage of any opportunity to openly or covertly express his views, expecting a peasant uprising after the abolition of serfdom in 1861. For revolutionary agitation, Sovremennik was closed. Soon after this, the authorities intercepted A.I.’s letter. Herzen, who had been in exile for fifteen years. Having learned about the closure of Sovremennik, he wrote to the magazine’s employee, N.L. Serno-Solovyevich and suggested continuing the publication abroad. The letter was used as a pretext, and on July 7, 1862, Chernyshevsky and Serno-Solovyevich were arrested and placed in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In May 1864, Chernyshevsky was found guilty, sentenced to seven years of hard labor and exile to Siberia for the rest of his life; on May 19, 1864, the ritual of “civil execution” was publicly performed on him.

While the investigation was underway, Chernyshevsky wrote his general ledger-novel “What to do.”

Only in 1883 Chernyshevsky received permission to settle in Astrakhan. By this time he was already an elderly and sick man. In 1889 he was transferred to Saratov, and soon after the move he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky was the founder of the “solid materialist tradition” in Rus'. Hence its special meaning philosophical views, set out in a few articles and expressed in one way or another in the entirety of his journalistic works. Note that philosophical materialism was known in Russia before Chernyshevsky. The ideas of the enlighteners of the 18th century left a deep mark on the history of Russian social thought. Among the glorious figures of the Russian revolutionary-democratic movement, Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (1828-1889) rightfully occupies one of the first places.

Chernyshevsky’s activities were distinguished by their unusual versatility. He was a militant materialist philosopher and dialectician; he was also an original historian, sociologist, major economist, critic, and an outstanding innovator in aesthetics and literature. He embodied best features of the Russian people - a clear mind, persistent character, a powerful desire for freedom. His life is an example of great civil courage and selfless service to the people. Chernyshevsky devoted his entire life to the struggle for the liberation of the people from feudal-serf slavery, for the revolutionary-democratic transformation of Russia. He devoted his life to what can be characterized by the words Herzen said about the Decembrists, “to awaken the younger generation to a new life and cleanse the children born into an environment of executionerism and servility.” With the works of Chernyshevsky, philosophical thought in Russia significantly expanded its sphere of influence, moving from a limited circle of scientists to the pages of a widespread magazine, declaring itself in Sovremennik with every article of Chernyshevsky, even not at all devoted to special philosophical issues. Chernyshevsky wrote very little specifically about philosophy, but all his scientific and journalistic activities were imbued with it. Chernyshevsky, the philosopher, followed the same path as his predecessors, Belinsky and Herzen, had previously followed. Philosophy for Chernyshevsky was not an abstract theory, but a tool for changing Russian reality. Chernyshevsky's materialism and his dialectics served as a theoretical basis for the political program of revolutionary democracy.

1. MAIN STAGES OF N.G.’S LIFE COURSE CHERNYSHEVSKY.

Chernyshevsky Nikolai Gavrilovich (1828 - 1889) - publicist, literary critic, prose writer, economist, philosopher, revolutionary democrat.

Born in Saratov in the family of priest Gavrila Ivanovich Chernyshevsky (1793-1861). He studied at home under the guidance of his father, a multifaceted educated man. In 1842 he entered the Saratov Theological Seminary, where he used his time there mainly for self-education: he studied languages, history, geography, literary theory, and Russian grammar. Without graduating from the seminary, in 1846 he entered St. Petersburg University in the department of general literature of the Faculty of Philosophy. Along with the Russian poet N. A. Nekrasov and literary critic N. A. Dobrolyubov, he headed the editorial board of the Sovremennik magazine. Chernyshevsky’s work documents a change in the way of life in Russia and outlines a new morality younger generation, further disclosed in the journalism of D.I. Pisarev. Together with A. I. Herzen, he was the founder of populism...

During his years of study at the university (1846-1850), the foundations of his worldview were developed. The conviction that had developed by 1850 about the need for revolution in Russia was combined with sobriety of historical thinking: “Here is my way of thinking about Russia: an irresistible expectation of an imminent revolution and a thirst for it, although I know that for a long time, maybe for a very long time, nothing will come of it the good thing is that, perhaps, oppression will only increase for a long time, etc. “What are the needs?.. peaceful, quiet development is impossible.”

Chernyshevsky tried his hand at prose (the story about Lily and Goethe, the story about Josephine, “Theory and Practice”, “The Cut Off”). Having left the university as a candidate, after briefly working as a tutor in the Second Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, he served as a senior literature teacher at the Saratov gymnasium (1851-1853), where he said in class “things that smell like hard labor.”

Returning to St. Petersburg in May 1853, Chernyshevsky taught in the Second Cadet Corps, while preparing for exams for a master's degree and working on his dissertation “Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality.” The debate on the dissertation presented to Professor Nikitenko in the fall of 1853 took place on May 10, 1855 and was a manifestation of materialist ideas in aesthetics, irritating the university authorities. The dissertation was officially approved in January 1859. At the same time, journal work was going on, which began in the summer of 1853 with reviews in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski.

But since the spring of 1855, Chernyshevsky, who had retired, was engaged in magazine work for N.A. Nekrasov’s Sovremennik. Collaboration in this magazine (1859-1861) occurred during a period of social upsurge associated with the preparation of the peasant reform. Under the leadership of Chernyshevsky and Nekrasov, and later Dobrolyubov, the revolutionary-democratic direction of the magazine was determined.

Since 1854, Chernyshevsky led the department of criticism and bibliography at Sovremennik. At the end of 1857, he handed it over to Dobrolyubov and focused mainly on political, economic, philosophical topics. Convinced of the predatory nature of the upcoming reform, Chernyshevsky boycotts the pre-reform excitement; upon the publication of the manifesto on February 19, 1861, Sovremennik did not directly respond to it. In “Letters without an Address,” written after the reform and actually addressed to Alexander II (published abroad in 1874), Chernyshevsky accused the autocratic-bureaucratic regime of robbing the peasants. Counting on a peasant revolution, the Sovremennik circle, led by Chernyshevsky, resorted to illegal forms of struggle. Chernyshevsky wrote a revolutionary proclamation “Bow to the lordly peasants from well-wishers.”

In an atmosphere of growing post-reform reaction, the attention of the III Department is increasingly attracted by the activities of Chernyshevsky. Since the fall of 1861, he was under police surveillance. But Chernyshevsky was a skilled conspirator; nothing suspicious was found in his papers. In June 1862, the publication of Sovremennik was banned for eight months.

On July 7, 1862, Chernyshevsky was arrested. The reason for the arrest was a letter from Herzen and Ogarev intercepted at the border, in which it was proposed to publish Sovremennik in London or Geneva. On the same day, Chernyshevsky became a prisoner of the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he remained until the verdict was pronounced - civil execution, which took place on May 19, 1864 on Mytninskaya Square. He was deprived of all rights of the estate and sentenced to 14 years of hard labor in the mines, with subsequent settlement in Siberia, Alexander II reduced the term of hard labor to 7 years. The trial in the Chernyshevsky case dragged on for a very long time due to the lack of direct evidence.

In the fortress, Chernyshevsky turned to artistic creativity. Here, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863, the novel “What to do? From stories about new people." It was followed by the remaining unfinished story “Alferyev” (1863) and the novel “Tales within a Tale” (1863), “Small Stories” (1864). Only the novel “What to do?” was published.

In May 1864, Chernyshevsky was sent under escort to Siberia, where he was first in the mine, and from September 1865 in the prison of the Aleksandrovsky plant.

Hard labor, which expired in 1871, turned out to be the threshold to a worse test - a settlement in Yakutia, in the city of Vilyuysk, where the prison was the best building and the climate turned out to be disastrous.

Here Chernyshevsky was the only exile and could only communicate with the gendarmes and the local Yakut population; correspondence was difficult and often deliberately delayed. Only in 1883, under Alexander III, Chernyshevsky was allowed to move to Astrakhan. The sudden change in climate greatly damaged his health.

The years of fortress, hard labor and exile (1862-1883) did not lead to the oblivion of the name and works of Chernyshevsky - his fame as a thinker and revolutionary grew. Upon arrival in Astrakhan, Chernyshevsky hoped to return to active literary activity, but publishing his work, albeit under a pseudonym, was difficult.

In June 1889, Chernyshevsky received permission to return to his homeland, Saratov. He made big plans, despite his rapidly deteriorating health. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage and was buried in Saratov.

In the diverse heritage of Chernyshevsky important place work on aesthetics, literary criticism, artistic creativity. In all these areas, he was an innovator who still stirs controversy to this day. His own words about Gogol are applicable to Chernyshevsky as a writer from among those “love for whom requires the same mood of soul with them, because their activity is serving a certain direction of moral aspirations.”

The romantic pathos of the work lies in the aspiration to the socialist ideal, the future, when the type of “new man” will become “the common nature of all people.” The prototype of the future is the personal relationships of “new people” who resolve conflicts on the basis of the humane theory of “calculation of benefits”, and their work activity. These detailed areas of life of the “new people” are correlated with a hidden, “Aesopian” plot, the main character of which is the professional revolutionary Rakhmetov.

The themes of love, labor, revolution are organically connected in the novel, the heroes of which profess “reasonable egoism”, stimulating moral development personality. The realistic principle of typification is more consistently maintained in Rakhmetov, whose stern courage was dictated by the conditions of the revolutionary struggle of the early 60s. A call for a bright and wonderful future, Chernyshevsky’s historical optimism, and a major finale are combined in the novel with awareness tragic fate his “new people”: “... in a few more years, perhaps not years, but months, and they will be cursed, and they will be driven from the stage, pushed away, shunned.”

The publication of the novel caused a storm of criticism. Against the background of numerous accusations against Chernyshevsky of immorality and so on, the article by R.R. Strakhov stands out for the seriousness of its analysis. Happy people" Having recognized the vital basis and “tension of inspiration” of the author, the “organic” critic challenged the rationalism and optimism of the “new people” and the absence of deep conflicts between them.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, expressing sympathy for the general idea of ​​the novel, noted that in its implementation the author could not avoid some arbitrary regulation of details.”

And N.G. Chernyshevsky believed: “...Only those areas of literature achieve brilliant development that arise under the influence of strong and living ideas that satisfy the urgent needs of the era. Each century has its own historical cause, its own special aspirations. The life and glory of our time consist of two aspirations, closely related and complementary to each other: humanity and concern for the improvement of human life.”

It is known that Chernyshevsky imagined “positively” moral person as a “complete person”, whole and harmonious in which the root of all movements - both selfish and selfless - is the same, namely “self-love”. However, the “theory of rational egoism” did not prevent Chernyshevsky from believing in the almost miraculous power of the individual and warmly sympathizing with all those who are “oppressed by living conditions.”

The positions of positivism and faith in science were also shared by representatives of populism, radicalism and socialism. Along with the problem of man, the question of attitude towards religion also invariably worried the enlightened Russian society those years. The tendency towards secularization of society, that is, separation from religion and the Church, which is already being replaced by the idea of ​​socialism, replacing the religious worldview in the minds of people, becomes most acutely felt and painful when a shift towards democratization occurs in Russian life (the liberation of the peasants in 1861 year), and various currents of secularism become bolder and more active. However, even taking the forms of fighting against God, these movements were associated with intense spiritual quests, with the need to satisfy the religious needs of the masses. Back in 1848, 20-year-old Chernyshevsky wrote in his diary: “What if we have to wait for a new religion?<…>I would be very sorry to part with Jesus Christ, who is so good, so sweet in his personality, loving humanity.” 1 But a few years later, on the pages of his novel, he indulges in sublime dreams of the coming Kingdom of Goodness and Justice, where there is no religion except religiously colored love for man...

Chernyshevsky was not only the ideological leader of the various intelligentsia, he made an invaluable contribution to the moral capital of the era. Contemporaries unanimously note his high moral qualities. He endured hard labor and exile with heroic humility. This preacher of practical benefit and popularizer of the theory of “reasonable egoism” fought for freedom, but did not want freedom for himself, because he did not want to be reproached for self-interest.

Chernyshevsky's range of interests was extremely wide: he studied philosophy, natural sciences, political economy, history, and knew European languages. However cultural level Chernyshevsky, like most commoners, was much lower than the level of culture and education of the idealists of the 40s. These are at all times the inevitable costs of the democratization process! However, Chernyshevsky’s like-minded people forgave him both the lack of literary talent and the bad language of his journalistic and philosophical articles, for this was not the main thing. His thought, presented in a ponderous form, made the best minds think not only in Russia, but also in enlightened Europe. Marx specifically took up the Russian language in order to read Chernyshevsky’s works on economics.

The commoners of the 60s - fighters for universal happiness, inspired by the ideas of Chernyshevsky, were atheists and at the same time ascetics, they consciously abandoned hopes for an afterlife, and at the same time in earthly life they chose deprivation, prison, persecution and death. In the eyes of radically minded youth, these people differed favorably from those hypocritical Christians who firmly clung to earthly goods and humbly counted on rewards in future life. Chernyshevsky was by no means just a mouthpiece for their ideas, who from a quiet cozy office inspired them to a sacrificial feat, he was one of them. Even though he was mistaken in his public career, it was still the way of the cross, because he gave his life for all the unfortunate and disadvantaged. Vladimir Nabokov, having sharply negatively assessed his literary and ideological heritage, concluded the chapter dedicated to Chernyshevsky (it is part of the novel “The Gift”) with these poetic lines:

What will your distant great-grandson say about you,

sometimes glorifying the past, sometimes simply cursing it?

That your life was terrible? What's different

could it be happiness? Why weren't you waiting for someone else?

That your feat was not accomplished in vain - dry work

turning into poetry of goodness at the same time

and the white brow of the crowning shackler

one airy and closed line?

The tragedy of Chernyshevsky and his generation lies in the main contradiction that split the consciousness of the “new people”: they were dreamers and idealists, but wanted to believe only in “good”; they were inspired by faith in the Ideal, but at the same time they were ready to reduce all human feelings to elementary physiology. They lacked the culture of thinking, but they despised it, considering thought that was not connected with practical use to be meaningless. They denied any religious faith, and they themselves firmly believed in their utopian dreams and, like Chernyshevsky, sacrificed themselves to the future, denying the very concept of sacrifice...

Summarizing all of the above, we can without a doubt admit that the dominant driving forces of Russian social thought of this period are still religious idealism on the one hand and materialistic biologism on the other. The role of positivism (in the Russian sense of the word) in this “great confrontation” seems very unambiguous. Positivism appears here as a certain mechanism or tool for cognition and explanation from a “scientific” point of view of everything that exists between the world of spirit and matter.

2 PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS OF I.G. CHERNYSHEVSKY

At the time when Chernyshevsky began his conscious activity, advanced social thought was still under the influence of Hegel's philosophy. While paying tribute to the depth and noble character of this teaching, Chernyshevsky considered it outdated and unable to show a reliable path to the freedom and happiness of the people. Hegel's philosophy was a fantastic reflection of the great historical drama old society. She recognized the suffering of humanity as a normal payment for all the achievements of culture and progress. Hegel ridiculed sentimental illusions, sweet utopias of people who called society back to the “state of nature,” this imaginary primeval idyll in the lap of nature. Powerless good wishes! The story is not at all similar to the peaceful vegetation of Philemon and Baucis. Development requires sacrifice, civilization emerges from the ruins of many local and national cultures, wealth gives birth to poverty, factories and manufactures build their success on the poverty of a large class of people. Peoples strive for happiness, but eras of happiness in history are empty pages. This is what Hegel teaches, and for him the satisfaction of human needs cannot be the goal of history - it protects only the interests of development with its universal law. Every stop on this path, every satisfaction with material well-being becomes a betrayal of the world spirit, a tempting obstacle that nature and materiality puts before it. Therefore, the more beautiful life blossoms, the more surely the fatal law of world development condemns it to destruction:

Beauty blooms only in song, And freedom - in the realm of dreams.

Chernyshevsky believed that much was true in Hegel’s philosophy only “in the form of dark forebodings,” however, suppressed by the idealistic worldview of the brilliant philosopher.

Chernyshevsky emphasized the duality of Hegelian philosophy, seeing this as one of its most important defects, and noted the contradiction between its strong principles and narrow conclusions. Speaking about the enormity of Hegel’s genius, calling him a great thinker, Chernyshevsky criticizes him, pointing out that Hegel’s truth appears in the most general, abstract, vague outlines. But Chernyshevsky recognizes Hegel’s merit in the search for truth - the supreme goal of thinking. Whatever the truth is, it is better than everything that is not true. The duty of a thinker is not to retreat from any results of his discoveries.

Absolutely everything must be sacrificed to the truth; it is the source of all good, just as error is the source of “all destruction.” And Chernyshevsky points to Hegel’s great philosophical merit - his dialectical method, “amazingly strong dialectics.”

In the history of knowledge, Chernyshevsky assigns the philosophy of Hegel great place and speaks about its significance of the transition “from abstract science to the science of life.”

Chernyshevsky pointed out that for Russian thought, Hegelian philosophy served as a transition from fruitless scholastic speculation to a “bright view of literature and life.” Hegel's philosophy, according to Chernyshevsky, established the idea that truth is higher and more valuable than anything in the world, that lying is criminal. She affirmed the desire to strictly study concepts and phenomena, instilled “a deep consciousness that reality is worthy of careful study,” for truth is the fruit and result of a strict, comprehensive study of reality. Along with this, Chernyshevsky considered Hegel’s philosophy to be already outdated. Science developed further.

Dissatisfied with Hegel's philosophical system, Chernyshevsky turned to the works of the most prominent philosopher of that time - Ludwig Feuerbach.

Chernyshevsky was very educated person, he studied the works of many philosophers, but called only Feuerbach his teacher.

When Chernyshevsky wrote his first major scientific work, a dissertation on aesthetics, he was already a fully established Feuerbachian thinker in the field of philosophy, although in his dissertation itself he never once mentioned the name of Feuerbach, who was then banned in Russia.

At the beginning of 1849, the Russian Fourierist-Petrashevite Khanykov gave Chernyshevsky, for reference, Feuerbach’s famous “The Essence of Christianity.” Where Feuerbach, with his philosophy, argued that nature exists independently of human thinking and is the foundation on which people grow with their consciousness, and that higher beings created by man’s religious fantasy are only fantastic reflections of man’s own essence.

After reading “The Essence of Christianity,” Chernyshevsky noted in his diary that he liked it “for its nobility, directness, frankness, and sharpness.” He learned about the essence of man, as Feuerbach understood it, in the spirit of natural scientific materialism, he learned that a perfect person is characterized by reason, will, thought, heart, love, this absolute in Feuerbach, the essence of man as a person and the purpose of his existence. A true being loves, thinks, wants. The highest law is love for man.

Philosophy must not proceed from some absolute idea, but from nature, living reality. Nature, being, is the subject of knowledge, and thinking is derivative. Nature is primary, ideas are its creations, a function of the human brain. These were real revelations for young Chernyshevsky. He found what he was looking for. He was especially struck by the main idea, which seemed completely fair, that “man has always imagined a human God according to his own concepts of himself.”

In 1877, Chernyshevsky wrote to his sons from Siberian exile: “If you want to have an idea of ​​what human nature is in my opinion, learn this from the only thinker of our century who had, in my opinion, completely correct concepts about things. This is Ludwig Feuerbach... In my youth I knew entire pages of him by heart. And as far as I can judge from my faded memories of him, I remain his faithful follower.”

Chernyshevsky criticizes the idealistic essence of epistemology of Hegel and his Russian followers, pointing out that it turns the true state of affairs upside down, that it does not go from the material world to consciousness, concepts, but, on the contrary, from concepts to real objects, that it considers nature and man as a product of abstract concepts, the divine absolute idea.

Chernyshevsky defends a materialist solution to the main question of philosophy, shows that scientific materialist epistemology proceeds from the recognition of ideas and concepts that are only a reflection of real things and processes occurring in the material world, in nature. He points out that concepts are the result of generalizing the data of experience, the result of the study and knowledge of the material world, that they embrace the essence of things.

“By forming an abstract concept about the subject,” he writes in the article “A Critical Look at Modern aesthetic concepts“- we discard all the definite, living details with which the object appears in reality, and compose only its general essential features; y really existing person there is some growth specific color hair, a certain complexion, but one person’s stature is large, another is small, one person’s complexion is pale, another is ruddy, one is white, another is dark-skinned, a third, like a Negro, is completely black - all these various details are not determined general concept, are thrown out of it. Therefore, in a real person there are always many more signs and qualities than there are in the abstract concept of a person in general. In an abstract concept, only the essence of the object remains.”

The phenomena of reality, Chernyshevsky believed, are very heterogeneous and varied. Man draws his strength from reality, real life, knowledge of it, the ability to use the forces of nature and the qualities of human nature. Acting in accordance with the laws of nature, man modifies the phenomena of reality in accordance with his aspirations.

According to Chernyshevsky, only those human aspirations that are based on reality are of serious importance. Success can only be expected from those hopes that are aroused in a person by reality.

Truth, according to Chernyshevsky, is achieved only through a strict, comprehensive study of reality, and not through arbitrary subjective speculation. Chernyshevsky was a consistent materialist. The most important elements of his philosophical worldview are the struggle against idealism, for the recognition of the materiality of the world, the primacy of nature and the recognition of human thinking as a reflection of objective, real reality, the “anthropological principle in philosophy”, the struggle against agnosticism, for the recognition of the knowability of objects and phenomena.

Chernyshevsky materialistically solved the main question of philosophy, the question of the relationship of thinking to being. He, rejecting the idealistic doctrine of the superiority of spirit over nature, asserted the primacy of nature, the conditioning of human thinking by real being, which has its basis in itself.

For its time, like all of Chernyshevsky’s philosophy, it was mainly directed against idealism, religion, and theological morality.

In his philosophical constructions, Chernyshevsky came to the conclusion that “man loves himself first of all.” He is an egoist, and egoism is the urge that controls a person’s actions.

CONCLUSION

M. G. Chernyshevsky is a Russian materialist philosopher, revolutionary democrat, encyclopedist thinker, theorist of critical utopian socialism, ideologist of the peasant revolution. He relied on the works of ancient, as well as French and English materialism of the 17th – 18th centuries. In addition, he paid a lot of attention to the works of natural scientists - Newton, Laplace, the ideas of utopian socialists, classics of political economy, anthropological materialism of Feuerbach, Hegel's dialectics. Chernyshevsky's philosophy is directed against dualism, as well as idealistic monism. He substantiated the position about the material unity of the world, the objective nature of nature and its laws. Chernyshevsky also relied on data from experimental psychology and physiology. Developed the concept of anthropological materialism. In his works, he purposefully pursued the idea of ​​the socio-political conditionality of philosophy, which has theoretical and methodological significance.

In sociology, Chernyshevsky spoke about the inevitability social revolutions, material and economic needs. Radical solution social problems considered a people's revolution. He contrasted the doctrine of morality with religious asceticism. The criteria for beauty were derived from the real experiences of a person, the characteristics of his psychology and taste.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

History of Philosophy / Ed. G.F. Alexandrov, B.E. Bykhovsky, M.B. Mitin, P.F. Yudin. T. I. Philosophy of ancient and feudal society. M., 2003


Orlov S.V. History of philosophy. –SPb.: Peter, 2006.


Chernyshevsky N.G. Complete collection of works M., 1949. T. XIV.