Direct work on the book (winter 1945 - 1946) began in an atmosphere of quickly dissipated public hopes and literary timelessness. The death of his father, the arrest of his beloved woman, the death of Stalin, a heart attack, the return of Soviet convicts, news of the death of those who had been executed long ago - all this fit into a decade of work on the novel.
In February 1946, the first public reading of Shakespeare's Hamlet in Pasternak's translation took place at Moscow State University. The first edition of the poem “Hamlet”, which opens the book of poems by Yuri Zhivago, dates back to February of the same year.
In June 1946, Pasternak reads the first chapter of the novel “Boys and Girls” (one of the draft titles of “Doctor Zhivago”). The second chapter is ready in August - “A Girl from Another Circle”. On September 9, an article appears in the Pravda newspaper, which quotes an incriminating resolution of the USSR Writers' Union, where Pasternak is branded "an author without ideas, far from Soviet reality." In light of these unpleasant events, B. Pasternak’s public reading of the first chapters of the novel, which took place on the same September day, is perceived by many as a daring, senseless challenge to the authorities.
Work on the novel is slowed down due to the reworking of the second chapter. Pasternak strives to create a spin-off version of Doctor Zhivago, where the revolutionary spirit of the era comes first.
The end of winter - spring of 1947 was marked by work on the third chapter ("Christmas tree at the Sventitskys"). During this period, persecution resumes, having subsided in the winter. Perhaps the reason for this was the news about Pasternak’s nomination for the Nobel Prize.
Only a year later, in the spring of 1948, after lengthy studies of translations, Pasternak managed to finish the fourth chapter (“Years in Between,” the title of the first edition) about the First World War.
During April - May, he reworks the chapter “The Christmas tree at the Sventitskys” and finally rewrites the chapter “Overdue Inevitabilities” (formerly “Years in Between”). At the same time, the final title “Doctor Zhivago” was approved with the subtitle “Pictures of Half a Century of Use,” discarded by the author in 1955.
In August - October 1950, Pasternak completed chapters 5 and 6 of the second book. And again, forced translation work suspended the writing of the novel. In May 1952, he completed chapter 7 of the novel, which now (at periodic readings of chapters to friends) is increasingly criticized rather than admired.
On the 10th of October, the 10th chapter of the novel was reprinted, and on October 20, Boris Pasternak was admitted to the Botkin hospital with a massive heart attack, where he remained until January 6, 1953.
In the summer, while in the Bolshevo sanatorium, Pasternak writes eleven more poems in “Yurina’s Notebook,” two of which he will delete later. The final order of the "notebook" cycle will be established only in the fall of 1955.
Finally, on October 10, 1955, the novel reaches its final point, whose difficult story has not yet ended.
The manuscript of the novel is submitted by the author to the magazine " New world", who was clearly in no hurry to publish. In May 1956, the Italian communist journalist Sergio D'Angelo came to his dacha in Peredelkino, to whom Pasternak handed over one of the uncorrected versions of the manuscript. The writer agrees to the publication of this version of the novel in Italian, warning only that its release does not precede the Russian version. However, the Soviet magazine was in no hurry to publish, while the Italian publisher G. Feltrinelli published the novel. Then the foreign procession of Doctor Zhivago begins (Italy, England, Sweden, France and Germany). In January 1959, the “second” Russian edition of the novel was published from a copy given by Feltrinelli. A revised version of the novel in Russian was published in 1978 after Pasternak's death, while Russian readers lost it for more than thirty years.
In 1958, Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for the novel Doctor Zhivago. He voluntarily renounces it because this solemn personal moment is given a purely political character.
In "Doctor Zhivago" the author does not hide, but reveals: he writes about the mysteries of life and death, about man, history, Christianity, art, Jewry and so on with the utmost directness, open text (although this text is fiction). His attitude to the revolution is also not a mystery or a secret.
In the novel "Doctor Zhivago" Boris Pasternak conveys his worldview, his vision of the events that shook our country at the beginning of the 20th century. It is known that Pasternak’s attitude towards the revolution was contradictory. Upgrade ideas public life he accepted, but the writer could not help but see how they turned into their opposite. Likewise, the main character of the work, Yuri Zhivago, does not find an answer to the question of how he should live further: what to accept and what not to accept in his new life. In describing the spiritual life of his hero, Boris Pasternak expressed doubts and tense internal struggle of his generation.
In the novel "Doctor Zhivago" Pasternak revives the idea of the intrinsic value of the human personality. The personal dominates the narrative. There are, as it were, two planes in the novel: an external one, telling about the life story of Doctor Zhivago, and an internal one, reflecting the spiritual life of the hero. It is more important for the author to convey not the events of Yuri Zhivago’s life, but his spiritual experience. Therefore, the main semantic load in the novel is transferred from the events and dialogues of the characters to their monologues.
The novel reflects the life story of a relatively small circle of people, several families connected by relationships of kinship, love, and personal intimacy. Their destinies are directly related to historical events our country. Great importance In the novel, Yuri Zhivago has a relationship with his wife Tonya and Lara. Sincere love for his wife, the mother of his children, the keeper of the home, is a natural beginning in Yuri Zhivago. And love for Lara merges with love for life itself, with the happiness of existence.
The main question around which the narrative about the external and internal life of the heroes moves is their attitude to the revolution, the influence of turning points in the country's history on their destinies. Yuri Zhivago was not an opponent of the revolution. He understood that history has its own course and cannot be disrupted. Yuri Zhivago did not take the revolution with hostility, but did not accept it either. It was somewhere between pro and con.
The hero strives away from the fight and ultimately leaves the ranks of the combatants. The author does not condemn him. He regards this act as an attempt to evaluate, see the events of the revolution and civil war from a universal human point of view.
The fate of Doctor Zhivago and his loved ones is the story of people whose lives were thrown out of balance and destroyed by the elements of revolution. Yuri Zhivago himself is gradually losing his vitality. And life around him becomes poorer, rougher and tougher. The scene of the death of Yuri Zhivago, although outwardly not standing out in any way from the general course of the narrative, nevertheless carries an important meaning. The hero is riding a tram and has a heart attack. The life of this man, suffocating in the stuffiness of the confined space of a country shocked by the revolution, ends...
Pasternak tells us that everything that happened in Russia in those years was violence against life and contradicted its natural course. Refusal from the past turns into a rejection of the eternal, of moral values. And this should not be allowed.
Yuri Zhivago's testimony about his time and himself are the poems that were found in his papers after his death. In the novel they are highlighted in separate part. What we have before us is not just a small collection of poems, but a whole book with its own strictly thought-out composition. It opens with a poem about Hamlet, which in world culture has become an image symbolizing reflection on the character of one’s own era.
This poetic book ends with a poem called “The Garden of Gethsemane.” It contains the words of Christ addressed to the Apostle Peter, who defended Jesus with the sword from those who came to seize him and put him to a painful death. He says that “a dispute cannot be decided with iron,” and so Jesus commands Peter: “Put your sword in its place, man.” What we have before us, in essence, is Yuri Zhivago’s assessment of the events that are taking place in his country and throughout the world. This is a denial to “hardware” and weapons of the opportunity to resolve a historical dispute and establish the truth. And in the same poem there is a motive of voluntary self-sacrifice in the name of atonement for human suffering and a motive of the future Resurrection. Thus, the book of poems opens with the theme of upcoming suffering and the awareness of its inevitability, and ends with the theme of its voluntary acceptance and atoning sacrifice. The central image of the book (and the book of poems by Yuri Zhivago, and Pasternak’s book about Yuri Zhivago) is the image of a burning candle from the poem “Winter Night”, the candle with which Yuri Zhivago began as a poet.
with high heat and strong cooling. Then she becomes strong and is not afraid of anything. So
The beginning of the twentieth century became a period of severe trials for Russia: the First World War, revolution, civil war destroyed millions human destinies. The complex relationship between man and new era are described with piercing drama in Boris Leonidovich Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”. Analyzing the work according to plan will allow you to better prepare not only for the literature lesson in grade 11, but also for the Unified State Exam.
Brief Analysis
Year of writing– 1945-1955.
History of creation– The novel was written over ten years, and brought the writer the Nobel Prize in Literature. However, the fate of the work was not at all easy: for a long time it was banned in his homeland, and real persecution unfolded against Pasternak.
Subject– The work fully reveals the problems of many pressing social issues, but the central theme is the contrast between man and history.
Composition– The composition of the work is very complex and is based on the interweaving of the destinies of the main characters. All characters central characters examined through the prism of the personality of Yuri Zhivago.
Genre– Multi-genre novel.
Direction– Realism.
History of creation
The novel was created over the course of a whole decade (1945-1955). And this is not surprising, since the work describes the most important era in the history of Russia and raises global problems of society.
The idea of writing such a grandiose novel first came to Boris Leonidovich in 17-18, but at that time he was not yet ready for such work. The writer began to implement his plan only in 1945, having spent 10 years of hard work on it.
In 1956, attempts were made to publish the novel in the Soviet Union, but they were unsuccessful. Pasternak was subjected to severe criticism for the anti-Soviet content of the novel, while the entire Western world literally applauded the Russian genius for his brilliant work. World recognition Doctor Zhivago led to Boris Leonidovich being awarded the Nobel Prize, which he was forced to refuse at home. The novel was first published in the Soviet Union only in 1988, revealing Pasternak’s incredible literary gift to the general public.
It is interesting that Boris Leonidovich was not immediately able to decide on the name of his brainchild. One option was followed by another (“There will be no death”, “The candle was burning”, “Innokenty Dudorov”, “Boys and Girls”), until finally he settled on the final version - “Doctor Zhivago”.
Meaning of the name The novel consists in comparing the main character with the merciful and all-forgiving Christ - “You are the son of the living God.” It was no coincidence that the writer chose the Old Slavonic form of the adjective “living” - this is how the theme of sacrifice and resurrection runs like a red thread in the work.
Subject
Carrying out an analysis of the work in Doctor Zhivago, it is worth noting that the author revealed in it many important topics: life and death, searching for oneself in a renewed society, loyalty to one’s ideals, choice of life path, the fate of the Russian intelligentsia, honor and duty, love and mercy, resistance to the blows of fate.
However central theme The novel can be called the relationship between personality and era. The author is sure that a person should not sacrifice own life for the sake of struggling with external circumstances, just as he should not adapt to them, losing his true self. Main thought What Pasternak wants to convey in his work is the ability to remain oneself under any life conditions, no matter how difficult they may be.
Yuri Zhivago does not strive for luxury or satisfying his own ambitions - he simply lives and steadfastly endures all the difficulties that fate presents to him. No external circumstances can break his spirit, lose his self-esteem, or change his life principles, which were formed in his youth.
The author attaches no less importance theme of love, which literally permeates the entire novel. This strong feeling Pasternak shows in all possible manifestations - love for a man or woman, for his family, profession, homeland.
Composition
The main feature of the novel’s composition is the accumulation of random, but at the same time fateful meetings, all sorts of coincidences, coincidences, unexpected turns of fate.
Already in the first chapters, the author skillfully weaves a complex plot knot in which the fates of the main characters are connected by invisible threads: Yuri Zhivago, Lara, Misha Gordon, Komarovsky and many others. At first it may seem that all the plot intricacies are overly far-fetched and complex, but over the course of the novel their true meaning and purpose becomes clear.
The composition of the novel is based on acquaintance acting characters and the subsequent development of their relationships, but at the intersection of independently developing human destinies. The main characters, as if with an x-ray, are illuminated by the author, and all of them, one way or another, are focused on Yuri Zhivago.
An interesting compositional move by Pasternak can be called Zhivago’s notebook with his poems. It symbolizes a window into the infinity of existence. Having lost genuine interest in life and morally sunk to the very bottom, the main character dies, but his soul remains alive in beautiful poems.
Main characters
Genre
It is extremely difficult to accurately determine the genre of a novel, since it is a rich amalgamation of various genres. This work can safely be called autobiographical, since it reflects the main life milestones of Pasternak, who endowed the main character with many personal qualities.
The novel is also philosophical, as it pays a lot of attention to reflections on serious topics. The work is also of great interest from a historical point of view - it describes in detail, without embellishment, an entire historical layer in the history of a large country.
There is no denying the fact that Doctor Zhivago is a deeply lyrical novel in verse and prose, in which symbols, images, and metaphors occupy a lot of space.
The genre originality of the work is amazing: it surprisingly harmoniously intertwines many literary genres. This gives grounds to conclude that Doctor Zhivago belongs to a multi-genre novel.
It is also difficult to say which direction the novel belongs to, but, for the most part, it is a realistic work.
12. Problems of B. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”, the significance of the lyrical diary in the ideological concept of the novel.
Pasternak began writing the novel “Doctor Zhivago” in 1945 and finished it in December 1955. Simonov, editor of the “New World” magazine, refused to publish the novel and its publication in his homeland was banned for more than 30 years. This work was published abroad, and its author received the Nobel Prize.Boris Leonidovich himself considered his novel his first real work. "I want to give in it historical image Russia over the last forty-five years, and at the same time with all sides of its plot, heavy, sad and detailed, as ideally in Dickens or Dostoevsky - this thing will be an expression of my views on human life in history and on much more ... "- Pasternak wrote in a letter to Olga Ivinskaya.D.S. Likhachev is sure that the author (Pasternak) writes about himself, but writes as an outsider, he invents a destiny for himself in which he could most fully reveal his inner life to the reader, that the life of Yuri Andreevich Zhivago is an alternative version of the life of Pasternak himself.
Doctor Zhivago is an exponent of the innermost, the lyrical hero of Pasternak, who remained a lyricist in prose. The real biography of Boris Leonidovich did not give him the opportunity to fully express the gravity of the situation between the two camps in the revolution. In the novel, this duality is wonderfully shown in the battle scene between the partisans and the whites. Doctor Zhivago wounds one of the youths of the White Army, and then finds in both this fighter and the killed partisan the same 90th Psalm, which, according to the ideas of that time, protected from death. Zhivago dresses the white soldier in the clothes of a partisan and nurses him, knowing the guy’s intention to return to Kolchak’s army after the amendment. He heals Man.Yuri Zhivago representative of the Russian intelligentsia. Moreover, he is an intellectual and in spiritual life a poet from God, and by profession a merciful, philanthropic doctor; by inexhaustible soulfulness, “homely inner warmth” and by the desire for independence.Yuri Andreevich was brought up by science, art, and the way of life of the last century. Hence, in the novel there are so many hidden and obvious reminiscences from Russian classical literature. He does not have a will, if by will we mean the ability to make unambiguous decisions without hesitation, but he has the determination of the spirit not to succumb to the temptation of unambiguous decisions that eliminate doubts.Pasternak sought to comprehend the problem of the Russian intelligentsia, accustomed to the idea of the independent value of everyone thinking man, an intelligentsia that “recoiled from the distortions and distortions of the idea, and not from the idea itself.” “... If possible, Abba Father, carry this cup past.”This is what he wrote in one of his poems, expressing his attitude towards the revolution and war.Yuri Andreevich Zhivago is the son of a bankrupt millionaire who committed suicide. Mother died early. He was brought up by his uncle, who was a “free man, devoid of prejudice against anything unusual... he had a noble sense of equality with all living things”... Having graduated from the university with flying colors, Yuri marries his beloved girl Tonya, the daughter of a professor and the granddaughter of an active manufacturer. Then your favorite job.He becomes an excellent doctor. While still at university, his love for poetry and philosophy awoke. A son is born. Everything seems fine. But war inevitably breaks out. Yuri goes to the front as a doctor.First World War the threshold and source of even more bloody, terrible, turning-point events. The heroine of the novel, Larisa, believes that the war “was the fault of everything, of all the misfortunes that followed and are still befalling our generation.” The author confirms this idea with the fate of many heroes. About one, the Bolshevik Tarasyuk, a master with golden hands, they say: “The same thing happened to him in the war. He studied it, like any craft... Every business became a passion for him. He also fell in love with the military. He sees that weapons are power , takes him out. He himself wanted to become a force. An armed man is no longer just a man. In the old days, such people went from archers to robbers. Now take away his rifle, try it.” The fate of one red partisan Pamphil Palykh is very characteristic. He openly admits to Yuri Andreevich: “I have wasted a lot of your brother, I have a lot of master’s, officer’s blood on me, and no matter what. I don’t remember the number and name, it’s all spread out like water.”…» And Pamphilus also begins with the world war.But, apparently, cruelty is not in vain for everyone. His fate is terrible. Feeling retribution for what he had done, he begins to go crazy, worried about his wife and children. Finally, having gone mad, he kills his entire family, whom he loved madly.The life of Antipov-Strelnikov, a former teacher who volunteered to go to the front during World War II, also ends horribly. In civilian life, he became a military leader, his fame thundered throughout Siberia and the Urals. “He began to cherish the idea of someday becoming a judge between life and the dark principles that distort it, coming to its defense and avenging it. Disappointment embittered him. The revolution armed him.” “They gave him the nickname Executioners for his cruelty and fanaticism.” "He calmly stepped over it, he wasn't afraid of anything." But Strelnikov was not a party member; the true leaders of the revolution did not like him. Therefore, when he has fulfilled his role, they want to bring him to the tribunal. Haunted by persecution, he confesses to Zhivago: “And we took life as a military campaign, we moved stones for the sake of those we loved. And although we brought them nothing but grief, we did not offend them by a hair, because we turned out to be even greater martyrs than They". This explains the meaninglessness of so many sacrifices. Strelnikov kills himself. Nobody needs him anymore.Yuri Andreevich lived only a few years after the civil war, because he could not adapt to the new conditions, which suited his former janitor perfectly, for example. He cannot serve because what is required of him is not fresh thoughts and initiative, but only “a verbal side dish to the glorification of the revolution and those in power.”But before the end of the war, Zhivago still had to endure many hardships. B. Pasternak's novel is, I think, first of all a book about high love. But this love burns against the backdrop of such terrible events, is subjected to such cruel tests that it cannot stand it. First, Zhivago is forcibly separated from his family.They mobilize him by force, they are sent abroad. Then the threat of a tribunal forces him to break up with his other love, Lara.The description of the love of Yuri and Larisa is a hymn to the relationship between a woman and a man. But life is inexorable. “The doctor remembered the recent autumn, the shooting of the rebels... a bloody slaughter and slaughter that had no end in sight. The fanaticism of the whites and reds competed in cruelty, alternately increasing one in response to the other, as if they were multiplied. The blood made me sick, it came to my throat and rushed to the head, it swam in the eyes.”Reflections and discussions about the revolution in the novel prove that this is not a “holiday of the oppressed,” but a difficult and bloody period in the history of our country.Zhivago’s father-in-law tells him: “Do you remember the night when you brought a piece of paper with the first decrees... it was unheard of unconditionally. This straightforwardness conquered. But such things live in their original purity only in the heads of the creators, and then only on the first day of proclamation. Jesuitism of politics the next day it turns them inside out. This philosophy is alien to me. This power is against us. They didn’t ask me for consent to this breakdown.”There is a very deep thought in the book. Talking about Strelnikov, the author writes: “And in order to do good, his integrity lacked the unprincipled heart that does not know general cases, but only private, and which is great in that it does littleIn Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak looked at the events of the civil war from the position of a “non-aligned” intellectual. “... the revolution there is not depicted at all as a cake with cream. For some reason, it is customary to depict her as a cake with cream…” - this is from the author’s words about his novel.Yuri Andreevich is a man of strong convictions, the basis of which is the view of man as the highest value of life. The doctor’s humanistic principles place him above the choice faced by the powerless Mechik, who has joined the fight and is incapable of sacrifice. Zhivago does not accept the laws of this battle, which dooms the people to misfortune and hardship.Connected with this is a certain understanding by the hero of his duty, which turns out to be stronger than personal sympathies: the doctor, with equal care, nurses the wounded partisans and Seryozha Rantsevich, a volunteer of the Kolchak army, seeing in them, first of all, suffering people.For Pasternak, one of the central problems of the novel is the insecurity of a creative personality, the problem of a freedom-loving, responsible personality who affirms and does not destroy life.The writer convinces us that the intelligentsia in the 20s could only “waver” towards rejection of the revolution. It’s just that the characters of this rejection are different: one proves his inconsistency by this, the other, on the contrary, demonstrates the unshakability of his views. “Doctor Zhivago” - with a look back at the decades that followed the “triumphant march” of the revolution. Events October revolution enter Zhivago just as nature itself enters him. He perceives them as something independent of human will, like natural phenomena.To understand Pasternak’s attitude to events, it is necessary to cite a scene from the novel: Having bought from a boy a newspaperman an emergency issue with a government message from Petrograd “on the formation of the Council of People’s Commissars, the establishment in Russia Soviet power and the introduction of the dictatorship of the proletariat in it." Yuri Zhivago, returning home, speaks loudly:“What a magnificent surgery! (The doctor’s true admiration) To take and artistically cut out old stinking ulcers at once... this is unprecedented, this is a miracle of history, this revelation gasps into the very thick of the ongoing routine, without paying attention to its progress.... This is the most brilliant thing."After admiration takes its toll real life. Everyday discomfort drains Zhivago, the cruelty of the rampant red partisanship repels him, and the cruelty of the whites also repels him. The indifference of the new government to culture is repellent.Looking critically at what is happening, Zhivago sees that revolutionary changes are accompanied by a disregard for human spiritual values in the name of material equality, the dominance of phrases is growing, and faith in one’s own opinion is being lost.Pasternak was always a stranger to purity in poetry. Revolutionary events appeared before him in all their naked complexity, and in his novel he shows the contradictions in the emotional understanding of what is happening.Zhivago, the image of the intelligentsia, dies in an atmosphere of “lack of air.” Throughout the novel, the revolution that has broken out in the country will gradually “bury” Zhivago.The heroes of the novel are tested by the fire of the Russian revolution, which Pasternak considered a turning point in the destinies of the 20th century. They occupy different positions in relation to it and depending on the position taken, their destinies develop. The path that Zhivago chose does not promise victories in the finale, does not eliminate mistakes, but only this path is worthy of a person - an artist, a person - a poet. Yuri remains himself. For this, as if to complete his real biography, he is given the opportunity to live out his ideal destiny in a spiritual biography, the embodiment of which is the notebook of his poems. She is the one who completes the novel.The novel includes poems by the main character Yuri Zhivago, creating a kind of lyrical diary of the hero and the author. B. L. Pasternak included poetry in the novel different years, revealing the process of their creative development. “The meaning of the novel is the feeling of collapse, collapse, that the doctor himself testifies to this with his poems and his life, which itself is a commentary on these poems,” notes the modern philosopher A. M. Pyatigorsky. Poems of the hero of the novel lyrical diary, in which human history interpreted in the light of the Christian ideal. A. Voznesensky sees in Doctor Zhivago “a novel of a special type - a poetic novel.” And he gives a figurative explanation: “The huge body of prose, like an overgrown lilac bush, bears terry clusters of poems crowning it. The purpose of the novel is the poems that grow from it in the finale” (191, 226). In this case, those features of the novel that seemed to be shortcomings, errors, an unmotivated departure from the norms of traditional epic storytelling, are naturally and easily explained by the lack of a focus on “epic authenticity” in poetic prose. The seventeenth part of the novel is especially significant in the plot and compositional organization of the novel. Poems, being the most characteristic compositional layer of lyrical prose, make it possible to judge the culminating, peak moments of the heroes’ lives. The notebook of poems reveals the creative otherness of Yuri Zhivago. The idea of immortality - one of the general ones in the novel - thus finds adequate embodiment in the symbol of imperishable art, inextricably linked with the timeless and capturing it in words. The culmination of the poetic cycle is the image of Jesus Christ, which crowns the lyrical storyline, leading her into the infinity of eternal life. The structure of the overall novel composition models the form of a triptych. This is the path recreated three times lyrical hero: Yuri’s earthly existence, the invisible presence in the destinies of his friends and, finally, the spiritual otherness of Zhivago. This composition reveals the interaction of forward and backward perspectives: movement from the past to the future and backward from the future.
The ideological and thematic content of the novel is largely determined by how the author himself characterizes his plan in 1946 in a letter to his sister O. M. Freidenberg: “I began to write a big novel in prose. Actually, this is my first real job. In it I want to give a historical image of Russia over the last forty-five years, and at the same time, with all sides of its plot, heavy, sad and detailed... this thing will be an expression of my views on art, the Gospel, on human life in history and much more.” . Thus, Doctor Zhivago was conceived as a “novel of the century” and as the author’s most complete and objective lyrical statement “about time and about himself.” “...I want to speak on the topics of life and time to the end and in clarity, as given to me...” wrote Pasternak about working on the novel. For him, this is not just the result of life and creativity, but a concentrated expression of the entire complex of philosophical, religious, ethical ideas, a view of his own destiny and the path of world history and culture.
One of the main themes of the novel is reflections on the history of Russia, its past, present and future in the context of world history. Pasternak is characterized by a concept of the course close to Tolstoy’s. historical process, which he trusts to express to Yuri Zhivago: “He again thought that he imagines history, what is called the course of history, in a completely different way than is customary, and to him it is drawn like the plant kingdom. ...No one makes history, it is not visible, just as you cannot see how grass grows.” That is why so often in the novel living, constantly regenerating nature personifies Russia and the entire history of mankind. It is not for nothing that the heroes of the novel, Yuri Zhivago and Lara, who are closest to the author, feel nature so subtly, are so close to it, as if dissolved in the natural principle. The main ideological and thematic nodes of the novel represent the connection between man and nature. That is why natural images, motifs, and similes are so important in his ideological and artistic system: “...Russia flew past in clouds of hot dust, raised by the sun like limestone...”.
The entire novel is permeated and cemented by the multi-valued image of a blizzard, blizzard, storm. Firstly, this is the cleansing storm of the revolution, a symbol similar to Blok’s from the poem “The Twelve” (the picture of November snow falling on the page of a newspaper with the first decrees of the Soviet regime is symbolic). Secondly, this is a gust of feelings beyond the control of reason, which sweeps over the heroes like a snowstorm. And finally, this image is associated with an equally sudden burst of creativity that captured Yuri Zhivago and defined him further path. It is through the curtain of a winter blizzard that he sees from the street a circle of candles burning in the house where Lara is having a conversation with her future husband Antipov. Then Yuri for the first time hears the words of probably the most famous of the poems that conclude the novel: “The candle was burning on the table, the candle was burning...”. This is how a poet is born, who with his creativity redeemed not only his life, suffering, love, but also tied together the disconnected ends of Russian culture and history, restoring the “connection of times.”
Similar figurative and thematic threads permeate the entire artistic canvas of the novel, which gives it a special integrity and organic quality. Thus, at the beginning of the novel, the image of a storm appears, which recognized ten-year-old Yura: “A blizzard was raging outside, the air was smoking with snow. One might have thought that the storm had noticed Yura and, realizing how terrible it was, was enjoying the impression it made on him. She whistled and howled and tried in every way to attract Yurino’s attention.” And in the finale, it’s as if the same storm gathers a thunderous “black-purple cloud”, which overtakes the tram carrying Yuri Andreevich, sweltering from the heat, suffocating, on his final journey.
It is during these last minutes In his life, he again comes to the thought of a certain “principle of relativity in the world of life,” according to which completely unexpected, at first glance, rapprochements, meetings, intersections of people, destinies, times and spaces occur. This idea is heard more than once in the novel, characterizing not only its basic constructive principle, but the most important idea for the author of the interconnectedness of all life phenomena. This also applies to the above-mentioned interpenetration of human and natural principles, and to that paradoxical connection between the destinies of numerous heroes of the novel, which often seemed to readers and critics to be something unnatural and far-fetched. Moreover, this is another the most important topic a novel about the connection between a single Russian culture, which, it would seem, was cut off forever under the blows of revolutionary cataclysms. The novel itself is an artistic fusion of various styles that embody all the leading traditions of Russian culture. This is a kind of “generalized portrait of Russian culture of the 19th century.” beginning of the 20th century." Indicative from this point of view is the reading range of the heroes of the novel: “Demons” by Dostoevsky, “War and Peace” by Tolstoy, “Eugene Onegin” by Pushkin and much more, which makes up the “golden fund” of Russian culture. The heroes talk about this, argue, and think about it, and at the same time the problem that is so important for the author becomes increasingly clear: what happens when the richest culture of a people, containing its most powerful spiritual potential, collides with militant “anti-culturalism”, lack of spirituality, after an accomplished revolutionary break-up centuries-old traditions, seemingly filling the entire national cultural and historical space. In this monstrous battle, it becomes obvious what in fact from the cultural and historical heritage of Russia can be destroyed, destroyed, distorted, and what is eternal and indestructible, despite all the revolutions and wars. At the same time, Pasternak does not give a “portrait” of Russian culture in isolation, but fits it into the global cultural space. Not only Russian, but also foreign literature reflected on the pages of the novel (in Zhivago’s house they read Dickens and Stendhal), various philosophical systems and political events are discussed, to which different characters give different interpretations in accordance with own position. But they all emphasize precisely the idea of continuity and unity. So, fully immersed in the revolutionary struggle, Antipov-Strelnikov reasoned in a conversation with Zhivago: “... This entire nineteenth century with all its revolutions in Paris, several generations of Russian emigration, starting with Herzen, all the planned regicides... the entire labor movement of the world, all Marxism in parliaments and universities in Europe... Lenin absorbed all this and expressed it in a general way, in order to fall upon the old with personified retribution for everything he had done. Next to him rose indelibly huge image Russia, before the eyes of the whole world, suddenly lit a candle of atonement for all the poverty and hardships of mankind.” Despite the differences in attitude towards the coup, the heroes of the novel, like the author himself, recognize the inevitability of what is happening. “What a magnificent surgery!” - exclaims Yuri Zhivago, who did not recognize the new life and never fit into it. For all his disagreement with the new system, which levels and destroys the individual, in the revolution itself he sees something artistically brilliant. “This is unprecedented, this is a miracle of history, this revelation is thrown into the very midst of ongoing everyday life, without paying attention to its progress. This is the most brilliant thing." It is obvious that the author trusts the hero to express his thoughts about unintentionality historical development, and therefore, despite all the horrors of the revolution, it is perceived as a given, an inevitability that draws a person, like a grain of sand, into the whirlpool of events. For Pasternak, wars, revolutions, tsars, Robespierres are the “fermentation yeast” of history. Fanatics like Antipov-Strelnikov, who make revolutions, destroying the entire previous system of life in a few hours and days, are “geniuses of self-restraint” in the name of the “great idea” they recognize. But what comes after this?
“For decades, centuries, the spirit of limitation, leading to revolution, has been worshiped as a shrine.” For Pasternak, this is precisely one of the most terrible consequences of the revolution for Russia. As a result, a kingdom of mediocrity has been established, which rejects, persecutes, and destroys everything truly living and creative. That is why people like Dudorov and Gordon were able to adapt to the new life and settle in it, but there was no place for a free, creative personality like Yuri Zhivago. “The stereotype of what Dudorov said and felt especially touched Gordon. ...Innocent's virtuous speeches were in the spirit of the times. But it was precisely the regularity, the transparency of their hypocrisy that exploded Yuri Andreevich. Unfree man always idealizes his bondage. Yuri Andreevich could not stand the political mysticism of the Soviet intelligentsia, what was her highest achievement or, as they would say then, the spiritual ceiling of the era.” It turns out that the revolution kills not only through its harshness (“if the enemy does not surrender, he is destroyed”), but in itself contradicts life, rejects it. “...In our time, microscopic forms of cardiac hemorrhages have become very common,” notes Dr. Zhivago with medical precision. -...This is a disease of modern times. I think her reasons are moral. The vast majority of us are required to maintain a constant system of crookedness. You cannot, day after day, act contrary to what you feel without health consequences; crucify yourself in front of what you don’t like, rejoice in what brings you unhappiness.”
Thus, the theme of Russia, its history and culture, reflections on the laws of the historical process are inextricably linked in the novel with its main philosophical theme- life, death and immortality. In the prose part of the novel, it is most clearly expressed in the thoughts of the uncle of the main character, Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin, “a priest who was defrocked at his own request.” He states: “...man does not live in nature, but in history... in the current understanding, it is founded by Christ... The Gospel is its foundation,” and asks the question: “What is history? This is the establishment of centuries-old work on the consistent solution to death and its future overcoming.” What is necessary to achieve immortality? “This is, firstly, love for one’s neighbor, this highest form of living energy... and then these are the main components modern man, without which it is unthinkable, namely the idea of a free personality and the idea of life as a victim.” Thus, the main ideological and thematic lines of the novel close and come to its main theme - life, death and immortality of man in the Christian understanding. For Pasternak, the appearance of Christ is the beginning of the true history of mankind: “Only after Him did life begin in posterity, and a person dies not on the street under a fence, but in his own history, in the midst of work devoted to overcoming death, he dies, himself dedicated to this topic.” . According to the author, after the coming of Christ, the history of mankind begins to be projected into eternity. The model of personality in the novel is Christ: with his arrival, as Pasternak writes, “peoples and gods ceased” and “man began.” It is not for nothing that Pasternak’s image of Christ is “emphatically human, deliberately provincial,” because thanks to this, every person gains hope for immortality. This is “... a man-carpenter, a man-plowman, a man-shepherd in a flock of sheep at sunset, a man who does not sound the least bit proud, a man gratefully heard in all the lullabies of mothers and in all art galleries peace." The worldview center of the novel is the idea of resurrection and immortality, which manifests itself in a sense of personality commensurate with the world. The reflections of Yuri Zhivago are indicative in this regard: “There is no death. Death is not our thing. But you said: talent is another matter, it’s ours, it’s open to us. And talent, in the broadest sense, is the gift of life.” This is exactly how the idea of immortality is realized in the novel in the fate of Zhivago: after his death, the memory of him remained in the hearts of people close to him, his poems remained, which complete the entire book. “The Poems of Yuri Zhivago” is a kind of catharsis for the novel, a breakthrough into immortality after a difficult plot, this breakthrough into eternity. That is why among these verses there are so many that are directly related to Christian themes, motifs and images: “On Passion”, “Christmas Star”, “Miracle”, “Magdalene”, “Garden of Gethsemane”. It is in this series that one of the most significant “eternal images” for Russian literature appears - Hamlet, and with him the problem of moral choice, posed in the novel as fundamental for each of the heroes, reaches a universal human level. The idea of the complexity and responsibility of choice, of its possible consequences, about the human right to shed blood, running through the entire novel, is projected onto the fate of its author and appeals to readers. Thus, “The Poems of Yuri Zhivago” are not only ideologically and thematically connected with the main lines of the work, but also complete their development at a new level of artistic generalization.
This is the poet's prose, rich in images and philosophical motives.
The central problem is the fate of the intelligentsia in the 20th century.
The novel is written about a man who managed to preserve his personality in the conditions of revolution, World War I, civil war, and then in the era of depersonalization. Those. P. asserted the self-worth of man.
At the time of publication of the novel, the most acute problem seemed to be the author's interpretation of the events of the revolution and war. Main character sees this as a tragedy for Russia.
The epic structure of the novel is complicated by the lyrical principle (subjectivity).
One of the themes is love (an element that invades a person’s life).
In art-phil. the concepts of the novel nature, history, and the universe are combined. The merging of the human soul and nature, the unity of heaven, earth and man, and this is the ultimate goal of history.
Death is not perceived as an impassable border between the living and the dead. Related to the theme of immortality is the problem of the purpose of art. Art reflects on death and continuously creates life.
At the center of the novel is the story of Yuri Zhivago (alive). His drama is that he lives in an era when life is not valued. Zhivago dies at the end of August 1929 because he cannot breathe.
Tonya, Lara, Pavel, Yuri - their destinies intersect, there are many accidents and coincidences.
Pasternak wrote: “I was lucky enough to speak out completely...”
An essential feature of the poetics of the novel are the poems by Yu. Zhivago, which are related to the plot of the novel. Not all of them were written specifically for the region. “Hamlet” correlates with the appearance of the main character - the right to internal freedom from a cruel era. "August" - drama of Lara and Yuri. Several autobiographical ones - “Autumn” and “Date” - are dedicated to Olga Ivinskaya.
76. A. Solzhenitsyn’s fiction: problematics, poetics, features of narrative organization.
The main theme of A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s work is the exposure of the totalitarian system, proof of the impossibility of human existence in it.
But at the same time, it is in such conditions, according to A.I. Solzhenitsyn, that the Russian national character is most clearly manifested. The people retain their fortitude and moral ideals- this is his greatness. It should be noted that Solzhenitsyn’s heroes combine the utmost tragedy of existence and love of life, just as the writer’s work combines tragic motives and hope for a better life, for the strength of the people’s spirit.
Folk characters are shown by the writer in the stories “ Matrenin Dvor” and “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in the images of the old woman Matryona and the prisoner Shch-854 Shukhov..
moral. Ivan Denisovich has no hatred for anyone. He even sees the camp’s victims in the guards. The guards, Russian people, are busy with meaningless work. The story ends with an argument between Ivan Denisovich and Alyoshka the Baptist. Alyoshka finds solace in God. Shukhov does not have this consolation: he is a man of this world and does not want to be content with the consciousness of his righteousness. Earth man, peasant Shukhov, cannot agree with this.
Looking for folk character Solzhenitsyn looks into “the very interior of Russia” and finds a character that perfectly preserves itself in the vague, inhuman conditions of reality - Matryona Vasilyevna Grigorieva (“Matrenin’s Dvor”).
The old woman Matryona suffered “many grievances, many injustices.” But she, like Shukhov, is not offended by the world, which treats her unfairly. She speaks with “ radiant smile”, benevolently, with a “warm purring”.
Solzhenitsyn endured and suffered through this image-symbol. In Matryona's selflessness and meekness he sees a share of righteousness. This righteousness comes from the depths of Matryona’s soul - she was “at peace with her conscience.” About this image, Solzhenitsyn writes: “There are such born angels - they seem to be weightless, they glide as if on top of this life, without drowning in it at all, even if their feet touch the surface? Each of us has met such people, there are not ten or a hundred of them in Russia, these are righteous people...”
general characteristics"village prose". “Village” as a theme and as a scale of spiritual values. Hero of village prose. Gender space of village prose. Social-critical and national-utopian motives. Analysis of one of the works of village prose (optional). The fate of village prose.
A little earlier than the poetry of the “sixties”, the most powerful in problematic and aesthetic terms emerged in Russian literature. literary direction, called village prose. This definition is associated with more than one subject of depiction of life in the stories and novels of the corresponding writers. The main source of such terminological characteristics is a look at the objective world and at all current events from a rural, peasant point of view, as is most often said, “from the inside.” (Astafiev, Rasputin, Abramov, Tyndryakov, Shukshin).
At this time, “Kuban Cossacks” came out, and the villager actually lived without a passport, earned not money, but workdays, collective farmers did not receive pensions.
The village is like a scale of spiritual values, a kind of wealth. V. Rasputin “Farewell to Mother” (begins with historical information about the history of Mater). The motive for losing the house, the house as a way of life, it was not you who decided to move, but they decided for you. Daria cleans the house and whitewashes it! (I’ve seen the house a lot, she dresses it up like a living creature). The problem of home loyalty. And cats, and dogs, and every object, and huts, and the whole village are as if alive for those who have lived in them all their lives from birth. And since you have to leave, you need to tidy everything up, just as they clean up for the send-off of a dead person. And although rituals and the church exist separately for the generation of Daria and Nastasya, the rituals are not forgotten and exist in the souls of saints and immaculates.
The peasant world in their books is not isolated from modern life. Authors and their characters are active participants in the current processes of our lives. However, the main advantage of their artistic thinking was their adherence to the eternal moral truths that were created by humanity throughout its centuries-old history. The books of V. Rasputin, V. Astafiev and V. Belov are especially significant in this regard. Attempts by critics to point out stylistic uniformity in village prose are unconvincing. Humorous pathos, comic situations in the plots of stories and short stories by V. Shukshin and B. Mozhaev refute such a one-sided view.
Gender space - a positive beginning is associated with women. Utopia, an attempt to pass off wishful thinking as reality.
General characteristics of the “Thaw” literature. “The plot of epiphany” and the goal of restoring the connection between times. Sincerity concept. The artist and the authorities during the “thaw” years. “Cult” works by G. Nikolaev “Battle on the Way”, V. Dudintsev “Not by Bread Alone”, V. Aksenov “Colleagues”, “Star Ticket”, etc.). Analysis of one of the works of your choice. Poetry boom of the second half of the 50s. liberal journalism. Creativity of E. Yevtushenko, A. Voznesensky, B. Akhmadullina, and B. Okudzhava (optional).
In the early 1950s, articles and works began to appear on the pages of literary magazines that played the role of stimulating public opinion. Ilya Ehrenburg's story The Thaw caused heated controversy among readers and critics. The most striking works of this period were focused on participation in solving pressing socio-political issues for the country, on reconsidering the role of the individual in the state. Society was in the process of mastering the space of newly opened freedom. Most of the participants in the debate did not abandon socialist ideas.
The preconditions for the Thaw were laid in 1945. Many writers were front-line soldiers. Prose about the war by real participants in hostilities, or, as it was called, “lieutenant’s prose,” carried an important understanding of the truth about the past war.
Big role Issues of literary almanacs and periodicals - various literary magazines - played a role in the process of “warming”. In 1955–1956, many new magazines appeared - “Youth”, “Moscow”, “Young Guard”, “Friendship of Peoples”, “Ural”, “Volga”, etc.
12/54 - Congress of the Writers' Union, at which Khrushchev's report on the cult of personality was discussed. The directives were clear: the intelligentsia must adapt to the “new ideological course” and serve it.
In the late 50s, samizdat arose, later meetings were banned and S. went underground.
Innovation: the emergence of a new hero / (a different type of personality who perceives himself differently).
Genre diversity: lieutenant prose (Bykov, Okudzhava, Vasiliev); village prose(Solzhenitsyn, Tyndryakov, Shukshin, Rasputin); camp (Solzhenitsyn; confessional prose (Aksenov), lyrical prose (O, Berngolds), fantastic prose (Strugatsky brothers).
The thaw period was accompanied by the flowering of poetry. The euphoria from the new possibilities required an emotional outburst. Since 1955, the country began to celebrate Poetry Day. On one September Sunday, poetry was read in libraries and theaters all over the country. Since 1956, an almanac with the same name began to be published. Poets spoke from the stands and packed stadiums. Poetry evenings at the Polytechnic Museum attracted thousands of enthusiastic listeners. Since the monument to the poet was inaugurated on Mayakovsky Square in 1958, this place has become a place of pilgrimage and meeting of poets and poetry lovers. Here poetry was read, books and magazines were exchanged, and there was a dialogue about what was happening in the country and the world.
The greatest popularity during the period of the poetic boom was gained by poets with a bright journalistic temperament - Robert Rozhdestvensky and Evgeny Yevtushenko. Their civil lyrics was imbued with the pathos of understanding the place of her country in the scale of world achievements. Hence a different approach to understanding civic duty and social romance. The images of leaders were revised - the image of Lenin was romanticized, Stalin was criticized. Many songs were written based on Rozhdestvensky’s poems, which formed the basis of the “big style” in the genre of Soviet pop song. Yevgeny Yevtushenko, in addition to civil topics, was known for his deep and quite frank love lyrics, cycles written based on impressions from trips to countries around the world.
Perhaps the brightest and, of course, the most read Russian poet of the 20th century, Yevtushenko, in interweaving the traditions of Russian lyricism of the “golden” and “silver” centuries with the achievements of the Russian “avant-garde”, became a kind of poetic tuning fork of the time, reflecting the moods and changes in consciousness of his generation and the whole society. One of the leaders of the “sixties” writers, who, along with A.A. Voznesensky, A.A. Akhmadulina, R.I. Rozhdestvensky and others, gathered crowds to read his poems at the Polytechnic Museum, Yevtushenko immediately showed himself as a son of the “Thaw” period ”, the era of the first uncompromising denunciation of Stalin’s personality cult (poems And others, 1956; The Best of a Generation, 1957; Stalin’s Heirs, 1962), in opposition to which he, however, did not go so far as to deny the values of the Russian revolutionary movement, left-radical consciousness and Komsomol enthusiasm of modern to him “the builders of communism” (poems of the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station, 1965; Kazan University, 1970).
Yevtushenko’s poetic speech easily moves from epic narrative to dialogue, from ridicule to tenderness, from self-flagellation to confession. Many of Yevtushenko’s aphoristic lines have become textbooks (“A poet in Russia is more than a poet...”, “Misfortune cannot be foreign”). Psychological subtlety and worldly wisdom are also manifested in Yevtushenko’s numerous poems about different and always beautiful women for him - shy lovers (“...And she said in a whisper: / And then what? And then what?”), selfless mothers (“Women give up a lot in excitement - / But they never drop their children..."), stubborn and persistent workers ("Dress, put on shoes, be smart, laugh..."); about friends - real and imaginary, about the loneliness of a “sick” soul (verse. People laughed behind the wall...).
The phenomenon of “other prose”. Analytical prose, fantastic realism, mythological realism. Analysis of one of the works of “other prose”. Almanac "Metropol" as a manifestation of other prose. History of creation, composition of participants, aesthetic pluralism.
The writers are related by one very significant circumstance. They are sharply polemical in relation to Soviet reality and to all, without exception, recommendations of socialist realism on how to portray this reality, primarily to its edifying pathos.
The reaction of the authorities to the publications of some authors abroad was painful and acute. This was given the status of almost high treason, which was accompanied by forced expulsion, scandals, trials, etc. The state still considered itself to have the right to determine the norms and boundaries of thinking and creativity for its citizens. That is why in 1958 a scandal broke out over the award Nobel Prize Boris Pasternak for the novel Doctor Zhivago published abroad. The writer had to refuse the prize. In 1965, a scandal followed with the writers Andrei Sinyavsky (the story The Court is Coming, Lyubimov, the treatise What is Socialist Realism) and Julius Daniel (the story Moscow Speaks, Atonement), who had been publishing their works in the West since the late 1950s. They were sentenced “for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” to five and seven years in the camps. Vladimir Voinovich after the publication in the West of the novel Life and extraordinary adventures soldier Ivan Chonkin had to leave the USSR because... He could no longer hope to publish his books in his homeland.
METROPOL is a literary and artistic illustrated almanac, work on which was completed by the beginning of 1979. The compilers were A. Bitov, V. Aksenov, F. Iskander, Vik. Erofeev and E. Popov.
The idea of preparing an uncensored collection united a group of 23 authors, among whom were both widely published professional writers (B. Akhmadulina, A. Arkanov, A. Voznesensky), and authors who, for one reason or another, were rarely published (S. Lipkin, I .Lisnyanskaya), better known in other areas of literature (Yu. Aleshkovsky, B. Vakhtin), or those whose literary works could not break into the official press at all (F. Gorenshtein, V. Vysotsky, E. Rein, Y. Karabchievsky, Y. Kublanovsky, P. Kozhevnikov). In addition to them, the almanac presented works by M. Rozovsky and V. Trostnikov, whose professional activities are not directly related to literature. The almanac was designed by artists B. Messerer and D. Borovsky. The artist A. Brusilovsky presented a graphic series illustrating the poems of G. Sapgir.
The authors of Metropol, with few exceptions, did not touch upon real, political problems at all in their published works. But addressing topics that were not encouraged (for example, religion), using profanity, grotesque situations and irony towards known facts stories - caused a wide public outcry, and the intention to leave the supervision of the state became a challenge to the existing state system.
After “perestroika,” the almanac was republished, and literary evenings dedicated to it were held.
The dream of a homeless person is a roof over his head; hence “Metropol”, the capital’s hut above the world’s best metro. The authors of “MetrOpol” are independent (from each other) writers. The only thing that completely unites them under the roof is the consciousness that only the author himself is responsible for his work; the right to such responsibility seems sacred to us. It is possible that strengthening this consciousness will benefit our entire culture.
The phenomenon of Russian postmodernism. Theorists and practitioners of postmodernism. Russian postmodernism and socialist realism. Postmodernism as the completion of the project of modernism. The question of the boundaries of Russian postmodernism. Artistic movements of Russian postmodernism. “Exemplary texts” (A. Bitov “ Pushkin House» Ven. Erofeev “Moscow-Petushki”, V. Erofeev “Russian Beauty”, V. Sorokin “Norma”, etc.)
Postmodernism is an unconventional, non-classical aesthetic system of the end of the century, a natural stage in the development of literature and art of the transition period.
In Russia 1980-1990s. the appearance and active approval of P. is due to many reasons. First of all, it was an aesthetic reaction to disappointment in all utopias - socio-historical, philosophical, scientific and artistic. Literature acquired self-sufficiency, freedom from the oppressive society that it had to serve, and realized its iconic essence and playful nature. Russian postmodernism emerges, like Western postmodernism, in the second half of the 1960s - early 1970s, when Moscow-Petushki (1969), Pushkin House (1971) were written, when Moscow conceptualism took shape aesthetically. From this time until the end of the 1980s, the development of this aesthetics took place in the underground, in constant opposition not only to official literature and ideology, but also to society as a whole. The very conditions of existence exacerbated the modernist and avant-garde, and not the strictly postmodernist (i.e., prone to conformism) features of this aesthetics. Not to mention the fact that Russian postmodernists, unlike Western ones, dreamed of a revival of modernism rather than a break with it. This almost twenty-year period can be called heroic without any exaggeration. This is evidenced by the numerous memories of the “heroes” themselves; this is exactly how they perceived themselves.
Socialist realism is an artistic method of literature and art, built on the socialist concept of the world and man. The artist had to serve with his works the construction of a socialist society. Therefore, he must portray life in the light of the ideals of socialism. The concept of “realism” is literary, and the concept of “socialist” is ideological. They are contradictory in themselves, but in this theory of art they merge. As a result, norms and criteria were created, dictated by the Communist Party, and the artist, be he a writer, sculptor or painter, had to create in accordance with them.
The founder of socialist realism in literature, Maxim Gorky (1868-1936), wrote the following about socialist realism: “It is vitally and creatively necessary for our writers to take a point of view from the height of which - and only from this height - all the dirty crimes of capitalism are clearly visible, all the meanness of his bloody intentions and all the greatness of the heroic work of the proletariat-dictator is visible." He argued: “... a writer must have a good knowledge of the history of the past and knowledge of the social phenomena of our time, in which he is called upon to simultaneously play two roles: the role of a midwife and a gravedigger.”
