F. I. Tyutchev. The personality and fate of the poet. Subjects of works

TYUTCHEV

(1803-1873)

- immigrants from Italy. They moved to Russia in the 14th century. Tyutchev's father, Ivan Nikolaevich, was indifferent to his career and was known as a hospitable, kind landowner. Mother - Ekaterina Lvovna - came from the Tolstoy family. She was an intelligent, impressionable, spiritually gifted woman and had a huge influence on her son. Initially, Tyutchev was looked after by the former serf “uncle” N.A. Khlopov, who became attached to the boy. The poet spent his childhood in Ovstug, on the Troitsky estate near Moscow, but most of the time in Moscow.

critic Semyon Egorovich Raich, an expert in Italian literature and classical antiquity. Subsequently, Tyutchev dedicated several poems to Raich. At the age of 12, under the guidance of his mentor, young Tyutchev successfully translated Horace. One of his imitations - the ode “For the New Year 1816” - was read by the poet and critic A. F. Merzlyakov at the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature, and the following year, 1819, an adaptation of “Horace’s Message to Maecenas” was published in the Society’s “Proceedings.” It became Tyutchev's first printed work.

The message was published at a time when Tyutchev was studying at the literature department of Moscow University. He listened to lectures for three years - from 1819 to 1821. His professors were A.F. Merzlyakov, publisher of the magazine “Bulletin of Europe” M.T. Kachenovsky, historian, writer, preacher of Slavophile views M.P. Pogodin. At the university, Tyutchev became close to future participants in Raich's circle - poet, translator, literary theorist S. P. Shevyrev, romantic writer, journalist and critic V. F. Odoevsky, religious writer A. N. Muravyov. All these were names known in Russian society. Tyutchev grew spiritually among future celebrities of Russian science and literature. Like many of his contemporaries, radical thoughts were alien to him at that time. He shares the moderate love of freedom of his friends and is more occupied with philosophical, aesthetic and literary problems. Thus, in his response to Pushkin’s ode “Liberty,” Tyutchev accepts its anti-tyrannical pathos, but advises Pushkin to protect his fellow citizens from bitterness, not to excite or disturb their hearts. And in the future, Tyutchev remained an opponent of all radicalism, and especially revolutionary ideas. He pins his hopes on the monarchy and on the idea of ​​pan-Slavic unity, which will arise in his mind a little later. During his student years, Tyutchev read a lot and constantly tried his hand at literature. His early experiences are still too rational, but they have already revealed those qualities that the poet will never give up: Tyutchev is imbued with the spirit of Russian and European classicism and sentimentalism, the tragic themes of classicism, its monumental, large genres and love for his native land are close to him, permeated with deep religious and brotherly sympathy, compassion for the ordinary person, for his bitter lot in life.

After graduating from the university, Tyutchev left for St. Petersburg, where he entered the service of the College of Foreign Affairs, and soon, thanks to the efforts of a rich and influential relative, A.I. Osterman-Tolstoy, he received a supernumerary position as an official of the Russian mission in Bavaria. In July 1822, Tyutchev left for Germany. From that time on, he lived abroad for 22 years. In Munich, Tyutchev quickly entered the aristocratic circle, the diplomatic and cultural environment. He gets acquainted with German literature and romantic philosophy. His interlocutors are the famous romantic philosopher F. Schelling and the brilliant poet G. Heine. They appreciate in Tyutchev an outstanding person, an intelligent and fascinating interlocutor, a master of apt, aphoristic words. At this time Tyutchev translated a lot from German authors - Goethe, Schiller, Heine. He searches for his voice and finds it. As a poet, Tyutchev was formed in Germany towards the end of the 1820s. His poems penetrate into Russia. They are published mainly in almanacs and magazines of Rajic (“Northern Lyre” and “Galatea”). But the most significant event in Tyutchev’s life was the publication of his 24 poems in Pushkin’s journal Sovremennik under the title “Poems Sent from Germany.” It happened like this. Tyutchev's friend and colleague I. S. Gagarin gave copies of Tyutchev's poems to P. A. Vyazemsky, who showed them to V. A. Zhukovsky. Vyazemsky and Zhukovsky were delighted with Tyutchev’s poems and recommended them to Pushkin. Apparently, Pushkin reacted with restraint to Tyutchev’s poems, but heeded the advice and requests of his friends and colleagues in the magazine. He published a large selection, although he omitted some poems that were very characteristic of Tyutchev (“The gray shadows mixed together...”).

- Baroness Krüdener). The poet dedicated the poem “I remember the golden time...” to her. At the end of his life, in 1870, these feelings and lines from it will be resurrected in the famous romance “I met you - and all the past...”. In the second half of the 1820s, Tyutchev married the widow of a Russian diplomat, Eleanor Peterson, née Countess Bothmer. After marriage, as his family grew, Tyutchev experienced serious financial difficulties. A few years later, in 1833, Tyutchev fell passionately in love with Ernestina Dernberg, née Baroness Pfeffel. Tyutchev's new darling was extremely beautiful. Soon she was widowed, and Tyutchev’s affair threatened to develop into a scandal. To avoid trouble, Tyutchev was urgently transferred to Turin (Italy), where he took up the post of senior secretary of the diplomatic mission and at one time replaced the envoy. In 1838, Tyutchev's wife Eleonora Fedorovna died. Shortly before this, she survived a fire on the steamship Nicholas I. Perhaps the nervous tension was so strong that her health could not stand the test. A heavy grief fell on Tyutchev, and he was shocked: overnight he turned gray. However, grief did not cool his passion for Ernestine Dernberg. Unexpectedly for everyone, he went to Switzerland to marry his beloved. Tyutchev was not forgiven for his unauthorized absence: he was fired from service and deprived of the court rank of chamberlain. Tyutchev returned to Munich, where he spent another 5 years, no longer holding any official position. Events developed in such a way that it was time to return to Russia.

In the summer of 1843, Tyutchev came to his homeland for a short time, negotiated about his service with A.F. Benckendorf, with K.V. Nesselrode, and in the fall of the following year he settled in Russia forever, experiencing deep satisfaction: “Having never actually lived among the Russians, I am very glad that I am in Russian society.”

- At the beginning of the 1840s, a ten-year pause began in Tyutchev’s poetic work. He writes very few lyric poems. However, at the same time his journalism flourished. Tyutchev strives to understand for himself the course of world history, the essence of the events taking place before his eyes. This is how his worldview develops and his political views are determined. Pan-Slavism, the brotherhood of Slavic peoples, becomes the central idea for him. This idea especially inspires Tyutchev after a trip to Prague (1841) and a meeting with a prominent supporter of the Czech national movement and the unity of Slavic countries and peoples, V. Hanka. During 1843-1850, Tyutchev wrote and published several major political articles: “Russia and Germany”, “Russia and the Revolution”, “The Papacy and the Roman Question”. He is planning a book, “Russia and the West.” The ideas that Tyutchev professes originated with him back in the 1830s, but now they have acquired distinctness and clarity. Their content boils down to the fact that Tyutchev’s contemporary man lives in a period of catastrophes, cataclysms, world upheavals, and deep upheavals. Millions of people are involved in them. Before our eyes, Tyutchev predicts, world history is happening. We are her audience. However, in the fire of catastrophes, in the storm of events, not only a new world is born, but also the old one dies. The old culture, the old society is dying, all previous human history is dying. It is not yet known whether something new and more perfect, more beautiful will be born, but the old civilization and culture, the previous achievements of mankind are already doomed to disappear. The time for the Apocalypse, that is, the general destruction of European civilization and culture, has already arrived. Tyutchev saw its menacing social shocks, like destructive earthquakes, in the French revolutions of 1830 and 1848. He perceived these revolutions as death, the collapse of the entire European culture, which he considered the highest spiritual achievement of mankind in the course of its history. The death of civilization and culture, according to Tyutchev, is inevitable, inescapable. It brings with it boundless sorrow and unabated pain. It makes the heart suffer, which is forced to say goodbye forever to dear spiritual and moral values. But at the same time this death is majestic and solemn. The catastrophe is enormous. Every person living today is a direct spectator and participant in history. Before his eyes, the world is collapsing, and the elements are coming into their own. The cosmos of the old civilization and culture gives way to chaos, in which the elements reign and its uncontrollable, powerful and formidable forces rule the roost.

In fateful moments of history, mortal man, communing with elements beyond his control, becomes equal to the immortal and omnipotent gods. A tragic and majestic spectacle of universal destruction opens before his eyes, inspiring genuine horror, but also striking the mind and feelings with unprecedented beauty. Thus, modernity appeared to Tyutchev in the tragically beautiful fractures of existence.

and civilization - Russia. This is still a young country. It can become a serious force opposing the pressure of the revolutionary elements. Its historical mission is to defend Europe, the spiritual and moral values ​​developed in it, and to block the path to destruction and catastrophe. This is how Tyutchev’s mind develops, on the one hand, the idea of ​​Russia as an enemy of the revolution, threatening to swallow humanity into the abyss, and, on the other, the idea of ​​the West’s hostility to Russia. Unable to resist the revolution due to decrepitude, selfishness, exorbitant pride, and to some extent even giving rise to revolution by giving free rein to the elements, the West is hindering Russia in its intention to curb the raging revolution. This leads to two extremely important conclusions. Firstly, Russia, representing a barrier to revolutionary elements, is fulfilling the highest mission entrusted to it by Providence. Secondly, Russia is entering into a duel with the revolutionary element, defending values ​​that are one way or another rejected by the West or, in any case, not defended by it. This fatal duel ultimately determines the fate of humanity. The waves of the elements, according to Tyutchev, should crash against the impregnable and unshakable Russian cliff (“Sea and Cliff”). Expounding in his articles and in a number of poems these views going back to the ideas of the Slavophiles, Tyutchev, as an ally of Russia in the fatal duel with the revolution, naturally chose not Western Europe, but Eastern Europe and contrasted them. This is how Tyutchev justified the idea of ​​pan-Slavism - pan-Slavic unity. He believed that the East Slavic peoples, and above all Russia, having a common history with Western Europe, nevertheless developed according to different divine and human laws. Consequently, their historical path also differed from Western Europe. The content of the national history of Russia was different: a different type of person, a different social, moral and religious structure had developed in it. Russian people are inclined to humility, and not to pride, to community, and not to isolation. He is ready for selflessness, for self-sacrifice, for oblivion of the personal principle, while Western man strives for personal self-affirmation, for the proud defense of his personal rights, for falling away from the state and from the people as a whole. If the West wants to survive, then it is obliged both religiously and as a state to submit to Russia and Eastern (Slavic) Europe. Having expanded its borders “from the Nile to the Neva, from the Elbe to China,” the Russian kingdom will acquire such power that no revolutionary elements can cope with. Thanks to Russia, called from above to carry out the world-historical mission of protection from revolutionary upheavals, a single world empire will be created, the capitals of which will be Moscow, Rome, and Constantinople. These cities will remain symbols of the entire European civilization and culture (“Russian Geography”).

Tyutchev's political articles received the approval of Nicholas I. This made it easier for Tyutchev to enter the service. The title of chamberlain is returned to him and he is again assigned to the foreign department. In 1848, he received the post of senior censor of the Foreign Censorship Committee, and in 1858 he was appointed chairman of this committee. Tyutchev's responsibilities included reviewing foreign books for permission or prohibition of their import into Russia. Tyutchev was a fairly liberal censor.

Having settled in St. Petersburg, he immediately immersed himself in social life. A brilliant and witty conversationalist, a talented storyteller, he becomes a favorite of salons. His witticisms, aphorisms, sayings, well-aimed words, exquisite jokes are on everyone’s lips and in their memory.

and in literary life in general. However, it turns out that experts have not forgotten Tyutchev’s poetry. In 1850, in the Sovremennik magazine, Nekrasov published an article “Russian minor poets”, in which he again published 24 poems previously published by Pushkin. Nekrasov classified Tyutchev among the great poetic names, placing him next to Pushkin and Lermontov. A few years later, in 1854, a book of Tyutchev’s poems was published, which already included 92 works by the poet. Since then, Tyutchev's lyrics have become vital for many generations of Russian people. Tyutchev became deservedly famous. L.N. Tolstoy said about Tyutchev, and these words were shared with him by others: “You cannot live without him.”

— Russia was defeated in the Crimean War. In the first days of the war, Tyutchev was confident that its outcome would be the formation of the “Great Greek-Russian Eastern Empire”, that the spontaneous revolutionary forces of Europe, corrupting the West, would help Russia win. But this did not happen, and Tyutchev is forced to admit that the viability of the state is under threat, that the country is poorly, stupidly and incompetently governed, that the blame for the failures lies with Nicholas I. Now, after the war, Tyutchev understands that political rapprochement of the Slavic peoples is impossible . However, he continues to hope for spiritual unification. In general, Tyutchev’s Slavophilism was of a special kind - more mental, abstract theoretical, than turned to a practical plane. Moreover, by upbringing, Tyutchev was a sophisticated European, indifferent to the ritual side of Orthodoxy, bored in the village without books and newspapers, eager to join society, the world, and people who were educated and well-read. In character, he was also very different from the image of a meek, humble Russian man, alien to pride, which was pictured in his imagination. He felt within himself a powerful individualistic principle that not only lived in him, but also subjugated him, and he, indulging in powerful passions, rushed towards them, forgetting everything in the world and leaving common sense in complete oblivion. Such a fatal event in Tyutchev’s life was his last, “illegal” love, to which he surrendered “in the violent blindness of passions.”

Since 1850, Tyutchev became close to E. A. Deniseva. She was 24 years old at that time (Tyutchev was twice her age). Her aunt is an inspector at the Smolny Institute, where the poet’s daughters were raised. E. A. Denisyeva fell deeply and passionately in love with the poet. He responded to her feelings with long and devoted affection. In the circle where Tyutchev visited, his relationship with Deniseva was considered defiantly scandalous. The poet and his lover had three children. The entire burden of moral condemnation fell on Denisyeva. Her father disowned her, her aunt was forced to leave Smolny. Children born outside of a church marriage were considered “illegitimate” at that time. Denisyeva was no longer accepted in the world. Tyutchev was torn between his former family and Deniseva. He maintained relationships with his wife, and with his daughters, and with Denisyeva, and with the children he shared with her. However, the ambiguous situation did not suit Denisieva. She became nervous, hysterical, irritable, and hot-tempered. Tyutchev's meetings with her were often accompanied by stormy scenes. In the end, this whole situation affected the course of Denisyeva’s illness (she suffered from consumption), hastening the untimely death of Tyutchev’s friend. In August 1864 she died. The love drama was reflected in a number of wonderful poems by Tyutchev (“Oh, how murderously we love...”, “I knew with my eyes...”, “The Last Love”, “There is also in my suffering stagnation...”, “On the eve of the anniversary of August 4, 1864. " and etc.). Psychological depth, penetration into the previously hidden recesses of a loving and suffering soul - all this made the poems of the “Denisyev” cycle classic examples of Russian and world love lyrics.

After the death of E. A. Denisyeva, Tyutchev went abroad and lived in Geneva and Nice until the spring of 1865. Then he returned to St. Petersburg, where new blows of fate awaited him: first he buried his mother and two children (Deniseva’s son and daughter), and then, later, his brother, son Dmitry and daughter Maria. He felt that his life was coming to an end. On July 15 (27), 1873, Tyutchev died in Tsarskoye Selo. He was buried in St. Petersburg at the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent.

It is easy to see that Tyutchev’s inner life was extremely tense. No less impressive were the historical events that the poet witnessed. Before his eyes passed the Patriotic War of 1812, the Decembrist uprising on December 14, 1825, the July Revolution in France in 1830, the Polish uprising of 1831, revolutions in Europe in 1848-1849, the Crimean War, the abolition of serfdom on February 19, 1861, the second the Polish uprising in 1863, the Paris Commune of 1871, the beginning of terror within Russia (“Nechaev affair”). Is it surprising that the lyrics of the brilliant Tyutchev became one of the most profound and piercing poetic impressions of the era?! Tyutchev experienced historical events as facts of personal biography. “There was, perhaps, no human organization better designed than mine for the fullest perception of a certain kind of sensation,” the poet wrote. The peculiarity of his talent was that he was able to combine in a single moment various time layers and various manifestations of life. He vigilantly noticed how “the web of fine hair” “glitters on the idle furrow,” and in his mind’s eye he visually imagined cosmic life at the moment when “the ocean embraces the globe of the earth” and, like the ocean, “earthly life” turns out to be “engulfed in dreams.” This combination in a single moment of different times, different events and phenomena made Tyutchev a man and a poet who had the gift of foresight. “There are moments,” the poet wrote, “when I am suffocated by my powerless clairvoyance, like someone buried alive who suddenly comes to his senses.”