"WHAT TO DO?" COMPOSITION OF THE NOVEL
The main heroes of Russian classical literature that preceded Chernyshevsky are “superfluous people.” Onegin, Pechorin, Beltov, Rudin. Oblomov, despite all the differences among themselves, are similar in one thing: all of them, according to Herzen, are “smart useless people,” “titans of speech and pygmies of deeds,” divided natures, suffering from the eternal discord between consciousness and will, thought and deed, from moral exhaustion . Chernyshevsky's heroes are not like that. His “new people” know what they need to do and know how to carry out their plans; for them, thought is inseparable from action, they do not know the discord between consciousness and will. Chernyshevsky's heroes are creators of new relationships between people, bearers of new morality. These new people are the focus of the author’s attention; they are the main characters of the novel; Therefore, by the end of the second chapter of the novel, such representatives of the old world as Marya Alekseevna, Storeshnikov, Julie, Serge and others are “released from the stage.”
The novel begins unusually, with a denouement - a scene of the mysterious disappearance of one of the characters. Such a mysterious beginning was often found in the works of Western novelists - Eugene Sue, Alexandre Dumas, widely known in Russia at that time.
Chernyshevsky himself in the third chapter (“Preface”) explains the meaning of this technique: “I used the usual trick of novelists: I began the story with spectacular scenes, torn from the middle or end of it, and covered them with fog.” This beginning made it possible, on the one hand, to attract the attention of the general reading public to the novel, to whom the author “threw a bait with the bait of showmanship,” on the other hand, it helped to deceive the vigilance of censorship, to confuse it with the usual techniques of an adventure novel.
In his further presentation, Chernyshevsky parodies such novels, declaring: “I write without tricks and therefore I say in advance: there will be no crashing collision, everything will unfold without storms, without thunder and lightning.”
The novel is divided into six chapters, each of which, with the exception of the last, is in turn divided into chapters. In an effort to emphasize the extremely important significance of the final events, Chernyshevsky talks about them in a specially highlighted one-page chapter, “Change of scenery.”
Detailed allegorical images—Vera Pavlovna’s dreams—acquire very great importance in the novel. Thus, in the first dream, the revolution is depicted in allegorical form, which brings freedom to enslaved women languishing in the “damp, dark basements of life.” In the second dream there is an image of “real mud”, all elements of which are healthy. “Real dirt”, “pure dirt”, are a people whose life “has labor as its main element”. “The ear that grows out of this mud from the sunlight will be a healthy ear.” “Fantastic dirt”, “rotten dirt” are parasitic classes that live on the labor of others. Everything that is generated by this “fantastic dirt” is bad and trashy.
The significance of Vera Pavlovna’s fourth dream is especially great. In it, in an allegorical form, in a change of pictures, the past, present and future of humanity are depicted. In Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream, the revolution appears again, “the sister of her sisters, the bride of her suitors.” She talks about equality, fraternity, freedom, that “there is nothing higher than a man, there is nothing higher than a woman,” talks about how people’s lives will be structured and what a person will become under socialism.
A characteristic feature of the novel is the author's frequent digressions, appeals to the characters, and conversations with the insightful reader. The significance of this imaginary character is very great in the novel. In his person, the philistine part of the public is ridiculed and exposed, inert and stupid, looking for poignant scenes and piquant situations in novels, constantly talking about “artistry” and understanding nothing about true art. An astute reader is one who “smugly talks about literary or scientific things about which he has no clue, and talks not because he is really interested in them, but in order to show off his intelligence (which he did not happen to receive from nature ), his lofty aspirations (of which he has as much as the chair on which he sits) and his education (of which he has as much as a parrot).”
By mocking and mocking this character, Chernyshevsky thereby turned to the reader-friend, for whom he had great respect, and demanded from him a thoughtful, careful, truly insightful attitude to the story about “new people.”
The introduction of the image of an insightful reader into the novel was explained by the need to attract the attention of the reading public to something that, due to censorship conditions, Chernyshevsky could not speak openly and directly.
| "WHAT TO DO?" THE FUTURE SOCIETY IN THE NOVEL → |
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“Genre and composition of the novel “What is to be done?””
The true hero of the era, before whom the author of the novel “What is to be done?” “bows”, is Rakhmetov, the revolutionary with his “fiery love for goodness and freedom.” The image of Rakhmetov and the whole pure, sublime atmosphere of respect and recognition with which he is surrounded undoubtedly testify that the core theme of the novel is not in the depiction of love and new family relationships of “ordinary decent people”, but in the glorification of the revolutionary energy and feat of a “special person” - Rakhmetova. The title of the novel “What is to be done?” is primarily related to the image of Rakhmetov. “Rakhmetov was bred,” says the author, “to fulfill the most important, most fundamental requirement of artistry.” And it consists in the reader imagining objects in their “true form”
In other words, the reader must understand that although Rakhmetov, according to censorship conditions, is not “any character at all” in the novel, he is the main character in life. This is the truth, the truth that makes up the artistic and realistic power of the novel. There are few Rakhmetovs, wrote Chernyshevsky, “but with them the life of all flourishes, without them it would have died out, it would have turned sour; There are few of them, but they allow all people to breathe, without them people would suffocate. There are a great number of honest and kind people, but such people are few; but they are in it - the theine in tea, the bouquet in noble wine, from them its strength and aroma, this is the color of the best people, these are the engines of engines, this is the salt of the salt of the earth.
No one before Chernyshevsky in Russian and world literature had said such poetically soulful words about a revolutionary, a socialist. In the final chapter of the novel, “A Change of Scenery,” confidence is expressed in the proximity of a revolutionary coup. With all his being, the disgraced author of “What is to be done?” waited for the revolution in Russia, welcomed it, glorified its leaders.
With the instinct of a great realist artist and thinker, Chernyshevsky understood that only a relief image would most fully express the essence of the Russian revolutionary - then still “a specimen ... of a rare breed” - and would have a strong educational impact on the reader.
Rakhmetov is a descendant of an ancient aristocratic family, the son of a wealthy ultra-conservative landowner. Protesting thoughts began to wander in the young man’s head while still in the house of his despot father, who caused a lot of evil and grief to his mother, his beloved girl, and the serfs. During his student years, Rakhmetov became friends with Kirsanov, and “his transformation into a special person began.”
Already with this extraordinary biography of Rakhmetov (a healthy ear on a “tiny patch” of a rotten noble swamp) the powerful conquering power of new revolutionary ideas is declared. At the same time, the writer was not fantasizing, he knew, and his readers knew, that revolutionaries - people from the nobility - are not an exceptional phenomenon in Russian history (Radishchev, the Decembrists, many of the Petrashevists, Ogarev, Herzen and others).
To emphasize Rakhmetov’s deep devotion to the revolutionary cause, Chernyshevsky deliberately exaggerates the “Spartan”, ascetic principles in the behavior of his hero. The nature is ebullient, lively, passionate, Rakhmetov refuses love, life’s pleasures. “We demand complete enjoyment of life for people,” he says, “we must testify with our lives that we demand this not to satisfy our personal passions, not for ourselves personally, but for man in general.”
Rakhmetov tests his readiness to withstand the most difficult trials, any suffering, even torture in the spirit of his revolutionary convictions by one day calmly laying down on felt studded with nails, and, bloodied, spending the whole night in this way. "Try. It’s necessary... says Rakhmetov, just in case it’s necessary. I see I can."
The image of Rakhmetov captures the most essential aspects of the character of the type of professional revolutionary that was emerging in Russia, with his unyielding will to fight, high moral nobility, and boundless devotion to the people and homeland. Fierce public struggle around “What to do?” and the images of “new people” created by Chernyshevsky, the malicious attacks of enemies on the author of the revolutionary novel and the sincere gratitude of supporters and allies clearly reveal a political creature like Rakhmetov.
Reviewing this novel is not intended to reconsider social or political values. Socialism, capitalism, communism - that’s not the point. "What to do?" is a novel about the search for freedom for the entire people, and the fact that the author sees the path only in the socialist system is not important. The literary value of the work is great, and “What to do?” awakens in us the best aspirations, like the novel “The Gadfly,” although its political background is even more distant from today’s problems.
The highest patriotism, Chernyshevsky declared, lies in a passionate, boundless desire for the good of one’s homeland. This life-giving idea permeated and inspired the life and work of the great democratic revolutionary. Chernyshevsky was proud of the glorious history of the Russian people. Even at the dawn of his adult life, he passionately believed that Russia would make its contribution “to the spiritual life of the world.”
He was proud of the achievements of advanced Russian science and culture, the great creative successes of brilliant Russian artists - Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Nekrasov, Shchedrin, L. Tolstoy, Ostrovsky. Chernyshevsky, with legitimate patriotic pride, spoke highly of Belinsky, Herzen, Dobrolyubov, in whose person the progressive social and philosophical thought of Russia took a new step forward and became original and independent.
Chernyshevsky believed in the innumerable historical possibilities and strength of his fatherland and people. His love for Russia and the Russian people was combined with a feeling of deep respect for other peoples. He openly declared that national discord and national inequality are instilled and supported by the exploiting classes in order to maintain their dominance. Chernyshevsky angrily condemned wars of conquest. “Only that war is reasonable and useful,” he wrote, “which is waged by the people to protect their borders. Any war with the goal of conquest or superiority over other nations is not only immoral and inhuman, but also positively unprofitable and harmful to the people, no matter how loud successes it is accompanied by, no matter how beneficial the results apparently lead to.” Modernity confirms the truth of these weighty words.
Chernyshevsky is close and dear to us, close and dear to all honest people of the earth with his withering hatred of any form of oppression. He is near and dear to us for his faith in a better future for working humanity. Having fought in the dark times of the royal hard times, he experienced the bitterness of defeat. But he never abandoned the hope that bright eras of animated historical work would come. The life of working people both in Russia and in Europe, he said, is darkened by the “damp and cold night” of feudal-capitalist enslavement. However, the progressive thinker, dedicated to the cause of progress, does not lose heart, “he waits with firm confidence for a new dawn and, calmly peering at the position of the constellations, counts exactly how many hours are left before the dawn appears.”
This is precisely the kind of great figure Chernyshevsky was. His philosophical materialism, his political and socio-economic ideas, imbued with the spirit of revolutionary democracy and socialism, led close to a correct understanding of the general laws of the “progressive course of history.”
Chernyshevsky was unable, due to understandable historical limitations, to fully understand these general laws. But he saw clearly that the new was making its way in life, encountering the strongest resistance from the moribund forces of society. He gave his life to the revolutionary struggle so that the working people, who alone benefit and need the structure called socialist, would gain dominance in historical life.
The influence of Chernyshevsky’s revolutionary ideas, expressed in many areas of social sciences and arts, on the development of Russian and world culture was enormous. The influence of his ideas affected the work of Perov, Surikov, Repin, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and many other great representatives of Russian realistic art, who valued the truth of life and genuine nationality above all else in painting and music. The influence of Chernyshevsky's revolutionary thought was experienced by the most talented cultural figures of the fraternal peoples - Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Mikael Nalbandyan. Akaki Tsereteli, Abay Kunanbaev, Mirza Fatali Akhundov, Kosta Khetagurov and others. In the historically great task of uniting national cultures around the advanced culture of the Russian people, Chernyshevsky’s role was one of the most significant and fruitful.
The genre and ideological originality of N. G. Chernyshevsky’s novel “What is to be done?”
It is believed that Chernyshevsky’s work “What is to be done?” belongs to the type of utopian novels. However, this is too conventional a characterization, since the adventurous plot of the plot gives it the features of a detective story, the detailed biography of Vera Pavlovna introduces elements of everyday drama, and due to the looseness of the plot, which is continually interrupted by the author’s lengthy arguments, the novel is difficult to squeeze into the framework of any familiar scheme. In places the author tries to captivate the reader with a scrupulous - and incredibly boring - calculation of the profits that the cooperative sewing workshops he depicted received, or he takes a sublime tone, and then for several pages the novel resembles a prose poem.
Often the author, like a prompter, bursts into the narrative and stubbornly demands an account from his readers: they say, do they understand everything? And he himself answers in a malicious tone: no, kind audience, you haven’t learned anything! If we approach the question of the genre uniqueness of this work with humor - more precisely, with “black humor”, then it can be defined something like this: this is a lyrical and everyday fantasy with elements of tragifarce on the topic of the best improvement of personal and public life, written by the author in prison with the best wishes to those who will follow in his footsteps...
Indeed, it is difficult to talk about this work seriously, given all its monstrous shortcomings. The author and his characters speak in an absurd, clumsy and unintelligible language. The main characters behave unnaturally, but they, like dolls, are obedient to the will of the author, who can force them to do (experience, think) whatever he wants. This is a sign of Chernyshevsky’s immaturity as a writer: a true creator always creates beyond himself, the creations of his creative imagination have free will, over which even he, their creator, has no power, and it is not the author who imposes thoughts and actions on his heroes, but rather they themselves suggest it to him or another of your actions, thoughts, plot twists. But for this it is necessary that their characters be concrete, complete and convincing, and in Chernyshevsky’s novel, instead of living people, we have bare abstractions that have been hastily given a human form.
The most successful in the novel - and there is nothing strange in this - is the image of the evil, greedy and ignorant Marya Alekseevna, Verochka’s mother. Neither the author himself nor his characters can do anything about her character. This suggests that even Chernyshevsky did not have any particular difficulties in depicting this figure, because women like Marya Alekseevna are encountered in life all the time. A “new type” of person is a completely different matter. The author warns us that such people exist, although they are still few. But Chernyshevsky clearly wants there to be even more of them, so he oversalts them, endowing them with superhuman endurance and angelic kindness...
It is difficult to judge objectively the ideological originality of a book that is disgustingly written. However, not a single Russian writer can boast of such success as then befell the author of “What is to be done?” The secret of her success is her moral impact on society. The ideological originality of the novel comes down to preaching a new morality.
Critics belonging to the right-wing conservative camp declared the novel immoral, but the remarkable Russian theologian A. M. Bukharev (Archimandrite Theodore in monasticism) admitted that the book was deeply Christian in spirit. Indeed, the author pays great attention to ascetic principles: Rakhmetov sleeps on nails in order to prepare himself to endure torture, he denies himself all human joys and devotes his life to serving the Truth.
The preaching of free love and the denial of jealousy based on an unworthy sense of property caused especially many attacks. However, sexual promiscuity flourished precisely among representatives of the right-wing conservative camp - among guards officers, idle landowners, important officials, and not at all in the circles of ascetic-minded revolutionary intelligentsia. Preaching the freedom of love in Chernyshevsky's novel means preaching the sincerity of feelings and the value of love as the only justification for the relationship between a man and a woman. The cessation of love on one side is the cessation of the meaning of the relationship. For Chernyshevsky, the theme of freedom of love had nothing in common with the theme of justification for promiscuity. Chernyshevsky rebels against any social violence against human feelings, he is driven by a love of freedom, respect for the sincerity of feelings. And yet the ordinary reader - just a reader, and not a revolutionary or militant moralist - is unlikely to be satisfied with such explanations and will not understand why he should look for merit in a poorly written book.
Everyone knows the flying phrase of E. Yevtushenko: “A poet in Russia is more than a poet!” But perhaps it would be better if everyone in Russia minded their own business. Poets would write poetry, writers would write novels, and public figures would engage in politics!
