History of creation
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was distinguished by his tenacity and exactingness. In an instant, having experienced another epileptic seizure, the author came to the conclusion that the new work did not suit him at all. Then he completely destroyed his creation, but left intact the idea of the novel - a story about nihilists whose denial went too far.
Next, Dostoevsky again took up writing “Demons” - this is how the second version of the work saw the light. The writer did not have time to submit the work by the deadline set by the publisher, but he also did not want to betray himself and give the public a work that did not suit him. Katkov, the author’s publisher, just shrugged his shoulders, because the writer provided himself and his family only with advances for books, but was ready to live from hand to mouth, just not to publish raw material.
Genre, direction
The novel “Demons” unusually intertwines such qualities as chronicle, harsh historicism of thinking, and philosophy, but at the same time the writer looked into the future and talked about what would worry his descendants. It was this novel that was reliably assigned the designation: “novel-prophecy.”
Indeed, most readers note Dostoevsky’s visionary gift, because the novel reflects the problems not only of that time, but also the issues of today’s information society. The author soulfully portrays the main threat to the future of the public - the replacement of established concepts with unnatural demonic dogmas.
The direction of the writer’s creativity is realism, as he depicts reality in all its diversity.
The essence
The events take place in a provincial town in the domain of Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina. The child of the freethinker Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, Pyotr Verkhovensky is the main ideological mentor of the revolutionary movement. Peter is trying to attract Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stravogin, who is the son of Varvara Petrovna, to the revolutionaries.
Pyotr Verkhovensky convenes young people “sympathetic” to the coup: retired military man Virginsky, expert of the masses Tolkachenko, philosopher Shigalev and others. The leader of the organization Verkhovensky plans the murder of former student Ivan Shatov, who decides to part with the revolutionary movement. He leaves the organization because of his interest in the thought of the “God-bearing” people. However, the company does not need the murder of the hero for revenge; the real motive, which ordinary members of the circle do not know, is to unite the organization with blood, a single crime.
Further events develop rapidly: the small town is shaken by unprecedented incidents. A secret organization is to blame, but the townspeople have no idea about it. However, the most terrible and frightening things happen in the soul of the hero, Nikolai Stavrogin. The author describes in detail the process of its decomposition under the influence of harmful ideas.
The mystery of chronology and anachronisms
The ritual of execution of the Petrashevites on the Semenovsky parade ground. Drawing by B. Pokrovsky. 1849 Federal Archive Agency
The novel “Demons” begins with an extensive and fairly detailed biography of Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky:
“He returned from abroad and showed off as a lecturer at the university department at the very end of the forties. He only managed to read a few lectures... <...> He stopped his lectures on the Arabians because somehow someone (obviously one of his retrograde enemies) intercepted a letter to someone outlining some “ circumstances,” as a result of which someone demanded some kind of explanation from him. I don’t know if it’s true, but they also claimed that at the same time some huge, unnatural and anti-state society was found in St. Petersburg, about thirteen people strong, and it almost shook the building. They said that they were going to translate Fourier himself.”
The novel takes place in September, but the year does not appear in the text. But we can calculate it thanks to the passage just above. Verkhovensky Sr.’s performances at the university took place in 1849. Dostoevsky, of course, does not name the date, but mentions an event that occurred almost at the same time, namely the discovery of a certain “unnatural and anti-state society.” We are talking about the Petrashevites, to whom Dostoevsky himself belonged. The political program of the participants in the meetings held by Mikhail Butashevich-Petrashevsky actually included both the destruction of “real social life” and translations of the works of the French philosopher Charles Fourier. The time of action of “The Demons,” as the chronicler indicates (as the narrator is usually called), takes place exactly 20 years after this event, that is, in 1869. It is interesting that in the same year 1869 a crime was committed, under the impression of which Dostoevsky took up the novel and which he depicted on its pages: the murder of student Ivan Ivanov by the “People’s Retribution” circle led by Sergei Nechaev..
However, the novel mentions many events of 1870–1871. So, the heroes call the deceased Alexander Herzen, who died on January 21, 1870. A local revolutionary named Lyamshin plays the comic composition “Franco-Prussian War” on the piano: the French “Marseillaise” gradually turns into the Austrian folk song “Mein lieber Augustin”, and this is an allusion to the defeat of the French that happened in early 1871. There are also references in the novel to the Paris Commune. The Paris Commune is a revolutionary government that ruled the city for 72 days in 1871, or rather its supporters, “petrols,” as the Russian press called them for setting fires during street battles in May 1871. Dostoevsky began writing the novel in 1870. The first chapters were published in the Russian Bulletin magazine in January 1871. While working on the text, the writer continued to read newspapers, observe what was happening in the world, and could not give in to his most important principle - to write about the relevant and poignant, giving the reader many references to modern times. And at the same time, it was no less important for him to place the action of the novel in the 1860s: he considered the main sign of this time to be the growth of high-profile crimes and unrest among young people. Dostoevsky later used a similar technique with anachronisms when working on the novel The Brothers Karamazov.
The main characters and their characteristics
- Varvara Stavrogina is a famous provincial lady, an outstanding landowner. The heroine has an estate inherited from a wealthy tax farmer-parent. Her husband Vsevolod Nikolaevich, a lieutenant general by profession, did not own a huge fortune, but had great connections, which Varvara Petrovna, after his departure from this life, strives to restore in every possible way, but to no avail. She is a very influential woman in the province. By nature she is arrogant and despotic. However, the heroine often feels strongly dependent on people, sometimes even sacrificial, but in return she expects the same behavior. When communicating with people, Varvara Petrovna always takes a leading position, and old friends are no exception.
- Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin had demonic attractiveness, excellent taste and well-mannered behavior. Society reacted violently to his appearance, but, despite all the liveliness and richness of his image, the hero behaved rather modestly and not particularly talkative. The entire female secular society was in love with him. Nikolai Vsevolodovich met with Shatov’s wife, Masha, with his sister, Dasha, and with his friend from childhood, Elizaveta Tushina. Returning from Europe, he took part in the revival of the secret society. During the same period, he experimented with influencing Shatov and Kirillov. Nikolai Vsevolodovich did not take direct part in Shatov’s death and even had a negative attitude towards it, but the idea of uniting the participants in the association came from him. More about the character of Stavrogin
- Alexey Nilych Kirillov is one of the leading characters in F. M. Dostoevsky’s work “Demons”, a civil engineer by profession, he came up with the theory of suicide as a need for a reasoning person. Kirillov overcame a rapid path from religion to denial of the existence of someone from above, was obsessed with manic thoughts, ideas about revolution and readiness for self-denial. Pyotr Verkhovensky, a cunning and ruthless person, saw all this in Alexei Nilych in time. Peter was aware of Kirillov's intention to commit suicide, and forced him to write a confession that Shatov, whom Peter killed, died at the hands of Kirillov.
- Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky is the leader of the revolutionaries, a slippery and insidious character. In the work, this is the main “demon” - he runs a secret society that promotes atheist proclamations. Inspired by crazy thoughts, he tries to charm Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin, his childhood friend, with them. Verkhovensky is not bad in appearance, but does not inspire sympathy in anyone.
- Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky is a man of the old school, devoted to high ideals and living on the support of a famous provincial person. In his youth he had a beautiful appearance, echoes of which can be seen in old age. There is a lot of pretense in his behavior, but he is quite educated and insightful. Was married twice. At some time, he was respected almost like Belinsky and Herzen, but after the discovery of a poem with ambiguous content, he was forced to leave St. Petersburg and hide in the estate of Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina. Since then it has noticeably deteriorated.
- Shigalev - participated in organizing the murder of Shatov, but abandoned it. Little is known about Shigalev. An employee of the chronicle department says that he arrived in the city a couple of months before the incident; there was a rumor that he was published in a famous St. Petersburg publication. It seemed as if Shigalev knew the time, place and event that was about to happen. According to this character, all people should be divided into two unequal halves. Only one tenth should have power. The rest are a herd without an opinion, slaves. Entire generations had to be re-educated in this manner, because it was more than natural.
- Erkel, Virginsky, Liputin, Tolkachenko are members of a secret society who were recruited by Verkhovensky.
How to write a term paper on speech therapy
07.09.2010 229208
These guidelines are compiled to help students gain an understanding of the content and structure of coursework in speech therapy.
Logopedia of pedagogical science that studies anomalies of speech development with normal hearing, explores the manifestations, nature and mechanisms of speech disorders, develops the scientific basis for overcoming and preventing them means of special training and education.
The subject of speech therapy as a science is speech disorders and the process of training and education of persons with speech disorders.
The object of study is a person suffering from a speech disorder.
The main task of speech therapy as a science is the study, prevention and elimination of various types of speech disorders.
Coursework in speech therapy is a student's scientific and experimental research. This type of educational activity, provided for by the educational and professional program and curriculum, contributes to the acquisition of skills in working with literature, analyzing and summarizing literary sources in order to determine the range of insufficiently studied problems, determining the content and methods of experimental research, processing skills and qualitative analysis of the results obtained. The need to complete coursework in speech therapy is due to the updating of knowledge concerning the content, organization, principles, methods and techniques of speech therapy work.
As a rule, during their studies, students must write two term papers - theoretical and practical.
The first course work should be devoted to the analysis and synthesis of general and specialized literature on the chosen topic. Based on this analysis, it is necessary to justify and develop a method of ascertaining (diagnostic) experiment.
In the second course work, it is necessary to provide an analysis of the results obtained during the ascertaining experiment, as well as determine the directions and content of speech therapy work, and select adequate methods and techniques of correction.
So, let’s present the general requirements for the content and design of coursework in speech therapy.
The initial and most important stage of working on a course project is the choice of a topic, which is either proposed by the supervisor or chosen by the student independently from a list of topics that are consistent with the areas of scientific research of the department.
Each topic can be modified, considered in different aspects, but taking into account a theoretical and practical approach. Having chosen a topic, the student needs to think through in detail its specific content, areas of work, practical material, etc., which should be reflected both in the formulation of the topic and in the further construction of the study. It should be recalled that the chosen topic may not only have a purely theoretical orientation, for example: “Dysarthria. Characteristics of the defect”, “Classification of dysgraphia”, but also take into account the practical significance of the problem under consideration, for example: “Speech therapy work on speech correction for dysarthria”. It should also be taken into account that when formulating a topic, excessive detail should be avoided, for example: “Formation of prosodic components of speech in preschoolers of the sixth year of life attending a preschool institution for children with severe speech impairments.”
The course work includes such mandatory parts as: introduction, three chapters, conclusion, bibliography and appendix.
The text of the term paper begins with the title page . An example of its design can be seen here.
Then the content of the work is given, in which the names of chapters, paragraphs, and sections are formulated in strict accordance with the content of the thesis. An example of its design can be seen here.
In the text, each subsequent chapter and paragraph begins on a new page. At the end of each chapter, the materials are summarized and conclusions are formulated.
The introduction reveals the relevance of the problem under consideration in general and the topic being studied in particular; the problem, subject, object, and purpose of the study are defined. In accordance with the goal and hypothesis, objectives and a set of research methods aimed at achieving the objectives must be defined.
The relevance of the topic lies in reflecting the current level of pedagogical science and practice, meeting the requirements of novelty and usefulness.
When defining the research problem, it is important to indicate what practical tasks it will help to implement in training and educating people with speech pathology.
The object of research is understood as certain aspects of pedagogical reality, perceived through a system of theoretical and practical knowledge. The ultimate goal of any research is to improve this object.
The subject of research is some part, property, element of an object, i.e. the subject of research always indicates a specific aspect of the object that is to be studied and about which the researcher wants to gain new knowledge. An object is a part of an object.
You can give an example of the formulation of the object, subject and problem of research:
– The object of the study is the speech activity of preschool children with phonetic-phonemic speech disorders.
– The subject of the study is the features of intonation speech of children with phonetic-phonemic speech disorders.
– The research problem is to determine effective directions for speech therapy work on the formation of intonation expressiveness of speech in the system of correctional intervention.
The purpose of the study contributes to the specification of the object being studied. The goal of any research is to solve a specific problem. The goal is specified in tasks taking into account the subject of research.
The research objectives are formulated in a certain sequence, which determines the logic of the research. The research objectives are set on the basis of a theoretical analysis of the problem and an assessment of the state of its solution in practice.
The first chapter is an analysis of literary sources, which examines the state of this problem in historical and modern aspects, and presents the most important theoretical principles that formed the basis of the study.
When writing the first chapter, you should pay attention to the fact that the text of the course work must be written in a scientific style. When presenting scientific material, it is necessary to comply with the following requirements:
– Specificity – a review of only those sources that are necessary to disclose only a given topic or solve only a given problem;
– Clarity – which is characterized by semantic coherence and integrity of individual parts of the text;
– Logicality – which provides for a certain structure of presentation of the material;
– Reasoning – evidence of thoughts (why this and not otherwise);
– Precision of wording, excluding ambiguous interpretation of the authors’ statements.
A literary review of the state of the problem being studied should not be reduced to a consistent presentation of literary sources. It should present a generalized description of the literature: highlight the main directions (currents, concepts, points of view), analyze in detail and evaluate the most fundamental works of representatives of these directions.
When writing a work, the student must correctly use literary materials, make references to the authors and sources from which the results of scientific research are borrowed. Failure to provide required references will reduce your coursework grade.
As a rule, in coursework on speech therapy, references to literary sources are formatted as follows: the number of the cited source in the general list of references is placed in square brackets. For example: General speech underdevelopment is a speech pathology in which there is a persistent lag in the formation of all components of the language system: phonetics, vocabulary and grammar [17].
When using quotations, in square brackets, in addition to indicating the source number, the page number from which this excerpt is taken is indicated, for example: Speech rhythm is based on a physiological and intellectual basis, since, firstly, it is directly related to the rhythm of breathing. Secondly, being an element that performs a communicative function, “correlates with meaning, i.e. controlled intellectually” [23, P.40].
However, course work should not be of a purely abstract nature, so you should not abuse the unreasonable abundance of citations. Quoting should be logically justified, convincing and used only when really necessary.
In the second chapter , devoted to experimental research, the organization should be described and the program of the ascertaining experiment should be presented. The survey methodology, as a rule, consists of a description of several series of tasks, with detailed instructions, visual and lexical material, the procedure for completing tasks by experiment participants, and scoring criteria. This chapter also provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results obtained.
When analyzing the results of an experiment, it is necessary to use a scoring system. Examples of various criteria for quantitative and qualitative assessment are presented in the following works:
– Glukhov V.P. Formation of coherent speech in preschool children with general speech underdevelopment. - M.: Arkti, 2002. - 144 p.
– Fotekova T.A. Test methodology for diagnosing oral speech of primary schoolchildren. - M.: Arkti, 2000. - 56 p.
– Levchenko I.Yu. Pathopsychology: Theory and practice. - M.: Academy, 2000. - 232 p.
In order to visually present the results obtained during the experimental study, it is recommended to use tables, graphs, diagrams, etc. Histograms can be used in a variety of ways - columnar, cylindrical, planar, volumetric, etc. An example of the design of tables, figures, and histograms can be found here.
The third chapter provides a rationale for the proposed methods and techniques and reveals the content of the main stages of correctional work.
The conclusion contains a summary of the material presented and the main conclusions formulated by the author.
The bibliography must contain at least 25 sources. The list includes bibliographic information about the sources used in preparing the work. An example of its design can be seen here.
In the application you can present bulky tables or illustrations, examination protocols, observation records, products of activity (drawings, written works of children), notes from speech therapy classes, etc.
The volume of one course work must be at least 30 pages of typewritten text.
In general, coursework in speech therapy is the basis for a future thesis, in which the study of the begun problem can be continued, but from the standpoint of a different approach or a comparative analysis of the disorders being studied in different age categories of people with different types of speech disorders.
The content and format of theses in speech therapy can be found here.
Literature:
1. How to write a term paper on speech therapy: Methodological recommendations. Educational and methodological manual / Comp. Artemova E.E., Tishina L.A. / Ed. Orlova O.S. – M.: MGOPU, 2008. – 35 p.
2. Research work of students in the system of higher professional pedagogical education (specialty 031800 - Speech therapy). Methodological recommendations for completing the thesis / Compiled by. L.V. Lopatina, V.I. Lipakova, G.G. Golubeva. - St. Petersburg: Publishing house of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after. A. I. Herzen, 2002. - 140 p.
Themes and mood
- Relationships between fathers and children. Obviously, in the novel “Demons” the author describes the clash of different eras and the loss of communication between different generations. Parents don’t understand their children at all; they seem to be from different planets. Therefore, no one can help young people in time, since those precious family ties that could keep young men from moral decline have been lost.
- Nihilism. In the novel “Demons,” the connection with the work “Fathers and Sons” is clearly visible, since it was Turgenev who first spoke about nihilism. The reader gets to know Dostoevsky's heroes, like Turgenev's characters, through ideological disputes in which possible directions for improving society are revealed. There is a slight connection with the poem by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, with the same name “Demons”: the thought of people who have lost their way, wandering in circles in the verbal fog of Russian society.
- Lack of common moral guidelines. The spiritual social illness shown by the author is provoked by a complete lack of high values. Neither the development of technology, nor leaps in education, nor pathetic attempts to destroy social differences with the help of power will lead to a positive result until common moral guidelines appear. “There is nothing great” - this is the main reason for the sad state of the Russian people.
- Religiosity and atheism . Will a person achieve harmony after suffering in life, and does this harmony have value? If immortality does not exist, you can do whatever comes to your mind without thinking about the consequences. In this conclusion, which can arise in any atheist, the author sees the danger of unbelief. However, Dostoevsky understands that faith cannot be absolute as long as religious philosophy has unresolved questions on which there is no consensus. The writer's thoughts are as follows: is God fair if he allows innocent people to suffer? And if this is his justice, then how can one judge those who shed blood on the road to public happiness? According to the author, one must abandon universal happiness if even one human sacrifice is required for it.
- Reality and mysticism constantly collide in the works of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, sometimes to such an extent that the line between the writer’s narrative and the illusions of the character himself disappears. Events develop rapidly, they occur spontaneously in short periods of time, they rush forward, not allowing the person on the other side of the book to concentrate on everyday things. Drawing all the reader's attention to psychological moments, the author provides everyday material only bit by bit.
“Demons” by Dostoevsky: criticism of the work (part I)
Introduction
I started reading Dostoevsky after Bunin. The background of Bunin’s prose turned out to be very unfavorable for the novelist-psychologist. In comparison with the poetic, transparent, light, polished, melodious language of Bunin, Dostoevsky’s style seems clumsy: it allows length, repetition, negligence, “revolving on one word.”
The work is of little artistic value: there are no poetic descriptions of nature that convey the mental states of the heroes, as in Turgenev, Tolstoy, Bunin and others (another psychological device). Only once Stavrogin (the character from “Demons”) looked around and noticed a foggy morning, trees... before the duel.
And the portrait characteristics are inexpressive, ordinary: black hair, pale face, big eyes... The speech of his “aristocrats” is uncultured; according to the speech characteristics, they are merchants or philistines - they saturate their speech with swear words: “scoundrel”, “fool”, “scoundrel”.
The heroes are small, insignificant, empty talkers - this is the only truth of life - there is nowhere to find deep, intelligent, integral natures, and his blessed Marya Timofeevna is no exception here.
The author tries to capture the reader's imagination in the spirit of romanticism. In general, I think his style is closer to romanticism than to realism. He intrigues the reader with the unusualness of his hero, his shocking behavior: he dragged an official across the hall by the nose, bit the governor on the ear - and all this is quite false. And the refrain repeated by the characters in the novel is “Everything is nonsense!” – determines the impression of the reading process (at least at first). The recurring characters in Dostoevsky’s works can be called “cross-cutting”: Liputin in “The Possessed” is Fyodor Karamazov, Lebyadkin is Rogozhin from “The Idiot,” Liza Tushina, an arrogant, spoiled rich girl, is Katerina and Liza from “Karamazov,” Shatov is Raskolnikov, Marya Timofeevna, rejected by society, is Grushenka from Karamazov.
The characters are static, although the writer says that Shatov has changed his views, for the reader this remains “behind the text.” The author conveys the hero’s experiences, his inner state through external manifestations of emotions (turned pale, screamed, sobbed, hysteria, fever, exaltation, fainting...) often in an exaggerated and unnatural way, like all writers of the romantic genre. Here, for example, is a parody of the psychological technique of the romantic Hugo (I don’t remember whose): “His face was pale, his eyes were burning, sparks were falling from them, the hair on his head was moving...”. Compare with Dostoevsky’s style: “He turned pale and his eyes flashed,” “What! You're limping! - Varvara Petrovna cried out, completely as if in fright, and turned pale,” “Marya Timofeevna, who did not expect such anger, began to tremble all over with a small convulsive trembling, as if in a fit.”
The writer attaches great importance to gestures, facial expressions, and tempo of speech; in the behavior of the characters there is more theatrical effect than logic, and it is not for nothing that he often uses the word “scene.” Often the key to a “scene” is the word “tear.”
Dostoevsky's psychoanalysis sometimes falls into pathology, hence the interest in crazy and insane people like Marya Timofeevna, and her husband, the secretly married Stavrogin, is also mentally ill.
And yet, despite all this romantic “nonsense,” the writer holds the reader’s attention and touches his soul. With what? With his humanism, sincere love and pity for people, and especially for people who are suffering.
1st chapter. Stavrogin
The novel “Demons” is preceded by two epigraphs. One from Pushkin is a poetic description of a blizzard: “Even though we can’t see a trace, we’ve lost our way, what should we do? The demon leads us into the field, apparently, and circles us around.” Pushkin's snowstorm in The Captain's Daughter is a metaphor for a peasant revolt. Dostoevsky writes a novel in the wake of social upheavals in Russia - the speeches of the “Nechaevites”. Russia is once again engulfed by a “blizzard”; the demon of revolution is “circling” it.
Another epigraph is taken from the Gospel of Luke. The passage describes how Christ casts out demons from a possessed person. The demons ask permission to enter the pigs, and God allows them. After which the herd plunged into the depths of the sea and destroyed itself.
Dostoevsky interprets the biblical allegory this way: “possessed” is Russia, its sick society. And the “herd of pigs” are outwardly respectable people of high society, idle, sated, morally unclean, who have gone through sophisticated depravity. Their fall reaches the very bottom and leads to revolution out of boredom and cynicism, i.e. “due to an extraordinary ability to commit crime,” and not from burning with the flame of lofty ideas and a noble desire for people’s happiness.
“Your whole step so far is to make everything collapse. Only we will remain, having previously destined ourselves to receive power: we will associate the smart ones with us, and we will ride on the fools,” Peter Verkhovensky cynically explains to those recruited in the provincial city (presumably Tver) who “sympathize” with the idea due to the “shakyness of concepts.” In the novel, he is an underground riot organizer.
This is the concept of revolution according to Dostoevsky. It is interesting that the writer was once a rebel involved in the Petrashevsky circle. The person in charge of the surveillance of the Petrashevites wrote in a report to the Minister of Internal Affairs: “In the majority of young people, some kind of radical bitterness against the existing order of things is obvious, without any personal reasons, solely due to their passion for the utopias that dominate Western Europe. Blindly indulging in these utopias, they imagine themselves called upon to regenerate all social life, to remake all of humanity, and are ready to be apostles and martyrs of this unfortunate self-delusion.”
When recreating the activities of the conspirators, the writer uses personal experience; Petrashevsky became the prototype of Peter Verkhovensky in the novel. Fyodor Mikhailovich wrote about the suffering he experienced before his execution in his novel “The Idiot.” In the Epanchins’ house, Prince Myshkin talks about the execution he saw in France, in Lyon. “What happens to the soul at this time, what kind of convulsions it is brought to... Who said that human nature is able to endure this without madness?.. they read the verdict, let them suffer, and then said: “Go, they forgive you.” The authorities allowed the cup of the condemned man to drink almost completely; only on the scaffold did the Petrashevites hear the royal decree to replace the death sentence with hard labor. The Kazakh convict-exile period of Dostoevsky’s life was brightened by his friendship with Chokan Valikhanov.
With the novel “Demons,” it seems to me that the pardoned person is trying to rehabilitate himself before the government by introducing the term “sympathetic to the idea due to the instability of concepts.” Even the surname of his hero, as Dostoevsky’s contemporaries noted, whose character resembles the writer himself, is given by Shatov.
The irresistible craving for suicide among jaded aristocrats (Kirillov, Stavrogin) testifies: firstly, to their degeneration; secondly, it confirms in the subtext the epigraph about the self-destruction of demons who entered the pigs (I remembered the glamorous herd in Paolo Sorrentino’s film satire “The Great Beauty”, in which I see reminiscences of Dostoevsky’s work).
And finally, so that no one has any doubts about the “demons,” Dostoevsky allows for a stretch. In confession to the monk Tikhon (prototype Tikhon of Zadonsky), Stavrogin admits that he is possessed by demons, that he (like Ivan Karamazov) “sometimes sees or feels near him some evil creature, mocking and “reasonable,” in different faces and in different characters, but it’s the same thing...” “It’s me,” he says irritably, in different forms... I still doubt and am not sure that it’s me and not really a demon.”
By creating the image of Stavrogin, the writer again introduces the motif of split consciousness into the novel. The peculiarity of Dostoevsky’s psychological analysis is that, unlike Tolstoy and others, he resorts not to an internal monologue, but to an internal dialogue - an argument with himself. Divided consciousness most often represents a moral conflict. Stavrogin supposedly “does not know the difference in beauty between some voluptuous, brutal thing and any feat, even a sacrifice of life for humanity.”
Again, it’s a stretch; according to the novel, Stavrogin is a cold egoist, a waster of life, who never refuses anything, i.e. almost Pechorin, he least of all looks like an altruist. The handsome man not only does not give the impression of a thinking, progressive person, but even simply an educated one, and even less of a messiah, as the writer apparently wanted to present his hero, but it turned out unconvincingly. There was simply no one in his novel to hand off his ideas to, but he really wanted to proclaim them, so he handed them over to this “pig” Stavrogin - “With Christ without truth, than with truth without Christ” - they stuck to him very much, like a cow’s saddle.
And somehow he handed it in very awkwardly: the author attributes his philosophizing about Christ, about truth, about the God-bearing people, good and evil to Stavrogin. And the “eternal student” Shatov quotes him with exaltation, calling Stavrogin his teacher. And who is he quoting to? To him, Stavrogin! Unsuccessful author's technique.
The philosopher Nietzsche, who calls Dostoevsky his teacher (“Twilight of the Idols”), in his desire to amaze everyone with surprise, “a combination of contradictory things” (“rerum concordia discor”), while recommending himself as a Hegelian, profanes Hegel’s dialectic (the unity and struggle of opposites). Contradictions must be internally connected, and his reasoning is a chain of mutually exclusive concepts.
Dostoevsky deliberately combines humanism and egoism (extreme egoism), Christ and the devil, “light” and “darkness” in Stavrogin’s character. The author of “Demons” is trying to prove that one person can combine two poles: high Christian morality (these are Stavrogin’s beliefs according to Shatov, his actions are different) and wild unbridledness, cruelty, meanness and baseness. It’s possible that our author was confused by the demon. “Not a single work can do without the devil,” says the French writer Andre Gide, “he will definitely intervene and mess everything up.”
In a typewritten confession that Stavrogin gave to the monk, he mentioned the daughter of the landlady from whom he rented an apartment, a ten-year-old girl (on the other page - 14-year-old), who hanged herself after being abused by her tenant. It seems doubtful to me that a ten-year-old child could do this. Only if we assume that committing suicide with a noose was an ordinary phenomenon, and the girl had seen enough of it to have a clear experience.
On the one hand, the dark side of the internal image, the general’s son is “allowed to do everything”: to drag the nose, to bite the ear, to publicly disgrace a lady, to destroy an innocent child, to steal money from a poor official, and to kill in a duel with cold-blooded cruelty. An explanation for infernal actions can be the motto of the privileged, voiced by the “magnificent lady” from the idle. The “herd of pigs” reached the very bottom of the fall in satiated idleness.
And again, an analogy comes to my mind to a film novel connected, as it seems to me, with internal content to “Demons” - Paolo Sorrentino’s social satire “The Great Beauty”. The tone of the film is perceived as a longing for beauty that will save the world. The colorful film is replete with nude art and performances that entertain bored high society. Avant-garde art, adapted to his tastes, is equally pretentious and empty. With the exception of one significant performance. These are just two stands: on one, the eyes of children with angelic faces look at us from photographs, and on the other, the same faces, but now adult degenerates.
Presenting a portrait of Stavrogin, the writer was surprised that his beauty was unpleasant: “His hair was somehow very black, his light eyes were somehow very calm and clear, his complexion was something very soft and white, his blush was something... he’s too bright and clean, his teeth are like pearls, his lips are like coral—it would seem that he is a handsome man, but at the same time he seems disgusting.” Dostoevsky's contemporaries found a portrait resemblance between Stavrogin and Lermontov. However, the writer corrected that in terms of bitterness, Stavrogin was inferior to Lermontov.
To polarize the dark, seamy side of the hero’s character, let’s turn his fictional image with the other, light side. At the whim of the author, the handsome rake is able to stand up for a cripple, humbly endure humiliation, forgive a slap in the face, fearlessly offer his forehead in a duel, and in turn generously shoot into the air. Apparently, according to Dostoevsky’s plan, the image of Stavrogin is the personification of the Christian idea that the human soul is the arena of the battle between God and the devil, i.e. the struggle between good and evil.
Nietzsche, who recognizes himself as a follower of Dostoevsky, justifies the existence of evil as an educational principle in the development of humanity, which through suffering must rise to such a degree of self-illumination and self-redemption that over time it will turn from moral to wise.
With a large degree of convention, one can accept this striking contrast of “black” with “white” in the spiritual image of the hero, taking into account the artist’s right to fiction, to shift accents for the sake of greater expressiveness and persuasiveness. Unlikely, but effective. Other authors of philosophical (intellectual) works even resort to the grotesque and metaphor to expose the idea.
2nd chapter. Stavrogin and others
As in the novel about the family “The Brothers Karamazov,” in “The Possessed” Dostoevsky touches on the problem of “fathers and sons.” Spoiled noble children, experiencing neither need nor denial of anything, are at the same time deprived of the main thing - parental attention. Wealthy parents place the upbringing of their children on the shoulders of others: nannies, tutors, teachers. And this is the reason for the spiritual alienation of “fathers and sons”, their dramatic discord.
It is difficult for parents to understand their adult children, who have become a sealed secret for them. For example, the rich and despotic general Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina, who keeps the entire city in fear, secretly goes to the insignificant gossip Liputin to find out from him about his son: what kind of person is he, is he mentally normal?
“My daughter is not my friend,” Praskovya Ivanovna says offendedly about Lisa. The cynical Pyotr Verkhovensky does not recognize his father, the professor, at all: “You are a Pole, a Pole, I don’t care” (there were rumors that he was the bastard son of the professor’s wife). It is clear that Petrusha cannot forgive her offense against her father: “You sent me little by mail after the death of my mother.”
There are surprisingly many characters in the novel, there is even an “image of the author” - Mr. G-v (the surname is similar to Goncharov). The lines of their fate often do not intersect at all, but they can still be grouped around the central figure - Stavrogin.
Here is Stavrogin’s secret wife - “blessed” Marya Timofeevna Lebyadkina, lame, and also crazy. It is noticeable that the author is impressed by this image for its originality, disregard for everyday life and conventions, and being in an imaginary, unreal reality. In the vaunted film by Andrzej Wajda, her image is completely cartoonish. However, according to the novel, she has enough romanticism and dreaminess, she is, as they say, “not of this world.”
Nikolai Stavrogin, it seems, is not afraid of the opinions of the world; on the contrary, he shocks ordinary society. And he married for the same reasons, to amaze everyone - a brilliant aristocrat and a poor, crippled cripple. But he still got married secretly, and nothing obligated him to do so, and hid it from everyone for a long time, even from his mother (his father was no longer alive), and it seems that he was ashamed of this marriage.
“Madam, this is a secret that can only be buried in a coffin,” hinting at this marriage, the madcap captain Lebyadkin, Marya Timofeevna’s brother and Stavrogin’s friend from noisy St. Petersburg revels, theatrically tells Varvara Stepanovna.
“Imagine that there, too, all this is stuffed with secrets”; “And I will find out... all your secrets” - this is how the writer intrigues at the beginning of the novel: he creates fog, envelops the narrative in a veil of mystery - in general, he sins with romanticism.
Now, if only we could change the plot a little and present the strange act in this way. The rich handsome man, whom many had designs on and even hunted for, basically married a pitiful creature “without pretensions” in order to maintain internal freedom and protect himself from encroachments. After all, the love for him of the arrogant Lisa or the eccentric Madame Shatova is selfish, predatory, caused by a vain desire to take possession of an extremely handsome, noble, rich, enviable groom.
“Nikolai Stavrogin is a scoundrel!” - Shatov’s wife, deceived by him, is indignant. But on the other hand, this is still a question: which of them is the “victim” and which is the “predator”? “Struck by his appearance,” the ladies fly like moths to a flame and become victims of self-delusion, wishful thinking. Proud, obstinate Lisa decided on a desperate act. At night, Liza secretly came to his country house in Skvoreshniki. Having made sure that the chosen one did not love her, she also began to reproach him for this, as if it was news to her that our feelings were not subject to us.
And the abnormal Marya Timofeevna got it into her sick head that Stavrogin loved her. Although she has visible confirmation of this - the ideal of all women married her.
But Stavrogin, it seems, was mistaken about her (as, indeed, she was wrong about him) - the wretched woman turned out to be by no means meek. Like socialites, she showed waywardness and excessive demands towards him. Disappointed in her “legal spouse” because he cowardly lied, ashamed to publicly declare her his wife, Marya Timofeevna reprimands him with contempt: “I thought you were a falcon, but you are an owl.” In meaning and form, the scene is reminiscent of the episode of Grushenka’s explanation with her “ex” (a Pole officer) in Mokroye from “The Karamazovs”.
In both cases, Dostoevsky confirms the widespread opinion that love is only our illusions, self-deception, groundless fantasies. Marya Timofeevna's sick imagination most clearly illustrates this truth. “Why do you call me prince... and who do you take me for?” - Stavrogin is surprised, having never attached importance to his beauty.
However, arrogantly believing that he is “the light in the window” for the cripple, he invites her, moving away from the bustle of the city, to live alone in the mountains of Switzerland, because... The “revolutionary” is forced to go into hiding. He is a revolutionary only at the request of the author; his rebel activity is not shown in the novel.
Her answer is unexpected not only for Stavrogin, but also for the reader: “I won’t go for anything... sit on the mountain with him.” As people say: “Another person’s soul is in the dark,” which is why human relationships are unclear, broken, and painful.
But the writer also shows another love - sacrificial love to the point of self-denial, to the point of self-humiliation: “let him just click, and I’ll run after him like a dog” (Dasha after Stavrogin) - a common phrase, by the way, for Dostoevsky’s works.
Tall as a grenadier, officer Mavriky Nikolaevich, simple-minded and sometimes ridiculous, is completely unsuited to the arrogant aristocrat Liza's mental make-up, but loves her with slavish devotion. Like a faithful dog, he gets wet all night in the rain at the lattice of the garden of Stavrogin's country house, to which his beloved has come running for a secret meeting.
Long before this fateful meeting, Mavriky Nikolaevich even came to Stavrogin (solely at the behest of a noble soul) to sacrifice Lisa for him, to whom he was already engaged, for the sake of her happiness. Dostoevsky has the same sweet and unnatural scene in his novel “The Humiliated and Insulted.”
The awkward and homeless Shatov happily accepts his “traitor” and even intends to adopt Stavrogin’s child. It is difficult for an ordinary person to understand such love, but, apparently, such love also exists. And they despise the loser for his dog-like devotion, for such dishonor - “a rag of the last hand” - and most of all, oddly enough, their loved ones themselves.
And now the novel is approaching its tragic denouement. The sudden death of Lisa: “Her sled suddenly rushed down the mountain”, she decided to “waste” (exchange) her life for a watch. Perhaps she remembered the blasphemous phrase said by one of the idle young men who shot himself: “Let him live happily for at least one hour.” The scanty wisdom only shows the author’s sarcasm in assessing the insignificant goals of the empty-headed elite - wealthy slackers consider swimming in luxury and debauchery to be happiness.
Knowing that her act was reckless, that she was not destined to live with Stavrogin (she became aware of his shameful secret - marrying a madwoman), but unable to contain her fatal passion for him, Liza runs at night, straight from the ball, to his country house in Skvoreshniki. This desperate act of the proud young lady Liza is associated with the act of “sacrificing herself” for Katerina’s father in “The Brothers Karamazov” - “she came to offer herself.”
Rejected by Stavrogin (“get away from me Liza”), as if in a fever, confused about the road, in the rain in a ball gown, she runs from him to the fire, to look at the dead (not at all by chance) Stavrogin’s wife and her brother, Captain Lebyadkin. Lisa falls under the “hot hand” and dies in an angry crowd of fire victims. The entire street burned down, and everyone could see that it was a deliberate arson.
The writer has many surprisingly correct findings. Describing extraordinary events, he finds the smallest details that give the picture brightness and authenticity. The colorfully and truthfully depicted terrible scene of the fire once again convinces us of the sad reality that in decisive and desperate moments, fear takes away the ability to reason soberly and deprives it of endurance and courage. For example, an almost comical episode with a feather bed on a fire speaks of the panic that has gripped everyone, of the feverishly reckless behavior of those in distress. The old woman suddenly returns to the burning house to save her feather bed. Seeing the old woman dying in front of everyone, Governor Lembke rushes in fear to save the old woman. She pushes him her feather bed through the broken glass. Lembke, for no apparent reason, energetically pulls the corner of the feather bed towards himself, at this time a board falls from the roof onto him... The picture is painted very dynamically.
As in an exciting detective story, with elements of mysticism, a terrible scene of suicide is described on the principle (to “return the ticket” to the Creator) of the maniac Kirillov, which is deliberately reduced by the writer from romantic pathos to a comic plane. As a result, the picture seems very plausible, because in life the tragic often paradoxically coexists with the comic.
And the author does not heroize revolutionaries and does not provide the image of a revolutionary with pathos. This is also the absurd, ambitious, absurd nature of the adventurer (Petr Verkhovensky, Nikolai Stavrogin), which, however, bears the sad stamp of cold indifference towards himself on the part of his parents. Thus, Dostoevsky leads the reader to the conclusion that personality is formed by upbringing. But not only, the person is mainly shaped by the environment (“environmental hostility”, “environment is stuck”).
In this context, the writer’s reflections on the power of capital are interesting: “What is Liberte? - Freedom. What kind of freedom? Equal freedom for everyone to do whatever they want within the limits of the law. When can you do anything?.. When you have a million. Does freedom give everyone a million? No. What is a man without a million? A man without a million is not the one who does anything, but the one with whom they do anything” (“Winter Notes on Summer Impressions”).
the main idea
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky tried to describe the disease of nihilistic revolutionaries, which has settled or is gradually establishing its order in the heads of people, dispersing chaos around it. His idea (in a simplified way) boils down to the fact that nihilistic moods negatively affect Russian society - like demonic possession on a person.
Fyodor Mikhailovich established the cause and significance of the revolutionary movement. It promises happiness in the future, but the price in the present is too great to accept, otherwise people will lose the moral values that make their life together possible. Without them, the people will disintegrate and self-destruct. And only by overcoming this fickle phenomenon (like the demonic possession of the soul), Russia will become stronger, stand on its feet and live with new strength - the strength of a unified society, where man and his rights must come first.
What does it teach?
The spiritual health of a nation depends on the moral well-being and increase in warmth and love in all people individually. If the entire society has common moral canons and guidelines, it will go through all the thorns and achieve prosperity. But unbridled ideas and denial of the fundamentals will lead to the gradual degradation of the people.
The creative experience of “Demons” shows: in everything it is necessary to find a moral center, to determine the level of values that guides a person’s thoughts and actions, to decide which negative or positive aspects of the soul rely on various life phenomena.
Criticism
Naturally, Russian criticism, in particular liberal-democratic criticism, reacted negatively to the release of “Demons,” seeing sharp satire in the plot. The deep philosophical content was considered as an ideological warning of Nechaevism. Reviewers wrote that the disappearance of the revolutionary initiative would plunge society into stupor and sleep, and the authorities would cease to hear the voice of the people. Then the tragic fate of the Russian people will never change for the better.
In his work “Spirits of the Russian Revolution,” Berdyaev expresses the opinion that nihilism in the understanding of Dostoevsky can be interpreted as a certain religious view. According to Berdyaev, a Russian nihilist can imagine himself instead of God. And although Dostoevsky himself nihilism is more associated with atheism, in Ivan Karamazov’s famous monologue about a child’s tear one can feel the urgent need for a person to have faith.
Author: Daria Popova
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Romance in the USSR[ | ]
Gorky’s article “On the publication of “Demons””
In Soviet times, the “anti-nihilistic novel” was officially considered an ideologically hostile phenomenon, slanderous towards the revolutionary movement, but at first it was possible to reprint and study it. In 1935, the Academia publishing house, on the initiative of L. B. Kamenev, prepared a two-volume edition of the novel “Demons” with illustrations by S. M. Shor, a foreword by P. P. Paradizov and a commentary by L. P. Grossman, but it was published (and was banned by distribution) only the first volume, and almost all copies were destroyed, P. P. Paradise was repressed. At the same time, D. I. Zaslavsky’s article “Literary Rot” was published, in which the “reactionary” work was called “the dirtiest libel directed against the revolution.” M. Gorky tried to defend the publication: “I am doing this because I am against the transformation of legal literature into illegal literature, which is sold “under the counter”, seduces young people with its “forbiddenness”... The Soviet government is not afraid of anything, and least of all can it be afraid of its publication old novel. But... Comrade Zaslavsky brought real pleasure with his article to the enemies and especially to the white emigration.” Zaslavsky objected to him: “...If we are to be consistent, then to get acquainted with the ideology of the class enemy, according to Gorky, we need to print not only the old junk of the 60-70s, but also modern ones...”[14]. After this, until perestroika, “Demons” were not published separately, but only as part of the collected works of Dostoevsky (1957, 1974, 1982). According to the memoirs of M. L. Gasparov, the director of the Institute of World Literature B. L. Suchkov “translated Feuchtwanger, Mann and Kafka into the official language, and it turned out: yes, there is nothing dangerous in their thoughts, they can be safely printed in Russian. And Dostoevsky’s novel “Demons” should not be hushed up, but studied, because it is a warning about the Chinese cultural revolution. Then, in 1971, only such logic was allowed”[15]. The first mass editions of “Demons” after a long break were published in 1989.
