In society

Pushkin - autocracy - Gogol

April 1, 2009 Boris Suvarin

Ours are all

The 200th anniversary of Gogol fell on the new “Nikolaev era”-a rather helpless remake of the Nikolaev era of Pushkin Gogol.

Were they "victims of the era"?

All people of the “victims” of their era - if only because in this era they suffer and die.

But it is known that Pushkin and Gogol were active, convinced ideologists of the monarchy, no worse than Dostoevsky or Tyutchev. This is indisputable for anyone who read not only the textbooks of the Soviet school, but occasionally looked into the texts of the “defendants” themselves, there is nothing to discuss here.

There was the most ordinary conformism. Alexander Sergeyevich drew with his flying sharp pen: “What is fruitless to argue with the century? / Custom - a despot between people. " In his youth, Pushkin in the spirit of the times was almost a Decembrist (“... these conspiracies / between Lafit and Kliko”) - “liberty” was born. Then, in the spirit of time, he became a patriot from the patriots - it was born to the "slanderers of Russia." Since then, the poor public thought of Russia has been rushing between these two columns. No wonder it is said: "Our everything is." In fact, for 200 years, almost nothing was added to Pushkin’s words, although they tried very hard.

But Pushkin is because Pushkin, that he did not “hesitate with the age”, but determined the face of the century. More precisely, two followed centuries. It is easy to assume that for more than one century, Russia will "act against the backdrop of Pushkin." An ordinary conformist-no matter how much he is a genius-cannot have such an effect.

The same applies to Gogol. He not only completely shared Pushkin’s ideology, he created this ideology with him.

"We all left the Gogol's overcoat." Well, I don’t know where we were “going out” there - the button is far from the overcoat ... We are Gogol’s characters, we live in the world of Gogol. And not only in his artistic world, but also in the world of modern “Nikolaev Russia with computers”, the world of “Gogol politics and ideology”.

Sorry for the comparison, but Pushkin/Gogol formed the Russian state ideology to the extent that Marx/Engels the ideology of socialism.

Before Pushkin/Gogol, the Russian monarchy existed hundreds of years, but there was no such integral monarchical ideology, such a meaningful worldview. Like in general, Russian reflection-on a variety of occasions and subjects-and Russian political reflection, monarchically-patriotic-state reflection arose then.

The state gained a minted ideological formula “Orthodoxy-Samotravi-people” in the 1830s, just when the idol of the state and society was Pushkin and soon Gogol became. (This does not mean that the idols had a lot of money and ranks - do not confuse it with the Mikhalkov family.)

Of course, Count Uvarov would not have given them the honor of the compositions of this formula, and, of course, he and Pushkin (and even more so with Gogol unknown to him) did not consult. But the dry, in essence, the scholastic “formula of Uvarova” would have died, like many bureaucratic slogans, if it had not been based on Pushkin and Gogol, if these grains had not sprouted in their “patriotic poems”.

You can argue for a long time about eggs and chicken: Nikolaev Russia influenced Pushkin/Gogol or Pushkin/Gogol more influenced Russia. By the way, I do not consider this kind of disputes by the rotation of the empty verbal drum - no, happy tickets and here they can fall out. But it’s just that this is a special topic, you can’t push everything into one article.

Therefore, we limit ourselves to banalities:

- It was in the Nikolaev era that the ideology of the autocracy was formed, which is still alive with small changes. By the way, she, as you know, “walks through the step”: this forever living ideology was most manifested in the era of Alexander III, Stalin, Brezhnev, Putin;

- The expressions “our everything”, “the poet in Russia is more than the poet”, etc. First of all, of course, to Pushkin (and, therefore, to his “real co -author” - Gogol);

- This is true in relation to the Nikolaev era. Her spiritual mentors were Pushkin and Gogol - by the way, unchanged favorites and authorities, and society in all subsequent eras (say, Dostoevsky or Tolstoy did not use such even and unchanged love).

The folk-state (or rather state-folk) ideology was not “invented for Russia”, but “overheard in Russia”, if “extracted from Russia” (like music from a string). That's why it is so tenacious - in spite of any changes in the external environment!

By the way, Gogol himself perfectly understood this.

"Rus! What do you want from me? What incomprehensible connection lurks between us? What do you look like that, and why did everything that are in you turned my eyes full of full expectations? ”

Megalomania? Or pathos, but an adequate understanding of his role “more than the poet”? It seems to me that the last ...

The declaration of the charms of tourism

The political and social ideology of Pushkin/Gogol was born as an answer to the Western challenge.

July 4, 1776, US Independence Declaration. “We consider the following truths to be obvious: all people are created equal and all of them are gifted with their creator by some inalienable rights, which belong to: life, freedom and desire to happiness.”

August 26, 1789, Declaration of Human Rights and Citizen. “People are born and remain free and equal in rights. ... The purpose of each State Union is to ensure natural and inalienable human rights. These are freedom, property, safety and resistance to oppression. The source of sovereignty is based, in essence, in the nation. No corporation, no individual can have a power that does not clearly come from this source. The law is an expression of common will. All citizens have the right to participate in person or through their representatives in his education. ”

The death sentence of the monarchy, especially the autocratic ...

But suppressing by force is not enough. Ideas beat ideas, iron here is only a tactical weapon.

“I do not value loud rights expensive,

From which not one dizzy is spinning

I do not grumble that the gods refused

I have to challenge taxes in a sweet fate

Or to interfere with the kings to fight each other;

And it’s not enough for me, whether the seal is free

Olukhov fools, or sensitive censorship

In magazine designs, Balagur constes.

All this see words, words, words

Other, the best roads to me are right;

Other, the best need for me to be freedom:

Depend on the king, depend on the people -

Is it all to us? God is with them.

Nobody

Do not give a report, for yourself only

Serve and please; for power, for livery

Do not bend either conscience, nor thoughts, no neck;

At your whim of wander here and there,

Marveling of divine nature to beauty

And before the creatures of arts and inspiration

Trembling joyfully in enthusiasm of touching

- Here is happiness! Here's the right ... "

So, the declarations of human rights are opposed to ... charms of tourism! Yes, really - an asymmetric answer to the "slanderers of Russia." (By the way, Pushkin himself, as you know, was not released to the West.)

But here it is interesting not only the content, but also the form.

They have legal documents, declarations transmitting to the Constitution.

We have artistic texts related to the "spiritual constitution" of the people.

We do not need legal rights - we have a rather artistic metaphor with us.

Pushkin fully justifies the Russian political system - in the form of ignoring any political systems.

Moreover, this, it seems to me, is not some calculated-casual technique, at all.

Pushkin was more than interested in politics. But, living in a country where there is no “right to politics”, Pushkin for himself gave the need for virtue.

And this perfectly led to the soul of the people, to the soul of society-what are really “loud” and false (or cold-formal) “rights”? The nonsense is “to dispute taxes” or “to interfere with the kings to fight each other” ... to live their private life, completely giving the whole public life to the state. Such a constitution: we give a policy to you (to the authorities), and “you” allow us to “wander here and there” for this. “Here is happiness! Here are the rights. "

So since then we have been living according to this constitution.

And it became our folk constitution, our "principles of law." And if someone is trying to argue with her, then the “slanderers of Russia” is always ready to answer!

Justifying laughter

And what about Gogol?

Gogol was the ideologist of the regime not in his “chosen places” or other “anti -Cealing journalism”. These are all seeds ...

No, Gogol’s work is the creation of the “mental myth of the regime”.

Once Stalin said: "We need our Soviet gogols and generously." Erdman responded with a wonderful epigram: “We need more likely generously and such gogols so that we are not touched.” Brilliant, Gogol himself would not say better! But not true ...

There is a huge difference between Gogol and Shchedrin.

Shchedrin is the prosecutor of Russia.

Gogol is a Russian lawyer.

Shchedrin hated Russia and the Russian people (as, by the way, and all others - read what he wrote about France, Germany, etc.).

Gogol loved Russia and the Russian people. "You have to love your heroes." Gogol loved them to such an extent that he justified - in everything.

Actually, his books are a complete artistic excuse of Nikolaev Russia.

By the way, the difference between Gogol and Shchedrin is not only individual, as, say, between the philanthropist and the misanthrope is also the difference between the Nikolaev era and the era of great reforms.

In frozen Russia, only humor was possible.

In thawed Russia, a satire went into business. The weaker the power was, the angrier they criticized - not the power itself (it was impossible under Alexander), but at least the whole surrounding life.

Gogol himself explained everything best about his laughter.

“Much would outraged a person, formed in his nakedness; But illuminated by the power of laughter, it carries reconciliation into the soul. And the one who would bear the vengeance against the evil man is almost putting up with him, seeing his low motions of his soul. ”

Absolutely, and we are “almost put to put up” with the mayor and with Ammos Fedorovich, who takes bribes with greyhound puppies-well, what can you object seriously?!

“There is no person who would not have any sins behind him. This is already the way God himself arranged and the vollaSists are in vain against this. ” Here you have a universal justification of all the heroes of Gogol, and all of Russia ... Here is another answer to all their clean “declarations”: we do not need your “loud rights” and solemn “human rights”, stupidity is all, German dead paper, and French croissants ...

And we - no, we have not that! “You would like to see us with the given, but shaved, but in tailcoats. No, you love us with black, and everyone will love us white. ” Your "loud rights" - about how to become "white." And we do not need it, not at all! And we need that we are loved with black!

Who can resist such a truth? Here you have philosophy and legal awareness.

Of course, it is not possible to agree with Gogol in everything: “Those who say that laughter does not act on those who are directed against, and that the rogue is the first to laugh at the rogue bred on the stage: the rogue cut laughs, but the rod of a crash is not able to laugh!” I don’t know the right, laughed or bitterly cried from shame such contemporaries as, say, the famous bribery of Count P.A. Kleinmichel, but I do not think that he shook with fear, watching the "auditor." As Gogol himself put it, "Well, you, I think, you will turn!"

But we-the same “plows-strokes”-see reconciliation with life in the good Gogol laughter. Not with the one that was 200 years ago, but with its continuation - today.

“What are you laughing? You laugh at you! ” Yes, above yourself, because all the “black”, this life is our common. And who will be scattered over himself?!

Shchedrin mocked this life as an external ugliness opposing a person. And the laughter turned out to be hated, as Gogol said, laughter, generated by "temporary irritability, biliary, painful location of character."

For laughter to be over strangers, there must be those who confront this world. Gogol, right, was looking for them. But all these “streets”, and “Kostanzhogly”, and “old Murazovs”, and other heroes pleasant in all respects remained truly “dead souls”. Yes, and with the bodies they did not really succeed ...

But the “blacks” came out to the marvelous, meat - that nozdrev, that Sobakevich, that the box herself, at least a woman and is really tight -haired ...

Dead souls? “Yes, of course, the dead ... However, then to say ... what was Mikheev, so you will not find such people: the machine is such that this room will not enter: no, this is not a dream! And in his shoulders he had such a silver that a horse did not have; I would like to know where you would find such a dream in another place! ” The artistic strength in the fresh blush of Nozdrev, the rounded chin of Pavel Ivanovich, the greasy robe of Plyushkin and the jug of Ivan Antonich is such that you do not want - but you will not love it involuntarily!

Living, from frost, dear, black Russia!

So why do we need ... white? Moreover, washed by stupid English soap ...

A warm, unifying laughter at ourselves gives us much more “human rights” than all your “declarations”! And there are fewer responsibility - they laughed and went on ... with a laugh ...

I'm not talking about the frontal apologetics of the regime given in the "Examiner" in the form of a "gendarme from the car." Happy End in the English play is a wedding, and in Russian - the appearance of the gendarme. True, I’m afraid that Gogol himself had no idea who this “official who arrived in behavior” is not the same Khlestakov, only in the general uniform?

And mercy called the fallen

But Gogol gives - within the framework of the system - not only the "right to laughter."

He also gives the “right to tears”, the right to pity.

What are all your "human rights" for?

For justice.

But there is no justice in your cold, soulless "Euro -".

Justice is pity. It is not spelled out in any of your rights, we have it - in Nikolaev Russia!

Do not believe?

See the very “overcoat”.

Gogol made a prosaic version of the “copper horseman” - a story about how a car (state machine, or rock, or some other external force) “jumps with a heavy stomp” behind a man along a dead bridge, turned out no worse than Pushkin’s.

The “Charlie Chaplinsky riot” of a small man was also described immediately. If the poor Eugene says “Alcohol!”, Then Akaki Akakievich makes truly rebellious speeches, addressing the general: “But, your Excellency ... I, your Excellency, dared to bother because the secretaries of that ... unreliable people ...”.

I’m talking about “rebellion” without any irony: how many of us, about enlightened liberal readers, will not dare to scold Putin anonymously on the Internet, but in life to say “their excellent”, that its secretaries ... is unreliable people? I suppose - few. And certainly - not all.

This is much worse than the subsequent tearing of the overcoat from the general-there is a fairy tale, and then a terrible past. A small person is rebuilt to his last despair - and this is a truly terrible riot (which is what a metaphorical scene of breaking off from General Shinely is talking about). Yes, Russian riot ...

But there is an answer - Russian reconciliation.

“And since then, almost every day, the pale Akaki Akakievich seemed to him ( general ), who could not withstand the proper baking. ... And when they informed him that Akaki Akakievich died suddenly in a fever, he remained even affected, hearing reproaches of conscience and was not in the spirit of the whole day. ”

Here it is - we do not need directive “human rights”, we need a person, sympathy. Here are the right ...

“And for a long time, among the most fun minutes, he seemed to him a low official with a bald head on his forehead, with his penetrating lodges:“ Leave me, why do you offend me? ” - And in these penetrating words other words rang: "I am your brother."

Orthodoxy, Christianity - this is the solution of all conflicts. And without any rights and demands ...

* * *

“Our everything” is binding and accurate words.

“Our everything” does not mean “all our sweet.” No, and sweet, and bitter, and what we consider “good”, and that we consider “bad”.

National poets ...

They expressed the real ideology of the nation: sympathy, understanding, humility, grin - instead of the claim of rights. Literature - instead of law and politics. Resentment and riot - instead of conflict, calculation, compromise.

Of course, such an ideology and psychology where it is as beneficial to the authorities. Unless, of course, it is imbued with the same ideology ...

But if this is beneficial to the authorities, it is not a fact that this is imposed by the authorities.

No, not imposed - except for the story itself ...

Pushkin/Gogol were not “PRers” who came up with “Orthodoxy - autocracy - nationality”. But they legitimized this formula - both a patriotic iamba, and understanding laughter and tears of pity. And “our everything” seized such a Russian formula for law, politics, ideology.

Brick travels along its own classics rut.

“You see, what a wheel! What do you think, then the wheel will reach if it happened ... ”

Until 2009 the wheel arrived.

And all attempts to get out of the rut ended the same. A lot of dirt, and then all the same-it shuts down, shoves back and back into the rut, "and rushes, all inspired by God! ..".

It would not be a sin to remember about this to those who want to change the track.

Photos from the site http://www.photostranger.com/gallery/gallery_russia/veliky_novgorod/imagepages/aimage2.htm