Cardiac amateurism

“In addition to my life, which is all stated in letters to you, in the next letter I will write about the action of some authors on my soul - thus, over time, I can write my life in letters to you, and it should not be forgotten, so, separately from the crowd”

A.I. Herzen - N.A. Zakharyina , 26.VIII.1836.

Zhelvakova I.A. Herzen. - M.: Young Guard, 2010. - 547 p.: Il. - (Series: “Life of wonderful people”, issue 1256).

Herzen himself provided grounds for close attention to his private, even “intimate” (in the order of modern usage) of life - having tried a lot of genres that existed in the “literature” of his time, which was replaced by “literature”, he eventually dwelled on which he had a gravity from the very beginning, which can be designated with a significant degree of convention as “memoirs”. However, the very difficulty of the genre classification of a series of its texts, which can be considered as stages, vias on the way to “past and thoughts”, is indicative - since it is not about leaving “memorable notes” (“memoirs” in the literal sense of the word) and not about creating “autobiography”, ahead of the biographer, propose its own, authentic interpretation life. Lydia Ginzburg, moving to the most accurate characteristic of this text, wrote: “Memoirs, chronicle - Herzen perceived all this as inadequate to his creative act. He exactly needed the confidence that he makes an opening, creates a creation that does not fit into any finished section. <...> “Past and Duma” - the direct, without any plump strata, the artistic statement of a person about life ” [1] . From Vyatka link, he writes to the bride:

“I strongly want to see a separate part of my life of my soul in every essay; Let their totality be a hieroglyphic biography of my, which the crowd will not understand - but people will understand. Let the impressions that I have been expressed are expressed by separate stories, where all fiction, but the basis is truth ”(Zakharyina, 27.IV.1836. XXI, 76 [2] ).

“I once wrote to you that I intend to compose a brochure under the title of“ Meeting ”; Now the plan of this composition has expanded. I will describe all the bright, flowering of my youth with separate articles, stories, fictional in form, but true in feeling. These articles together I will call “Youth and Dreams”. Now, when this is still alive, I have to write, and therefore I must already write that my youth has passed, the 1st part of my life has ended. And how cutting these departments. From 1812 to 1825 childishness, unconscious state, human germ; But here, along with my life, the fire of Moscow is also mating, where I was lying around for 6 <-t> months on the streets, and the camp of Ilovaysky, where I sucked milk under the shots. Before 1825, the second era begins; Her most important incident is a meeting with Ogarev. God, as we were then clean, poets, dreamers; This era of youth with its motto will have friendship. July a month 1834 graduated from the school years of his life and began the years of wandering. Here the beginning is gloomy, as if in return for the unaccountable pleasures of youth; But soon the darkness turns into heavenly light. On April 9, everything expressed the revelation, and this is the era of love, the era in which we will compose one me , this is your era, the era of my Natasha ”(Zakharyina, 29.VI.1836. XXI, 85 - 86).

Autobiographical experiments will multiply - both in the immediate form of notes and sketches, and in attempts to give them a different form, transfer to the genre of the story. Moreover, these attempts will lead to a curious result: for example, in “who is to blame”, due to the objectification of the look, the analysis of their position and their mental motives is much more thin and at the same time cruel than in the directly autobiographical experiments. Describing Beltov, the hero of the autobiographical (endowed, in addition to real features, as well as the features of the biography of the desired, who was not accidentally involved in Europe, the lack of European experience, the Herzen oppressed, moreover, who sought to give knowledge of European realities, responding, for example, about the artistic impression of the sisten chapel, which is in reality leading him in reality To see only a few years later, or comparing Petersburg with other European capitals, about which in reality he only had to read and hear stories), Herzen states:

“He lacked the practical meaning that learns a person to disassemble the coherent handwriting of living events; He was too fragmented with the world surrounding him. The reason for this disunity in Beltov is understandable: Joseph made him a man in general, like Russo from Emil; The university continued this development; A friendly circle of five or six young men full of dreams full of hopes, as large as they still unknown the life behind the walls of the audience, more and more supported Beltov in a circle of ideas that were not characteristic of alien environment in which he had to live ”(IV, 120).

“Beltov <...> found himself in a country, completely unknown to him, before that alien that he could not work on nothing; He did not sympathize with any real side of a boiling life near him; He did not have the ability to be a good landowner, an excellent officer, a zealous official - and then in reality there were only places of celebrating, players and a bonding brethren in general; To the honor of our hero should admit that he had more sympathy to the last estate than to the first, and here he could not swing over: he was too developed, and the debauchery of these gentlemen is too dirty, too rude ”(IV, 120 - 121).

An emergency response, isolation in a friendly circle that will remain for Herzen the ideal of human communication - at the same time, we note, a youthful circle, not connected by the “circumstances” of life, which is just beginning and therefore can be believed in it, you can safely put it on the future, when there is no oppression of reality, and if nothing has been achieved indicates the reality of the claims, then such A test of achievements cannot take claims, the “circle of ideas” can exist on its own - because it is checked by conversations and this test easily withstands. Herzen is a man with a protracted youth; This, in the future, is written and organized by him, he appears “multi -family”, but until thirty he has been done by practically nothing - from what can be presented outside, creative maturity will come for him after thirty -five. If we compare with the previous generation, then this is a very slow maturation, the desire to deliberately extend his youth (the second Moscow period, 1842 - 1847, he himself will call the second youth, which will end with the collapse of the circle in 1846). For him, there are two forms of adequate existence - sociality as a circle or love, in both cases it is a departure from the “common world”, a closure in the environment, which is fenced off from the outside world, which has its own meanings, its assessment criteria.

And this romantic position allows him to form a “inappropriate order” - if for the previous generation the upbringing was public, then in changing conditions, on the contrary, only avoiding the social education that gives a new era, it is possible not to dissolve in a flat, without his voice, the world of the Nikolaev era - but at a price that Herzen will never speak directly for the story (and pushing away from the said) - At the cost that these meanings and values, ideas about the world will be valid only in the circle, until its integrity can be saved from a collision with reality - since reality did not leave a place for compromise, it broke without entering into negotiations:

“When Kartuchi defeated the square of the Decembrists in Senate Square, perhaps the worst thing happened. Not arrests and no links were terrible. Moral destruction of man took place in St. Petersburg palaces, where yesterday's friends of the Decembrists were in a hurry to testify the loyalty of the power of the new emperor, while their recent friends and close relatives carried their cross in Siberia snow. <...> The exiled people lived in Siberia in terrible conditions, but they did not have to be afraid: the worst has already happened. And those, in St. Petersburg, who still led freedom -loving conversations with today's exiles yesterday and now knew that only an accident protects them, that everything who sits in his St. Petersburg office could change in a minute can be in shackles, in hard labor, they were frightened. Ten years of fright - and society will degrade: men will begin to be afraid, a completely different person will appear - a “clamped” person of the Nikolaev era ” [3] .

Squeezed - or built his reality, carefully protected from the world around him, the one where he can afford to straighten himself - to become exceptional in the new sense, not the exceptionality that was inherent in the Decembrist era, which grew up in the Napoleonic myth, but the exception of the romantic hero, running from the world - who is converting to the world, experiencing himself internally. (i.e. seized from it). Hence the non -proliferation of general rules on him - he himself establishes them to himself, the world is unreasonable, but there is no more in the universal admonition of the world of faith (moreover, there is doubt about the universality of the mind, in its self -identity - whether he is always the same), now the boundaries of “rationality” are his own life, which from the outside (in the mirror reflection) looks “insane” (important for fork Herzen, as for many romantics, the theme of madness, crazy house, when - if you change its inhabitants in places with those who go free, then there will be no difference, things will go as a turn).

But, having returned to a quote from Lydia Ginzburg, we emphasize that we are talking about the “artistic statement of a person about life” - it is about “life” as such, in this only affordable way - through himself. This is a statement about “our life”, but by no means limited by “our own”, on the contrary, we have no other except “our” life, according to Herzen, we have no way to rely on “big meanings”, “doctrines”, having placed them outside ourselves - or, more precisely, we will arrange them “outside ourselves”.

Herzen is by no means limited by the private framework “its own life” - it has a common interest, since it is exceptional life. Herzen is originally endowed with faith in his calling - and the people with whom he gets closer, these are people in whom he finds faith in this exclusivity, the seizure of the general order of things. At twenty -one years, he will write to Ogarev with youthful naivety:

“You occupy a huge place in my psychology. You and Tatyana Peter <Aries Passek> were the first two creatures who gave themselves the work of understanding me as a child, the first to see then that I would not merge with the crowd. And I will be something original ”(15.VII.1833. XXI, 17).

In the future, the naivety of self -expression will leave - but faith will remain the same. In this life, an individual, specific is not an accident, but a “event of meaning”, what should be preserved and comprehended, returning over and over again, and not leave “out of brackets” or processed into a universal one. On the contrary, the latter can be seen only in the individual - it is not what is preceded, revealed in individual, but what is to be held, and its value is determined again from the point of view of the individual, forming a specific “private versatility” (e.g., history creates “general meanings”, but they exist only for those who are involved in them).

Herzen's modern biographer is in a difficult situation - not only was his character left one of the best memoir books in Russian literature, as well as subsequent literature about him at the moment is already vain. The biography written by Zhelvakova has one advantage - purposefully avoiding a detailed discussion of Herzen's intellectual constructions, it emphasizes the “private person”, creating an intimate portrait of her hero (and this is its value for the Russian -speaking public, for which a number of stories of Herzen’s life is not well -known). A similar interest in the intimate side of life would have seemed unjustified if Herzen himself had not made him legitimate - and we can only follow him.

The central place in the biography is, of course, the history of Herzen's first marriage - and the subsequent family drama. Without retelling all this complex and confusing story, we will only dwell on what is of greatest interest to us. This drama was prepared, as Herzen himself subsequently realized, regretting that he could not (did not dare) to influence his wife, change her views. However, these regrets are not very accurate, since he influenced Natalia very thoroughly, modifying a children's, enthusiastic attitude, adults adults and romanticism, with the corresponding “personal Christianity”, non -state -owned, which Herzen himself gave tribute. It was he who persistently pushed her to new views, Georgeslandism - the perception of love as a feeling that has its own independent logic, the value of which is sincerity, the depth of experience - and if the feeling has gone, it would be immoral to continue it in turn. Natalia, who made the “love” of the center of her life, thinking of her marriage with Herzen as the absolute unity of two, following the first happy (“Vladimir”) period, inevitably had to survive a difficult disappointment - since this absolute unity could not continue forever. Herzen was where to invest - in circle interests, in journalistic concerns, etc. etc., but for Natalia, marriage remained the only one-both the burden and tension of the situation, her doubts about his feeling, which should be confirmed over and over again, constantly emotionally pulled out, begin very soon. In the sequel of the continuation (autumn 1851) the story “Debt primarily” (1847), written in the midst of family drama, Herzen characterized the relationship of his hero:

“Anatole, meanwhile, began to feel fatigue from his love, he was crowded with Olenka, her eternal baby babble tired him. The feeling that found its limit is insufficiently, the endless distance also needs love and friendship as an elegant form.

Olenka belonged to those cute, but shallow and unsuccessful natures, which, once flashed with a strong feeling, are ready, settled and do not go further ”(VI, 298 - 299).

Here, we can assume with a certain degree of confidence that an assessment of his relationship with his wife, Natalya, is also contained, which he himself was unlikely to be fully admitted to himself. Treason with the maid - and the subsequent confession of his wife (needed by Herzen to maintain self -esteem, but that was the only tighter knot of problems, since now he had to repent in the perfect time, and Natalya received actual confirmation of her fears) is the elements of the drama, which is indistinguishable from the melodrama for the outside observer, given the tendency of the characters to loud words and romantic gestures. And if Herzen seeks to get rid of them - however, it is difficult to agree with I. Zhelvakova that he managed to completely recall at least the romantic tension of the gesture of dedication to his son “from that shore”, or a lot of lyrical passages from the “past and thoughts” - then Natalya retained the way of vision of reality that was formed by 1837 - 1838. Love was for her everyone. And she relied on her Alexander. The dreams did not materialize, but they remained unchanged - she lived with “perfect love” and when she met George Gerwega, she tried to build a new novel in many ways by the model of the already experienced once, up to textual coincidences in the letters of Alexander 1836 - 1838. and letters to Gervega of 1850 and again we emphasize that both she and Herzen lived by the ideal of “love”, free from the family - this is the logic of individual feelings, not social choice, the idea of ​​life in accordance with its “heart”, that Georges Sand will be expressed in the literature, whose novels of Natalia become almost “holy scripture”, and she reconcuses to herself and her loved ones, until he is close to the discharge. The desire to build life according to the book.

Relations with Gerweg acquire such a complex character insofar, since for Natalia it is not about treason and not about new love, but about the ideal feeling - that should justify her whole life (and at the same time preserving “love” for Alexander). That is why none of the existing decisions is satisfied with her - Gerweg, insisting that she leaves her husband, meets again and again a repeated refusal. Natalie dreams of building the “Union of Hearts” - four, she and Alexander, Georg and Emma Gerweg. Herzen also acts within this framework, entirely accepting, albeit without joy, the wife’s plans to get a four of Nice. Note that here Natalya also revives her thoughts and plans for almost fifteen years ago. Вспомним своеобразные идеи о «браке втроем» с Медеведевой – впрочем, как обычно у Натальи Александровны, поданные «чисто идеально» (такая же «идеальность» сохранится и в ее письмах к Гервегу, в которых оно будет сочетаться с предельной откровенностью в том числе и в телесном плане, но дабы быть выраженным, он предполагает обязательно перевод, включение в иную, «романтическую» систему символов). После откровенного признания, сделанного Герценом о своих отношениях в Вятке с Медведевой, Наталья пишет:

«Ежели бы Мед<ведева> забыла тебя, была бы счастлива, тогда бы мы не должны были мучиться и томиться пятном… Но она несчастна. Любит тебя и, может быть, надеется, что ты женишься на ней. <…> Я была бы все та же, та же любовь, то же блаженство внутри, а наружно – кузина, любящая тебя без памяти. Я бы жила с вами, я бы любила ее, была бы сестрою ее, другом, всю бы жизнь положила за ее семейство, внутри была бы твоя Наташа, наружи – все, что она желала » (цит. по: стр. 333).

Главное будет Натальей проговорено не раз в ее письмах к Гервегу – приведем всего лишь один фрагмент (из письма, относящегося к лету 1850 г.):

«Что бы ни таило для меня будущее – я люблю свою любовь; ни один миг из своего мучительного существования я не обменяла бы на все земные радости» (стр. 345).

Биограф пишет: «Натали словно пребывает в призрачной, раздвоенной реальности, то упрекая Гервега в недостатке любви, то сообщая ему о растущей привязанности к ней мужа. 4 августа 1850 года, незадолго до приезда Гервега <в Ниццу>, она вдруг пишет ему: “Я уже говорила, мне кажется, что сам А. знает, что после него у меня ты, ты, ты…” Натали тонет в эротических воспоминаниях. Ревниво продолжает свои “излияния” (ее слово): “Неужели эта любовь оставляет в тебе свободное место для какого-то другого желания?.. Неужели сохранилось в тебе незанятое место? <…> Вот я вся, вся твоя… нужно ли тебе еще что-нибудь?.. Возможно, ангел мой, что я тебя не удовлетворяю… Но во мне уже более нет ничего, чего бы я тебе уже не отдала…” Последняя разлука Натали с Гервегом, заметим, длится уже более семи месяцев, и за это время много воды утекло…» (стр. 346). Для Натали важно ее чувство, эпистолярный роман если и не самодостаточен, то во всяком случае является выразителем главного: наслаждения чувством, переживанием, которое становится всепоглощающим – через девять дней после рождения дочери (Ольги, 1850 – 1953) Наталья пишет Гервегу:

«Пусть когда-нибудь люди падут ниц, ослепленные нашей любовью, как воскресением Иисуса Христа» (цит. по: стр. 349).

Хотя в данном контексте биограф пишет о « патологической страсти к Гервегу» (стр. 349), для пущей ясности выделяя «патологию» курсивом, однако с данной оценкой – или с ее избирательностью – трудно согласиться, поскольку подобные же или весьма родственные заявления можно прочесть и в письмах Натальи, и в письмах Александра в огромной переписке периода вятской ссылки. Если в чем и заключается патология, то скорее в самой романтической топике, принимаемой Натальей вполне всерьез, как жизненная правда – и прочитанное/сказанное оказывается тем, в соответствии с чем она пытается жить – и живет. У Герцена изначально куда больший зазор между формой выражения, которая вполне соответствует романтическому умонастроению 30-х, и его житейскими поступками (выходом здесь, существующим в самом романтизме, оказываются ирония, сатира и сарказм – в чем преуспел Герцен, становящийся невыносимым тогда, когда пытается писать свободно от этих трех опор «реализма», для Натали, иногда прибегающей к иронии, она остается литературным средством, а не коррективом для жизненной практики). Эмма Гервег писала в феврале 1851 г. Наталье, ретроспективно оценивая свое положение:

«Что было делать! С одной стороны Георг, который был для меня всем и который повторял мне, что покончит с собой, если я его покину; с другой – А., которого я нежно, от всей души любила, который был так добр ко мне, - а посередине ты, которая под предлогом желания примирить всех, жертвовала всеми и готовила своим сердечным дилетантизмом катастрофу, кровавый конец которой я предвидела и предсказывала» (стр. 355).

В июне 1851 г. Герцен пишет жене из Парижа:

«Я думаю, ты права, мы должны были сплавиться, сделаться необходимостью друг для друга… страшный опыт показал иное, но, может, он победится. <…> Я ведь был ужасно молод, чист даже по-детски во многом до этой страшной осени, тут я переродился и стал вовсе не так прост и прям, как прежде, я чувствую, что я стал зол, скрытен, постоянно присущее чувство великого оскорбленья, как дрожжи, бродит и мучит. – Ты скажешь, что я опять все говорю о себе, да о себе. Да о чем же, друг мой, говорить мне с тобою, как не об нас» (стр. 357).

В случившемся сам Герцен будет винить Гервега (и последующее его поведение даст Герцену основание для самых унизительных оценок), однако в основе лежит общая для всех трех основных участников происшедшего позиция индивидуалистической чувствительности, где жизнь строится на основании своего переживания (и до тех пор, пока оно длится). Сами отношения Герцена с Гервегом, их дружба, для которой единственным образом для сравнения оказывается союз с Огаревым, в высшей степени характерны для Герцена – другой здесь оказывается «двойником», интимнейшим другом, который целиком входит в твою жизнь. В случае с Гервегом тот оказывается «соблазнителем» Натали, при следующем повороте биографии уже сам Герцен «уводит» у Огарева вторую жену последнего, Наталью Тучкову, устраивая «брак втроем», нечто подобное тому, что замышляла Натали. Перипетии той истории еще сложнее, растянувшись до самой смерти Герцена – но скучнее и прозаичнее, Герцен пытается как-то наладить свою жизнь, но не знает, с какого конца взяться, переживает свое отчуждение от детей, в частности от дочери Таты, чьим воспитанием занимается Мельвида Мейзенбуг, винит во всем последнюю – хотя сам же и выбрал ее в воспитатели и ничего не делал (да и не делает) чтобы изменить положение вещей, отчаянно переживает за судьбу своей дочери от Тучковой, считая, что та губит ребенка, но вновь не может придумать никакого исхода.

И здесь мы можем заметить, что сказанное относится не только к «личной жизни», ведь политика так и останется для него областью «нравственных чувств». Характерно как в споре с Чичериным в ответ на все аргументы последнего Герцен будет настаивать на искренности своего высказывания – «искренность», «непосредственность», «правда чувства» это то, что оправдывает действия, не взирая на его последствия. Впрочем, и данную позицию сам Герцен не доведет до конца, в 1864 г. и дальше все чаще размышляя о том, где и как он ошибся, что привело его политическую роль к крушению, что поставило его вне всех лагерей – и притом теперь это «вне» оказалось и «вне сферы внимания». Все меньше интересуются тем, что пишет, о чем размышляет Герцен и молодые радикалы и начинающие революционеры (поспеть за которыми вместе с «вечно юным» Бакуниным пытается и стареющий Огарев).

Последние годы проходят с осознанием разбитой жизни. 10 марта 1867 г. Герцен пишет Огареву: «Если хочешь переехать ко мне…» и дальше: «Но куда ко мне? “У меня” нет у меня» (стр. 513).Но если кризис начала 50-х можно было осознавать как удар судьбы, то теперь от осознания, что это итог его собственных действий, его выбора – от этого уйти невозможно. В отрывочных записях дневника 2 декабря 1869 г., когда ему оставалось жить шесть недель, Герцен фиксирует, что «они» «сложились разрушителями», «ничего не создали, не воспитали. Последствие непростительно – нигилизм в окружающих людях в отношении к семье, к детям» (стр. 528). Сам он далек от подобного нигилизма, но попытка выстроить свою жизнь по правилам, которые ты приписываешь себе самостоятельно, оборачивается тем, что связь с другим – это лишь связь чувства: ему возвращается его же взгляд, ставший катастрофическим от того, что у других нет тех чувств, которых он ждет, а ничего помимо чувств – нет.

Notes:

[1] Гинзбург Л.Я. Автобиографическое в творчестве Герцена // Литературное наследство. Т. 99. Кн. 1. – М.: Наука, 1997. С. 37.

[2] Цитаты приводятся в тексте с указанием римскими цифрами номера тома, арабскими – страниц издания: Герцен А.И. Collected works. В 30 т. – М.: Изд-во АН СССР, 1954 – 1966.

[3] Лотман Ю.М. Беседы о русской культуре. Быт и традиции русского дворянства (XVIII – начало XIX века). – СПб.: Искусство-СПБ., 1994. С. 56 – 57.