Ilya Lepikhov. According to scripture

According to scripture - 5
Ilya Lepikhov

Date of publication: October 31, 2000

The thirties-fifties of the last century would certainly have gone down in history as the “Pan-Slavic decades” if in the future the Slavs had emerged as a community akin to the Germans, Latins, and North Europeans. But, since this did not happen, we will have to be content with little: the memory of what could have happened, but did not happen. The rise of Slavic consciousness, usually associated with the activities of the so-called “Czech historical school,” was a highly curious phenomenon. At least for Russia, much more curious than the notorious patriotic upsurge of the twelfth year.

If you try not to contradict logic, you cannot help but admit: patriotism is a derogatory phenomenon , its content is limited to the delimitation of a certain - usually linguistic - community from other social associations composed of dissimilar principles, and the search for meaningful differences between two unequal sets. From this point of view, both the Patriotic War and the subsequent campaigns of the Russian army to a very small extent satisfy the conditions of the national movement. But what can we say, when even Bonaparte’s Italian campaigns - it would seem impossible to think of anything more national in that era - were of a national-state character: not so much pro-Italian, but anti-Austrian, anti-papal, anti-Bourbon, and so on and so forth. Is it possible that the initial phase of the French Revolution of 1789 can be carried out today through a national department, and so on... What can we say about the Napoleonic Wars, a more trans-European phenomenon than a strictly national or any other phenomenon. Often in Russia such subtle specifications were not taken into account. The struggle for a national state was identified with the struggle for a republican system and vice versa. Griboyedovsky Famusov consistently accuses the son of his friend Andrei Ilyich of the fact that he “wants to preach freedom” and that “he is a Carbonari.” A typical mistake for a subject of the Russian emperor.

Grumbling about the dominance of foreigners: “And all the Kuznetsky Most and the eternal French, (...) // Destroyers of pockets and hearts ,” should not mislead anyone. In Russia at that time there was no breeding ground for a national movement proper. It was not and could not be: nationalism presupposes, if not superiority, then at least equality of two communities opposed to each other. At the beginning of the 19th century, a moderately educated Russian person could not even imagine the meaningful opposition of his Fatherland to Europe without visible damage to the former. This is what good manners commanded, this is how upbringing bequeathed.

The entire “modern” worldview of that era was based on this foundation. A great era, but fleeting, majestic and refined, but fragile, like a milk jug from Marie Antoinette’s tea set, transparent to light.

In the end, what we used to call “Russian noble culture”, “the golden age of Russian literature”, etc., was just a moment, a moment, a mother-of-pearl scum on the crucibles of Russian statehood. The children of the nobility, born somewhere between 1785 and 1805, received a truly non-Russian education - a testament to émigré France. One can only guess what it took for the same Griboyedov or Vyazemsky to become themselves, to become who and how they entered the history of Russian culture.

People of the 30s were brought up differently. The Polish events of 1931 clearly demonstrated what modern Europe is worth. Russian society was stung by the ingratitude of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Poland, to whom the constitution had long ago been granted; the writer Pushkin hurled thunder and lightning at the noted progressives, rightly believing that the disturbances in the Vistula regions were a “dispute among the Slavs among themselves” and it was not the business of the French mind to get involved there , where he was not invited - in a word, the best minds of our dear Fatherland did not harbor the slightest misconceptions about Europe. The more tempting words about Slavic brotherhood should have sounded for them. More seductive and different. Polish events inevitably made adjustments to the plans for the implementation of the pan-Slavist utopia: in the minds of a thinking Russian person, Poland could not help but be placed outside the brackets of the future spiritual union. Well, for the rest...

It is now clear that the Slavic movement was a natural and necessary phase in the development of the German national myth. Having arisen on the lands of the Habsburg Empire and the German states, it was for the most part a forced phenomenon, a fact of resistance of national minorities to the spiritual expansion of the titular nations. As soon as the pressure weakened a little, the opposition faded away, leaving behind only piles of stones torn out of the bridges, tons of damaged paper and the Czech language. This is understandable, the law of development is harsh, and it says that any spiritual phenomenon sooner or later becomes a police tool. And so it turns out: soon we have the opportunity to observe how the Prussians wave a Slavic club in front of Metternich’s nose, Metternich threatens Frederick William IV with it, and both of them glance unkindly towards the sovereign, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich.

The Slavic idea finally becomes a Slavic factor , which is criminal to underestimate, but should not be overestimated. Soon the newly formed Slavic states are crushed by the German princes - in some ways, and in this the land of Goethe and Schiller never lacked - the Slavic peoples are inclined more towards blackmail and trade than towards fulfilling their historical destiny, which was true, etc. But all this happens after, and in the thirties and fifties there were still more than enough illusions.

Ahead, according to the poet, are “Slavophiles and nihilists.” The former talk about the lost national identity, the latter welcome the coming cataclysms of a universal scale. It would seem that there are no people more distant from each other than Pogodin and Chernyshevsky, but this impression is just a prejudice. The first, one of the leaders of the “Slavic” party, sincerely does not understand that Pan-Slavism is primarily a national-state phenomenon, and one can only guess what disasters await Nikolaev Russia on the path of its hypothetical construction. The relationship between the Slavic idea and the “nationality” so dear to the heart of the editorial board of Moskvityanin and Mikhail Pogodin personally is at least difficult, if not completely impossible.

Chernyshevsky, the genius of Russian political activists, prefers to talk about the state and society - the notorious sewing artels of Vera Pavlovna - without even dreaming that the state, as well as cutting and sewing courses, are formed by nationally oriented individuals, and not remembering this - means dooming all your endeavors in advance to polite inattention from the public. So there are no people closer than Chernyshevsky and Pogodin, Dobrolyubov and A. Ostrovsky, Antonovich and Ap. Grigoriev - both are equally mistaken.

Slavic issues turned out to be the only ones in full demand in literature. It was Herder and Burger who started all the romantic ugliness - in principle, completely harmless German writers. And so it happened. The national wave, having rolled over Russia, left behind only small puddles of poetic folk. Koltsov was hiding in a pool under a snag: “You smell it in your face, // The wind from noon ,” - in a puddle under the drain √ Ershov: “But Ivan himself is not simple, // He’s holding on tightly to his tail ,” √ in a floodplain √ Nekrasov : “Green noise goes and hums, // Green noise, spring noise . ” At the feast of literature of that time, all of them (except perhaps Nekrasov, and even then his success was more a fact of competent PR than a true recognition of the “nationality” (not to be confused with populism) of his poetry) arrived at the wrong time, and don’t even mention Koltsov and Ershov Pushkin’s kind words, and he will die in obscurity from fermentation of bile and alcohol abuse.

Such an outcome would be regrettable, but sadly natural. And the reason for this is not some peculiarity of the lazy, incurious nature of the Russian public, but purely practical considerations. The reader of the thirties-sixties, due to the peculiarities of Russian literary evolution, turned out to be limited in his ability to perceive poetic, as well as prose, experiences of this kind.

Russian poetic “nationality” is a strange thing. Its foundations, in theory, should have been laid by Vasily Zhukovsky, since it was he who practiced the romantic ballad in Russia, the most popular form of European literature of that time. This did not happen - Zhukovsky could not keep track of everything - his services to our literature are already invaluable. But since then, Russian romanticism and the Russian nationality have diverged on their paths. The first, having led the literary movement, following Chateaubriand and Byron, began to develop character par excellence, the second was pushed to the periphery of the poetic process, finding itself mainly in the sphere of phraseology and idioms - in this sense, the most indicative example of the book. P.A. Vyazemsky.

The only visible exception is the literary activity of P.A. Katenin. His ballad "Olga", which at one time caused so much noise with a free adaptation of the burgher's "Lenora", marked an attempt to restore the rights of that very "folk ballad" from which Zhukovsky consistently started. The public chose not to notice rather than reconcile with this, in Pushkin’s words, “bastard” who took the place of “ethereal shadows,” but the job was done: the German way was married to the Russian spirit. The textbook: “Daddy, daddy! Our nets // Brought in a dead man ,” √ was a kind of answer to Katenin, a fact of Pushkin’s correspondence competition with the founder of the genre.

But one poem, even if brilliantly guessed, does not create a direction, and it was precisely this (to create a post-Karamzin “Slavic” school) task that faced Russian writers of the thirties and forties - a great mission, a great work that was never completed. It was started by the same Pushkin, who not only felt modernity better than others, but also thought about it more meaningfully than others.

In the early 30s, he worked on “Songs of the Western Slavs,” which made up more than three-quarters (!) of the lyrics dated 1834. The reason for writing the cycle was supposedly given by a book by Prosper Merimee who accidentally caught his eye, translating Yugoslavian folklore into French. The story is long, unclear, and has a very indirect relationship to our plot. Something else is important. Something happens in the poet’s mind that forces him to work on the obviously distant material of gallicized Slavic folklore and exorcise from himself something like: “Montenegrins? What is it? - // Bonaparte asked. - // Is it true: this tribe is evil // Not afraid of ours strength?"
But okay Bonaparte - this is where you can find an explanation: “And the French hate // From that time on our free land // And they blush when they see // Our hat by chance” , √ everything is clear: the French, the war, the red hat, Phrygian cap - somewhere even elegant. But what is elegant, for example, is the following lines: “If you don’t believe my oath, // Lead me out into the open field, // Tie greyhounds to the tails of the horses ,” √ or such a cute picture: “And the Sultan called his servants // And he said: “Give the caftan to Radivoy! //(...) To tear off Radivoy’s caftan // The skin from his brother . ”

Here again, general literary reasons reveal themselves: the romantic environment, historical consciousness, extreme circumstances. One can even find two explanations for why Pushkin turned to Balkan themes. Firstly, he thereby plausibly and organically combined two stereotypes: romantic and Slavic - forming a kind of new literary reality, and secondly, he happily bypassed the slingshots of the highest censorship, which inevitably came into confusion with any attempt to address the actual Slavic issues.

That's all true, but by and large both explanations do not stand up to criticism, because why then was not the action of his "Fairy Tales..." transferred somewhere to the Mazovian forests, and the dramatic tragedy in the Shakespearean spirit was called "Boris Godunov", and not some -something "Jan Hus"?

Yes, and Pushkin destroyed romantic stereotypes back in “Prisoner of the Caucasus” (1820), and it would be strange to expect that after a decade and a half he would scholarly follow the prescriptions of normative poetics.

No, obviously it's something else. Pushkin turns to Merimee’s text in the hope of finding a fundamentally new Slavic-European system of poetic expression, the basis of which should be the approximate identity of historical tradition and the similarity of the figurative system of both Western and Eastern Slavs.

But, if you allow, we will return to this issue in exactly a week.