The inclined plane of the compromise

Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812-1891)	Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

The Russian novelist and Danish storyteller in one year, 165 years ago, wrote about what they even do with a smart person’s mental laziness and non -resistance to circumstances

There are two very famous and very talented literary works that are not similar in either genre or in the language in which they are written. They are united by the fact that this year they turned 165 years old, and the fact that both of them are the history of compromises. We are talking about the “ordinary history” of Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov and the fairy tale “Shadow” by Hans Christian Andersen.

What Goncharov described is replicated from generation to generation, since officials and careerists have started in Rus'. And note that these are not rushing, not bribe takers, these are nobles, poor, but from a good society, who graduated at the university, as they said then. Russian business elite. In addition, the Auduev Sr. has a porcelain wagon, which means a businessman.

Nothing terrible in the novel happens. The ardent young man Alexander hell, enthusiastic and ridiculous, becomes a careerist and a vulgar. His Uncle Lisa’s wife, which had not been the requirements of the insensitive century, is going out quietly, and his uncle who realized the cynic is ready to abandon the “wooden” life, career, deeds and go with Lisa to Italy, because there was enough kindness and conscience that he hid, like Stolz from Oblomov, in the distant corner of his soul. Yes, it seems late. The nephew is the choice: either to indulge in feelings on the couch, like Oblomov, turning into a miracle-yudo, so that they showed for money, or make a career and fortune, like the Sr. Aduev, with all the costs. Do not spend strength either on love or creativity, to perceive everything calmly and compromise with reality. Money, real estate, awards, estates. Serve the king and the fatherland. The script of the great Pushkin, given in one stanza "Eugene Onegin."

“Blessed, who was young, blessed, who was ripe in time, who gradually knew how to endure the cold with years; Those who did not indulge in strange dreams, who was not alienated, who was twenty years old, Frantic Ile Supt, and at thirty is profitably married; Those who were freed from private and other debts, who got into the queue of fifty and other debts, who was calmly achieved in the queue, about whom they repeated the whole century: NN a wonderful person. ”

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According to the ordinary and terrible law of agreements, we lost our country inconsiderable times and lose it today

“The kingdom of conformism and compromise, and - on the throat of its own songs, and lower back pain, and a difficult school of humiliation before the authorities.

In the “Shadow”, a private compromise of the scientist with his shadow reaches a political, state scale. At first, seeing the wealth of her shadow, which she reached a dishonorable way of blackmail, all these diamond rings and gold chains, the scientist goes to a small compromise: allows the shadows to poke him, humbled himself with her human status. Then, seeing his need and failure in deeds, he humbles himself with the role of the shadow of his shadow, travels with her in carriages, eats and drinks sweetly, travels. And then, when the shadow already intends to marry the princess and rule the country, and forced the scientist for a lot of money to lie at his feet, he begins to rebel. But it's too late, no one believes him, and they will execute him secretly, without publicity.

And I think that according to this ordinary and terrible law of compromise, we have lost our country, we have lost our country and lose it today. The Adyoevs once met October and did not go to the White Army, they fled, adapting to someone else's shores, or pretended to be Soviet inhabitants, like the chamberlain of Mitrich from the Voronya Slobodka (Ilf and Petrov, the “Golden Calf”), who “did not finish gymnasiums” because he once graduated from the Page Corps.

So it went further: at first they trembled before the arrest, then they were healed to give them to defend the dissertation or released to take a walk abroad. And not only the Adeuev, but also scientists. Nowadays, even bright minds are hunting to join places in different presidential councils. So they are sitting there, and no one shouts: "Shadow, know your place!"

Photos: ITAR-TASS, AFP