The choice of the hero

Chatsky against Rakhmetov

The attack on the picket at the State Duma. Aggression against LGBT move activists has become commonplace

Each generation is looking for its own hero. The images change from generation to generation, but in modern heroes, archetypal features clearly shine through.

Who is the Russian national hero and where to look for its roots? Undoubtedly, he is a literary hero, but not a mythical superman, but a living, worried, speaking modern language. A person from the text and a person of the text. An extra person reflecting the intellectual. Originally from the XIX century. The first is Chatsky. Nearby is Onegin, then Remake-Pechorin and, finally, Bazarov, who, in the company of these brilliant aesthetes and escapists, managed to become the most superfluous, the most reflective-the hero hero.

A year after meeting with Bazarov, literary Russia met a new character. In contrast, not only the other heroes of the novel, but also all “superfluous” people with a blade of this person were indefinitely called the author “special”. Why did the mediocre text of Chernyshevsky become a cult and even earned the Nabokovsky “Dara”? The novel "What to do?" Presented to Russia a new hero - Rakhmetov. Special in that he is a person’s goal, a person of aspiration, a man of action. It was Chernyshevsky who gave birth (guessed) the archetype of the Russian hero of the XX century.

Rakhmetov is not an esthete - he is ascetic. Rakhmetov does not reflect. He is aware of his complete moral case. This hero is a hero with a capital letter. The hero is functional, flat, but attractive in his convincing strength and natural simplicity.

In October 1917, Rakhmetov defeated Onegin-Chatsky. The revolution was won by a non -reflective intellectual with a Dostoiska from the galaxy of Chatsky - a fanatic, a knight without fear and reproach defeated. This right. A special person - hello Nietzsche and his admirers from the Third Reich.

The Russian Empire stubbornly strangled, betrayed, defamed and destroyed the Griboedovo spirit. True, it was not possible to find the final solution to the issue of “extra people”, but the persecution had its fruit. The persecution of Chatsky raised new heroes who hate the persecutors and despise Chatsky himself.

Chatsky-Oonagin is an individualist, a thing in himself, garbage from the point of view of national ideology. Rakhmetov is an ideal instrument of propaganda, the statist of Leni Rifenstal and her “triumph of will”. In the Soviet Union, Rakhmetov reincarnated in thousands of fearless and uncompromising fighters for a bright future.

Despite the victory of the biased propaganda art, Chatsky stupidly sprouted in the new appearance of the heroes of Shalamov and Volodin, Erofeev and Schwartz, Pasternak and even Gaida, preventing Rachmetov, surrounded by decent citizens, to build a bright future.

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Who is Rakhmetov today? A young guy who is beating LGBT pickets today, tomorrow-drug dealers and illegal migrants

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By the end of the 20th century, Fanatic Rakhmetov finally went into circulation and was handed over to the landfill of history. The image of a special manner completely ceased to be combined with the face of a sniffing decrepit party-to-party. Suddenly, Chatsky won the battle due to the lack of an opponent. In the 21st century, Chatsky again became persecuted, Rakhmetov again the hero, and everything returned to his circles.

Who is Rakhmetov today? Obviously, it is not the power itself - it is too gently sleeping, as if not on the nails. Rakhmetov is a young guy who today beats LGBT Pikickets, tomorrow-drug dealers and illegal migrants, and the day after tomorrow with a sledgehammer is a pogrom in an underground gambling club under the benevolent gaze of the municipal television channel. As you know, these are not figures of speech, but the facts of modern Russian history.

Attempts to turn the Russian story back and make citizens think with simple and therefore terrible maxim is engaged in the power again and again. From the dusty shelves of the bins of the homeland, the PR people get symbols, melodies, ideologems, heroes, the main of which is Stalin, patented Rakhmetov.

A new generation of spectators, readers can be educated in contempt for reflection. It can be convinced that the end justifies the funds. What is dangerous for the authorities itself? Attacking modern Chatsky, the authorities, like a hundred years ago, grows a new breed of disadvantageous, disagreed, intolerable Rakhmetovs. Now we can just observe the kamangout of these new protest rachmetovs. They have other signs, not Chernyshevsky. And the modern hero is now more likely a woman than a man. But there are distinctive features of Rakhmetov, which are also recognizable in the new hypostasis: categorical and intolerance.

The protesting Rakhmetov looks much more convincing and more organic Rakhmetov, loyal power - this suggests an image, so sooner or later he will win. Who is he, Rakhmetov tomorrow, a hero of the New Age: a totalitarian vegan, a fighting feminist, a hunter for doghanters, a national technocrat or, conversely, a migrant, a racial avenger? In any case, the new Rakhmetov will not be better than the previous one and will continue to persecute for reflection and free thought with the same as the predecessor, a sense of moral rightness.

Return Chatsky until it's too late.

Photo: Anton Tushin/Ridus.ru