Smart women and "ingenious woman"

The recent death of Margaret Thatcher not only caused a wave of mutually exclusive assessments of her activity, but also forced to recall modern female politicians again. A woman-politician is not uncommon in our time. You can recall the current Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel or Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. In Ireland there was a woman president, there were women in a number of Scandinavian countries. In Argentina, Kristina Kirschner is now President. And, of course, I recall the legendary Golda Meir, not just heading Israel, but the former at the head of this country, when it waged a difficult war.

Meanwhile, in our memory, women were not just outside of politics, but were even deprived of electoral rights. In France, for example, in every way of the advanced country, women received the right to elect and be elected only after the Second World War. In this regard, it is interesting to recall that almost the first time the question of the political rights of women was posed in Russia - during the first revolution of 1905-1907. And he set it - you will laugh - none other than Vasily Vasilievich Rozanov (1856–1919).

He was an extremely strange person and writer - absolutely indefinable and not determining himself, at every step he was contradicting himself, which refuted today what he wrote yesterday, today, today the anti -Semite, today a conservative, and tomorrow liberal. At one time, he collaborated at once in two newspapers of the opposite political direction: in conservative he wrote under his name, and in the liberal under the pseudonym Barvarin (named after his wife). He could not deceive anyone: the style of the works of Rozanov was so individually Fair, so it was not like anyone that his authorship was immediately discovered. And the writer, writer, stylist he was brilliant; According to Berdyaev, who wrote almost better than anyone in the then literature. Rozanova exposed everyone who was not too lazy, accused of betrayals and in general of all sins, but the same Berdyaev wrote that there was nothing to blame Rozanov, because he has no beliefs, and thoughts: he is a brilliant impressionist who transferred the endless stream of his living, which had just mastered his impressions, that there was no active beginning in him, he in him. Passively surrendered, not actively fighting. Berdyaev called Rozanov a brilliant woman, and he entitled one of the articles about him "about the eternally-baby in the Russian soul." Rozanov himself loved to refer to Spinoza: to determine - means to narrow (in Spinoza: the definition has a denial). He also said that he was making the eggs of all the eggs that they come to hand - at least chicken, even goose, even pigeons. There is neither right nor left in life, but there is a continuous stream, Rozanov wrote, real events, people, facts, facts always slip away from the oppression of tough definitions, always go further and not understand which direction. If you like, this is dialectics - completely according to Hegel.

When the first Russian revolution flared up in 1905, Rozanov met her enthusiastically and began to write not only liberally, but also with the undoubted left bias. Already after the revolution, in 1910 he collected articles of these years in a collection entitled "when the bosses left." This is a unique book - Left Rozanov. We can say that the left -handed left. That is, if we recall the assessment of Berdyaev, he surrendered to new impressions with all his strength, again passively dissolved in a new stream.

And in one of the articles of these revolutionary years (under the name "Women and representation"), Rozanov with fervor and heat spoke not only for granting women to elective rights, but also for their active participation in political life. Its argument was the main one - and it has always been: in the creative eras of human history, women were among the advanced fighters and figures. Rozanov wrote:

"In illiterate times, a woman is a" sin ", in cultural times it is a" lady ". Meanwhile, in both cases it is a lie, and the truth is that she is a person, half of humanity, without which the second half of humanity is powerless, meaningless and impossible ... being only biological at the bottom, this force, believe in the subsequent layers of history, is a powerful public community here, being here, being a powerful community. With a shade of prophetic in one half and business, the main thing is in force, the main thing in the fire, in talent, are all specially masculine in history, and there was simply not enough of the grimaceous forces.

And Rozanov gives numerous examples of women whose names remained in the annals of mankind. Here are the biblical Mariam and Debbor, and Marfa Posadnitsa, and Jeanne d'Arc, and the Queen of the English Elizabeth, and Russian Catherine, and Austrian Maria Teresi. And what would the Russian liberation movement since the 60s of the 19th century without women? - asks Rozanov. And he answers: by land, theorizing, the "department." Rozanova, as always, brings - and in the calculation of outstanding women in the category of businessiness, he mentions the Gogol box. This is one of the sides of the Rozanovsky writing charm: the most unexpected one can expect from him.

Rozanov, perhaps, is the best illustration of Dostoevsky’s words: Russian people are wide, I would narrow. But it is not necessary to narrow it: the uniqueness, unity of this person and writer will disappear. He is like a poet in a Pushkin interpretation: an echo, for every sound ready to respond. After all, what topic was considered the main thing for Rozanov - “Family Question in Russia”, as his two -volume book is called: the cult of the family, childbearing, sweet life. Once he said about the Jews: they guessed a saint in the spray of being. And suddenly - both queens and revolutionaries immediately he is ready to sing hymns.

But he cannot deviate from his favorite topic. There is in the collection "When the authorities went" an article "in the court of workers' deputies." This first council was created in Russian history in September 1905, and George Khrustalev-Nosar was considered its head. Already in November, the Council was arrested and court. Rozanov was present at this court as a newspaper correspondent. He writes that it was heard badly, so he was not so much listening as he looked - but closer to him was a bench on which a relative of the defendants sat. He describes the wife of the nosar, "nosarich", as he calls her; And now the incomparable Rozanov:

"Wives - they must be able to sleep: how will it fall asleep? She sleeps with one eye, and looks with the other. She always has a" constitution "under the pillow: - And she will not lie on the pillow, put the doll instead, but she will run away to the" Mila Friend ", - not for kisses, but for proclamations."

But there is a truly unique evidence in this article: Rozanov described in it Trotsky, who, as you know, the genuine soul of this project - the Council of Workers' Deputies. And Rozanov understood this - he allocated Trotsky at the expense of the nashar:

"While the nosar was something dull and imperceptibly, he said not impressively for anyone, Trotsky said only a few words, but he said it, but did not say them ... Trotsky painted his few words, as if he smeared them to the attention of the audience. And while everyone and the whole court certainly whispered and whispered-this one filled a small bastard, which were heard in the last corner."

Unique evidence, a unique book. Unique author. And after all, Rozanov did not understand anything either in politics at all, or in social democracy in particular. But he knew how to just see and hear. And he left our, completely different time, these priceless evidence.