Current page: 1 (total of the book has 16 pages)
Font:
100% +
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Childhood. Adolescence
© Gushchin K.A., illustrations, 1970
© Design of the series. Children's Literature Publishing House, 2003
* * *
1828-1910
The steps of the great ascent
Leo Tolstoy was twenty-four years old when the story "Childhood" appeared in the best, leading journal - "Contemporary". At the end of the printed text, readers saw only the initials: “L. N. ".
When Tolstoy sent his first creation to the editor of the journal, NA Nekrasov, Tolstoy contributed money - in case the manuscript was returned; the answer asked to be addressed to Count Nikolai Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The elder brother of the future great writer, a little also a writer, served as an officer in the Russian army in the Caucasus. Lev Nikolaevich was also there at that time.
The editor's response, more than positive, delighted the young author "to the point of stupidity." Tolstoy's first book - "Childhood" - together with the next two stories - "Adolescence" and "Youth" - became his first masterpiece. Novels and stories, created at the time of creative heyday, did not overshadow this peak.
“This is a new talent and, it seems, reliable,” wrote NA Nekrasov about the young Tolstoy. "Here, finally, is Gogol's successor, not in the least like him, as it should have," - IS Turgenev echoed Nekrasov. When "Boyhood" appeared, Turgenev wrote that the first place among writers belongs to Tolstoy by right and that soon "Tolstoy alone will be known in Russia."
Outwardly uncomplicated story about childhood, adolescence and youth, Nikolenka Irteniev, close to the author in origin and moral character, opened new horizons for all Russian literature. The leading critic of those years, N. G. Chernyshevsky, reviewing Tolstoy's Childhood and Adolescence and War Stories, defined the essence of the young writer’s artistic innovation in two terms - “dialectic of the soul” and “purity of moral feeling”. Psychological analysis existed in realistic art even before Tolstoy. In Russian prose - in Lermontov, Turgenev, young Dostoevsky. Tolstoy's discovery was that for him the study of the hero's mental life became the main one among other artistic means. NG Chernyshevsky wrote: “Psychological analysis can take different directions: one poet is occupied more than the outline of characters; another - the influence of social relations and everyday conflicts on the characters; the third - the connection of feelings with actions; fourth, the analysis of passions; Count Tolstoy most of all - the mental process itself, its forms, its laws, the dialectic of the soul, to be expressed in a definitive term " 1
Chernyshevsky N.G. Poly. collection op: In 15 volumes. T. 3. Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1947. P. 422–423.
An unprecedented keen interest in mental life is of fundamental importance for Tolstoy the artist. In this way, the writer opens in his heroes the possibility of change, development, internal renewal, confrontation with the environment.
According to the researcher's fair opinion, "the ideas of the revival of man and people ... constitute the pathos of Tolstoy's work ... Starting from his early stories, the writer deeply and comprehensively explored the capabilities of the human personality, its ability to spiritual growth, the possibility of its involvement in the lofty goals of human existence" 2
Khrapchenko M. B. Lev Tolstoy as an artist. M .: Sov. writer, 1963, p. 398.
"Details of feelings", mental life in its inner flow come to the fore, pushing aside the "interest of events." The plot is deprived of any external eventfulness and amusement and is simplified to such an extent that in a retelling it can be put in several lines. It is necessary to mention such, for example, events: the teacher - German Karl Ivanovich - swatted a fly over the sleeping Nikolenka's head; maman at breakfast set aside six lumps of sugar for her beloved servants; dad is talking to the bailiff; The Irtenievs are going to hunt. And in "Adolescence": a trip "for long"; storm; the new tutor ... It is not the events themselves that are interesting, the contrasts and contradictions of feelings are interesting. They, in fact, are the subject, the theme of the story.
Great artistic courage manifested itself in the fact that the big story - "Childhood" - is built as a story about two days: one in the village, the other in Moscow. The last chapters are like an epilogue.
"People are like rivers" is a famous aphorism from the novel "Resurrection". Working on his last novel, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “One of the greatest errors in judging a person is that we define a person as smart, stupid, kind, evil, strong, weak, and a person is everything: all possibilities are fluid substance ". This judgment almost literally repeats the entry made in July 1851, that is, just at the time of Childhood: “To speak about a person: he is an original, kind, intelligent, stupid, consistent, etc. notions about a person, but they have a claim to describe a person, while often they only confuse ”.
Capturing and embodying the "fluid substance" of mental life, the very formation of man - this is Tolstoy's main artistic task. The idea of his first book is determined by the characteristic title: "Four epochs of development". It was assumed that the internal development of Nikolenka Irteniev, and in essence, of any person in general, if he is capable of development, will be traced from childhood to youth. And it cannot be said that the last, fourth part remained unwritten. She was embodied in other stories of the young Tolstoy - "The Landowner's Morning", "Cossacks".
The "fluid substance" of a human character is most responsive and mobile in the early years of life, when every new day is fraught with inexhaustible opportunities for discovering the unknown and the new, when the moral world of the emerging personality is receptive to all "impressions of being."
One of Tolstoy's most beloved and soulful thoughts is associated with the image of Irteniev - the idea of the enormous possibilities of a person born for movement, for moral and spiritual growth. Tolstoy is especially interested in the new in the hero and in the world that opens up to him day after day. The word "new" is perhaps the most widespread and characteristic epithet in the first book. It is included in the titles ("New Look", "New Comrades") and became one of the leading motives of the narrative. The ability of the beloved Tolstoyan hero to overcome the usual framework of being, not touch, but constantly change and renew, “flow” conceals a premonition and a guarantee of change, gives him a moral support for confronting the frozen and vicious environment around him ...
The poetry of childhood - "a happy, happy, irreversible time" - is replaced by the "desert of adolescence", when the assertion of one's " I am»Occurs in continuous conflict with the people around, so that in a new era - youth - the world is divided into two parts: one - illuminated by friendship and spiritual closeness; the other is morally hostile, even if it sometimes attracts to itself. In this case, the fidelity of the final assessments is ensured by the "purity of the moral feeling" of the author.
Within the genre framework of the narrative about childhood, adolescence and adolescence, there was no place for historical excursions and philosophical reflections on Russian life, which will appear in the work of subsequent years. Nevertheless, even within these artistic limits, Tolstoy found an opportunity to reflect, in a certain historical perspective, the general disorder and anxiety that his hero - and he himself, during the years of work on the trilogy - experienced as a spiritual conflict, as an internal discord.
Tolstoy did not paint a self-portrait, but rather a portrait of a peer who belonged to the generation of Russian people whose youth fell in the middle of the century. The war of 1812 and Decembrism were for them the recent past, the Crimean War - the immediate future; in the present they did not find anything solid, nothing to rely on with confidence and hope.
Entering adolescence and adolescence, Irteniev asks questions that are of little interest to his older brother and, probably, never interested his father: issues of relations with ordinary people, with Natalya Savishna, with a wide range of characters representing the people in Tolstoy's narrative. Irteniev does not distinguish himself from this circle and at the same time does not belong to it. But he had already clearly discovered the truth and beauty of the national character. The search for national and social harmony thus began already in the first book in the characteristic Tolstoyan form of psychological historicism. In 1847, as a student at Kazan University, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “A change in lifestyle must take place. But it is necessary that this change was not a product of external circumstances, but a product of the soul. "
The desire to behave the way the “big ones” behave is quite natural in itself. But the trouble is that the behavior of the "big ones" and the whole way of adult life are completely unnatural and hostile to the hero. One of the important stimuli for the development of Irteniev's character lies in the fact that he gradually discovers for himself not only the "environment", but above all his original "I", which is constantly distorted in imitation and pretense and again and again asserts itself in the same constant introspection ...
In the chapters of "Boyhood" devoted to the life of Irteniev in Moscow, where the Frenchman Saint-Jerome conscientiously and competently educates him in the spirit of "comme il faut", the motive of alienation and mental loneliness sounds with great dramatic force. The reason for the cruel quarrel with Saint-Jerome is not prank or simple stubbornness, but rather the incompatibility of characters. Irteniev is not able to get along with the tutor, who "had in common to all his fellow countrymen and so opposite to the Russian character, the distinctive features of frivolous egoism, vanity, audacity and ignorant self-confidence." In the drafts of Boyhood, not only the main character is brought to a direct clash with the Frenchman, but also a simple man, a servant Vasily, who does not want to obey a new master - the "musyu" of San Giraud.
Both Nikolenka and the servants (which is extremely important for Tolstoy) have a different attitude to the good German Karl Ivanovich. But the author's view is full of irony here. From the artistic point of view of the entire book, the story of Karl Ivanovich is especially important. With her, a certain historical perspective and a layer of memories of the fabulous times of the Napoleonic wars arise in the narrative. Karl Ivanovich, with his robe, hat and flapper for flies, it turns out, was near Ulm, Wagram, Austerlitz, escaped from captivity and, in general, did everything that, according to Irteniev, extraordinary people and heroes did. “Have you fought too? I asked, looking at him in surprise. "Did you kill people too?"
As it turns out, Karl Ivanovich did not kill anyone. His story is told in an emphatically everyday, prosaic plan and seems to parody the hackneyed images and popular plot clichés of romanticism: “I bought a bucket of vodka, and when Soldat was drunk, I put on my boots, an old overcoat and quietly went out the door. I went to the shaft and wanted to jump, but there was water, and I didn't want to sport the last dress: I went to the gate. "
Already in the first book, Tolstoy's art of combining a foreign-language word, as a characteristic detail of an era and an image, with the entire element of the Russian national word, was brilliantly manifested. “In quoting his speech, I do not misrepresent the words as he did,” says Karl Ivanovich's speech. This required a lot of work and great artistic tact.
With a characteristic, early developed sense of style, Tolstoy contrasted in the narrative the metropolitan and country life of the hero. As soon as Irteniev forget that he is a “comme il faut” person, to be in his native element and become himself, the “foreign” word disappears and a purely Russian word appears, only slightly tinged with dialectism. In landscape descriptions, in the image of an old house, in portraits of ordinary people, in the stylistic shades of the narrative, one of the main ideas of the trilogy is contained - the idea of a national character and a national way of life as the fundamental basis of historical life.
In descriptions of nature, in scenes of hunting, in pictures of rural life, Tolstoy opened to his hero an unknown country for that - his homeland:
"The immense, brilliant yellow field was closed only on one side by a high, blue forest, which then seemed to me the most remote, mysterious place, beyond which either the light ends or uninhabited countries begin."
In "Adolescence": a wide strip of road, a long train of huge wagons, an unfamiliar village and many new people who "do not know who we are and where we are from and where we are going", a thunderstorm, a winter field and a grove after a thunderstorm - how wide and poetically large these pages are written. After reading "Adolescence", N. A. Nekrasov wrote to Tolstoy: "Such things as a description of the summer road and thunderstorms ... and much, much will give this story a long life in our literature ..." 3
N.A. Nekrasov Poly. collection Op. and letters. Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1952.T. 10.P. 205.
The house, the estate, the native land personify the homeland in the eyes of Irteniev, and it is difficult not to see how much this personification is characteristic of Tolstoy's, personal. In his essay Summer in the Country (1858), he wrote: “Without my Yasnaya Polyana, I can hardly imagine Russia and my attitude towards it. Without Yasnaya Polyana, perhaps, I will see more clearly the general laws necessary for my fatherland, but I will not love it to the point of addiction. Whether it is good or bad, I don’t know any other feeling of homeland. ”
L. Gromova-Opulskaya
Childhood
Chapter I
Teacher Karl Ivanovich
On August 12, 18 ..., exactly on the third day after my birthday, on which I was ten years old and on which I received such wonderful gifts, at seven o'clock in the morning Karl Ivanovich woke me up by hitting a clapperboard over my very head - made of sugar paper on a stick - a fly. He did it so awkwardly that he touched the icon of my angel, which was hanging on the oak headboard, and that the killed fly fell right on my head. I poked my nose out from under the blanket, stopped the little icon, which continued to swing, with my hand, threw the killed fly on the floor and, though sleepy, but angry eyes looked at Karl Ivanitch. He, in a motley cotton robe, belted with a belt of the same material, in a red knitted yarmulke with a tassel and in soft goat boots, continued to walk around the walls, aiming and clapping.
“Suppose,” I thought, “I am small, but why does he disturb me? Why doesn't he hit the flies near Volodya's bed? there are so many of them! No, Volodya is older than me; but I am the least of all: that's why he torments me. Only about that and thinks all my life, - I whispered, - how can I make trouble. He very well sees that he woke me up and frightened me, but he shows as if he does not notice ... a disgusting person! And the robe, and the cap, and the tassel - how disgusting! "
While I was thus mentally expressing my annoyance at Karl Ivanitch, he went up to his bed, glanced at the clock that hung above her in an embroidered beaded shoe, hung a cracker on a carnation and, as was noticeable, turned in the most pleasant mood. to us.
- Aui, Kinder, auf!., S'ist Zeit. Die Mutter ist schon im Saal 4
Get up, children, get up!., It's time. Mother is already in the hall ( German).
- he shouted in a kind German voice, then came up to me, sat down at my feet and took a snuff-box out of his pocket. I pretended to be asleep. Karl Ivanitch first sniffed, wiped his nose, snapped his fingers, and then only began to work on me. He chuckled and began to tickle my heels. - Nil, nun, Faulenzer! 5
Well, well, bummer! ( German)
- he said.
As much as I feared tickling, I did not jump out of bed and did not answer him, but only hid my head deeper under the pillows, kicked my legs with all my might and tried all my best to keep from laughing.
"How kind he is and how he loves us, and I could think so badly of him!"
I was vexed both with myself and with Karl Ivanitch, I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry: my nerves were upset.
- Ach, lassen Sie 6
Ah, leave ( German).
Karl Ivanitch! I shouted with tears in my eyes, sticking my head out from under the pillows.
Karl Ivanitch was surprised, left my soles alone and with concern began to ask me: what am I talking about? did I not see anything bad in a dream? .. His kind German face, the sympathy with which he tried to guess the reason for my tears, made them flow even more profusely: I was ashamed, and I did not understand how, a minute before, I could not to love Karl Ivanitch and find his dressing gown, hat and tassel disgusting; now, on the contrary, it all seemed extremely sweet to me, and even the tassel seemed to be a clear proof of his kindness. I told him that I was crying because I had a bad dream - as if maman had died and they were carrying her to bury her. I invented all this, because I absolutely did not remember what I dreamed that night; but when Karl Ivanitch, touched by my story, began to console and calm me down, it seemed to me that I had definitely seen this terrible dream, and tears flowed from another reason.
When Karl Ivanitch left me and I, having raised myself on the bed, began to pull stockings on my little legs, the tears subsided a little, but gloomy thoughts about a fictitious dream did not leave me. Uncle Nikolai entered - a small, clean man, always serious, neat, respectful and a great friend of Karl Ivanitch. He carried our dresses and shoes: Volodya's boots, while I still have unbearable shoes with bows. In his presence I would have been ashamed to cry; besides, the morning sun shone merrily through the windows, and Volodya, imitating Marya Ivanovna (his sister's governess), laughed so merrily and sonorously, standing over the washbasin, that even the serious Nikolai, with a towel on his shoulder, with soap in one hand and with a washstand in the other, smiling, he said:
- Will you, Vladimir Petrovich, if you please wash.
I was completely amused.
- Sind sie bald fertig? 7
Will you be ready soon? ( German)
His voice was stern and no longer had that expression of kindness that moved me to tears. In the classroom, Karl Ivanovich was a completely different person: he was a mentor. I dressed briskly, washed myself and, still with a brush in hand, smoothing my wet hair, appeared at his call.
Karl Ivanitch, with glasses on his nose and a book in his hand, was sitting in his usual place, between the door and the window. To the left of the door there were two shelves: one - ours, for children, the other - Karl Ivanovich, own... Ours had all sorts of books - educational and non-educational: some were standing, others were lying. Only two large volumes of "Histoire des voyages" 8
"Travel History" ( fr.).
In red bindings, they dignifiedly rested against the wall; and then came the long, thick, big and small books - crusts without books and books without crusts; you used to press and stick everything in there when they ordered to put the library in order before recreation, as Karl Ivanovich loudly called this shelf. Collection of books on own if it was not as great as on ours, it was even more diverse. I remember three of them: a German brochure on cabbage manure - without binding, one volume of the history of the Seven Years' War - in parchment burnt from one corner, and a complete hydrostatics course. Karl Ivanitch spent most of his time reading, even ruining his eyesight with it; but apart from these books and The Northern Bee, he read nothing.
Among the items lying on the shelf of Karl Ivanovich, there was one that most of all reminds me of him. This is a circle made of cardon, inserted into a wooden leg, in which this circle was moved by means of pins. On the mug was pasted a picture representing the caricatures of some lady and a hairdresser. Karl Ivanovich glued very well and invented this circle himself and made it in order to protect his weak eyes from bright light.
As I now see in front of me a long figure in a cotton robe and a red cap, from under which sparse gray hair can be seen. He sits beside a table on which is a circle with a hairdresser casting a shadow over his face; in one hand he holds a book, the other rests on the arm of an armchair; beside him lie a watch with a painted huntsman on the dial, a checkered scarf, a black round snuffbox, a green spectacle case, and tongs on a tray. All this is so decorous, neatly in its place, that one can conclude from this order alone that Karl Ivanovich has a clear conscience and a calm soul.
It used to be that you ran your fill down the hall, tiptoeing upstairs, into the classroom, looking - Karl Ivanitch was sitting alone in his armchair and reading some of his favorite books with a calm stately expression. Sometimes I caught him even at such moments when he was not reading: the glasses went down on a large aquiline nose, blue half-closed eyes looked with a special expression, and his lips smiled sadly. The room is quiet; only his uniform breathing and the striking of the clock with the gamekeeper can be heard.
Sometimes he did not notice me, but I stood at the door and thought: “Poor, poor old man! There are many of us, we play, we have fun, but he is alone, and no one caresses him. The truth is he says that he is an orphan. And the story of his life is so awful! I remember how he told it to Nikolai - it's awful to be in his position! " And you will be so sorry that you used to go up to him, take his hand and say: “Lieber 9
Cute ( German).
Karl Ivanovich! " He loved it when I told him so; always caresses, and it is clear that he is moved.
On the other wall were land maps, all almost torn, but skillfully glued by the hand of Karl Ivanitch. On the third wall, in the middle of which there was a door downward, on one side hung two rulers: one - cut, ours, the other - brand new, own, used by him more for encouragement than for shedding; on the other - a black board, on which our big offenses were marked with circles and small crosses. To the left of the board was a corner in which we were put on our knees.
How I remember this corner! I remember the damper in the oven, the air vent in this damper and the noise it made when it was turned. Sometimes, you stood, stood in the corner, so that your knees and back hurt, and you thought: "Karl Ivanovich has forgotten about me: it must be easy for him to sit on an easy chair and read his hydrostatics - but what is it like for me?" - and you will begin, to remind you of yourself, slowly open and close the shutter or pick the plaster from the wall; but if suddenly too large a piece falls with a noise on the ground - really, fear alone is worse than any punishment. If you look back at Karl Ivanitch, he is sitting there with a book in his hand, as if noticing nothing.
In the middle of the room was a table covered with a torn black oilcloth, from under which in many places the edges cut with penknives could be seen. Around the table were several unpainted, but from long-term use of varnished stools. The last wall was occupied by three windows. This is what the view was: right under the windows is a road on which every pothole, every pebble, every track has long been familiar and dear to me; behind the road there is a sheared linden alley, from behind which a wicker palisade can be seen here and there; through the alley, a meadow is seen, on one side of which there is a threshing floor, and opposite a forest; far in the forest is the watchman's hut. From the window to the right you can see a part of the terrace, on which the large ones usually sat until lunchtime. It used to be, while Karl Ivanitch was correcting a sheet of dictation, you looked in that direction, you saw the black head of mother, someone's back, and dimly heard talk and laughter from there; It will become so annoying that you cannot be there, and you think: "When will I be big, I will stop studying and will always sit not at dialogues, but with those whom I love?" The annoyance will turn into sadness, and, God knows why and about what, you will think so deeply that you don't even hear Karl Ivanovich angry for mistakes.
Karl Ivanitch took off his dressing gown, put on a blue tailcoat with elevations and gathers on his shoulders, straightened his tie in front of the mirror and led us downstairs to greet mother.
Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is a great Russian writer, prose writer and playwright, critic and publicist. He was born on the Yasnaya Polyana estate near Tula, studied at Kazan University at the Faculty of Oriental and Law, served in the army as a junior officer, participated in the defense of Sevastopol and was awarded for bravery, then retired and devoted his life to literary creativity.
Like many other writers of the time, L.H. Tolstoy began by working in documentary genres. But at the same time, his literary debut was the artistic and autobiographical trilogy "Childhood" (1852), "Boyhood" (1854), "Youth" (1857). The craving for memoirs in a young author is a very rare phenomenon. This was reflected in the psychological and creative influence of the works of the authors of the natural school, with whom Tolstoy got acquainted in his adolescence and youth as the most authoritative examples of modern literature. However, of course, the peculiarities of Tolstoy's personality are also significant here. For example, it is significant that from the age of eighteen he persistently kept a diary - this indicates an exceptional tendency to introspection.
Trilogy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" begins, of course, with " Childhood". In the narrator Nikolenka Irteniev, it takes place in a noble estate, and the main collisions he recalls are associated with the personalities of the father, mother, teacher Karl Ivanich, the local holy fool Grisha, housekeeper Natalya Savvishna, etc.; love "to the girl Katenka, with childhood friend Seryozha Ivin, with a detailed description of the" for the first time in his life he betrayed him in love and for the first time experienced the sweetness of this feeling. ”The death of his mother, as it were, draws a line under a carefree childhood.
Trilogy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" continues " Adolescence". Here the reader meets a similar rural and urban environment, almost all the former characters are preserved here, but the children have become a little older, their view of the world, their circle of interests is changing. The narrator repeatedly notices this in himself, stating, for example, that with his arrival in Moscow his view of faces and objects has changed. The imperious grandmother makes her father remove Karl Ivanych from the children - in her words, "a German peasant ... a stupid peasant." He is replaced by a French tutor, and the hero is forever deprived of another loved one. Before leaving, Karl Ivanych tells Nikolenka the most interesting story of his life, which in the composition of "Adolescence" resembles an inserted short story.
Among the older friends of his brother Volodya, a curious figure appears - "the student Prince Nekhlyudov". A person with this surname will repeatedly appear in the works of L.N. Tolstoy in the future - "Morning of the Landowner" (1856), "Lucerne" (1857), the novel "Resurrection". In "The Landowner's Morning" and "Lucerne" he was given some lyrical features that clearly testify to his certain autobiography.
It is easy to see that the image of Nekhlyudov already in "Adolescence" from the trilogy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" is given the features of the author's alter ego. The difficulty is that Nikolenka plays this role even before his appearance on the pages of the trilogy, and therefore after his appearance Nekhlyudov looks like a kind of spiritual "double" of the narrator and his spiritual "soulmate". Interestingly, Tolstoy made Nekhlyudov more senior in age than Nikolenka, who matured intellectually under his influence.
Friendship with Nekhlyudov moves to the center of the story in the third part of the trilogy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" - " Adolescence". The hero enters the university, goes to confession in the monastery, falls in love with Nekhlyudov's sister Varenka, makes secular visits on his own, and meets Sonechka again (during the visits, a number of persons described in Childhood pass before him, thus Tolstoy the author as would naturally close the compositional "ring" of the trilogy). Father Irtenyev remarries, Nikolenka falls in love again, participates in student revelry and makes new comrades among students of commoners. After the first year, the hero fails in the exam, he is expelled from the university, he is looking at home for "pistols with which he could shoot himself," while his family is advised to move to another faculty. In the final on Nicholsnka "I found a moment of remorse and moral impulse."
Tolstoy's trilogy "Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" was a story about the spiritual maturation of a young contemporary. It is not surprising that it was understood and accepted by contemporary readers, who especially acutely and specifically perceived all its collisions. The author brilliantly painted a real noble life, but at the same time artistically revealed the inner world of a growing man - a boy, a teenager and then a young man. The documentary nature of the basis of Tolstoy's narrative gave it a special flavor that cannot be achieved in a romance with fictional characters and situations. On the other hand, the young writer showed great skill in artistic generalization, turning the figures of real people into literary characters.
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Collected Works in Twenty-Two Volumes
Volume 1. Childhood, Adolescence, Youth
From the publisher
The whole world is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Russian writer Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy.
For sixty years of tireless creative work, Tolstoy created a huge literary heritage: novels, dozens of stories, hundreds of stories, plays, a treatise on art, many journalistic and literary critical articles, wrote thousands of letters, volumes of diaries. An entire epoch of Russian life, which Lenin called "the era of preparation for the revolution" in Russia, was reflected in the pages of Tolstoy's books. Tolstoy's work marks a new stage in the development of artistic thought.
In 1910, in the obituary article “L. N. Tolstoy "VI Lenin wrote:" Tolstoy the artist is known to an insignificant minority even in Russia. To make his great works truly a property everyone we need a struggle and struggle against such a social system that condemned millions and tens of millions to darkness, downtroddenness, hard labor and poverty, we need a socialist revolution. "
For the young Soviet republic, Tolstoy's publication was a matter of national importance. The first business manager of the Council of People's Commissars V.D.Bonch-Bruevich wrote that soon after the October Revolution V.I.Lenin suggested A.V. Lunacharsky to organize a publishing department at the People's Commissariat of queue. At the same time, Lenin gave instructions: "Tolstoy will have to be restored completely, publishing everything that the tsarist censorship has erased."
In 1928, when Tolstoy's centenary was celebrated, three editions were started at once: Complete collection of works of art in 12 volumes, designed for the widest reader (published as an appendix to the Ogonyok magazine for 1928 with a circulation of 125 thousand foreword by A.V. Lunacharsky); A complete collection of works of fiction in 15 volumes, prepared by prominent textual critics and commentators of those years - K. Halabaev, B. Eikhenbaum, Vs. Sreznevsky (completed in 1930; circulation 50 thousand copies); Complete collection of works in 90 volumes, which gave an exhaustive collection of works, diaries, letters of Tolstoy (completed in 1958; circulation 5-10 thousand copies).
According to VD Bonch-Bruevich, Lenin “personally worked out the publication program”, where everything was to appear without removing from what Tolstoy had written. The ninety volumes of this monumental edition included almost 3000 printed sheets, of which about 2500 sheets of Tolstoy's texts and about 500 sheets of commentary. Prominent researchers, outstanding textualists have devoted many years to the analysis, reading of manuscripts and commenting on Tolstoy. This publication laid the foundation for all subsequent editions of Tolstoy, stimulated a comprehensive study of the life and work of the great writer, determined the scientific principles of publishing in the USSR (in total, 14 collected works of Tolstoy in Russian and national languages were published in Soviet times).
Simultaneously with the preparation and publication of the ninety-volume Complete Collection, individual works of Tolstoy were published in large editions in Russian and in the languages of various nationalities of the USSR. After the Great Patriotic War, over twelve years (1948-1959), three new collections of Tolstoy's works were published: Collected works of art in 12 volumes (Pravda, 1948); Collected works in 14 volumes (Goslitizdat, 1951-1953); Collected works in 12 volumes (Goslitizdat, 1958-1959).
A brilliant artist who created works "that will always be appreciated and read by the masses when they create human conditions for themselves," Tolstoy is at the same time an outstanding thinker who raised the "great questions" of democracy and socialism in his works. Tolstoy is dear to the modern reader, but only because he gave "incomparable pictures of Russian life", "first-class works of world literature", but also because he acted as a passionate critic of the exploitative system of life and all its institutions, a defender of the oppressed people under such a system.
In 1960, in connection with the 50th anniversary of the writer's death, a new type of publication was undertaken - Collected Works in 20 volumes (GIHL, circulation 300 thousand copies). It included not only all of Tolstoy's completed works of art, but also some unfinished fragments, sketches, as well as articles on art and literature, selected journalism, letters, diaries. This edition reflected the new, higher level of Soviet textual criticism and literary science. For the first time, the text of the novel "War and Peace" is given here, verified according to the author's manuscripts; the text of the Sevastopol stories has been clarified. In addition to the introductory article by N.K.Gudzia, each volume contains a historical and literary commentary on different periods of Tolstoy's work.
The next edition (in 12 volumes, 1972-1976), also in mass circulation, took another step in clarifying the texts of Tolstoy's artistic creations: the novel "Anna Karenina" was published with amendments based on manuscripts (which were first included in the publication "Literary Monuments" , 1970), errors in the text of the story "The Kreutzer Sonata" and others have been corrected.
Over the past thirty years, collections of Tolstoy's works have appeared in the national languages: Armenian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Latvian, Estonian, and Turkmen. Collected works in the Azerbaijani language began to appear. Tolstoy's books have been translated into sixty-seven languages and dialects of the peoples of the USSR.
What Tolstoy wrote to the publisher back in 1900 has come true: "The desire that is closest to my heart is to have as my reader a large public, a working, working man, and to subject my thoughts to its decisive judgment."
Over the sixty years of Soviet power, Tolstoy's works have been published in a circulation of over two hundred million copies in ninety-eight languages of the peoples of the Soviet Union and foreign countries. The great Russian writer, Tolstoy embodied the national spirit of his people in his creations. As historical development progresses, it becomes more and more clear that Tolstoy is an immortal name and belongs to the whole world.
A new, jubilee Collection of his works in 22 volumes has been timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy's birth. It includes all works of art, articles on literature and art, selected journalistic articles, selected letters and diaries.
The publication is based on the Collected Works of Leo Tolstoy in 20 volumes (GIHL, 1960–1965) with some additions: the section of journalism and the epistolary section have been expanded. With the exception of a few works, the texts are printed from this Collected Works. Each volume is accompanied by historical and literary commentaries.
I said that my friendship with Dmitry opened me a new outlook on life, its purpose and relationship. The essence of this view consisted in the conviction that the purpose of man is the striving for moral improvement and that this improvement is easy, possible and eternal. But until now I have only enjoyed discovering new thoughts arising from this conviction, and drawing up brilliant plans for a moral, active future; but my life went on in the same petty, confused and idle order.
Those virtuous thoughts that we went through in conversations with my adored friend Dmitry, wonderful Mitya, as I sometimes called him in a whisper with myself, I still liked only my mind, not my feeling. But the time came when these thoughts with such a fresh force of moral discovery came into my head that I got scared, thinking about how much time I had lost in vain, and immediately, the same second, I wanted to apply these thoughts to life, with a firm intention never no longer cheat on them.
And from this time I count the beginning adolescence.
At that time I was at the end of my sixteenth year. The teachers continued to visit me, St.-Jérôme looked after my teachings, and I reluctantly and reluctantly prepared for university. Outside of the doctrine, my classes consisted: in solitary incoherent dreams and reflections, in doing gymnastics in order to become the first strongman in the world, wearing a hat without any specific purpose and thought throughout all the rooms and especially the girl's corridor and looking at myself in the mirror, from which however, I always walked away with a heavy feeling of despondency and even disgust. My appearance, I was convinced, was not only ugly, but I could not even console myself with ordinary consolations in such cases. I could not say that I have an expressive, intelligent or noble face. There was nothing expressive - the most ordinary, coarse and bad features; small gray eyes, especially when I looked in the mirror, were rather stupid than smart. There was even less courage: despite the fact that I was not small in stature and very strong in my years, all facial features were soft, sluggish, indefinite. There was nothing even noble; on the contrary, my face was the same as that of a common peasant, and the same large legs and arms; and at that time it seemed to me very ashamed.
That year, as I entered the university, Saint was somehow late in April, so exams were scheduled for Fomina, and on Passionate I had to fast and prepare for the final.
The weather after wet snow, which Karl Ivanovich used to call “ the son came for the father”, For three days already it was quiet, warm and clear. There was no patch of snow to be seen in the streets; the dirty dough was replaced by the wet, shiny pavement and fast streams. The last drops were already melting from the rooftops in the sun, buds were puffing out on the trees in the front garden, there was a dry path in the yard, past a frozen heap of dung to the stable, and mossy grass was green between the stones near the porch. There was that special period of spring, which has the strongest effect on the human soul: bright, all-over shining, but not hot sun, streams and thawed patches, fragrant freshness in the air and soft blue sky with long transparent clouds. I don't know why, but it seems to me that in a big city the influence of this first period of the birth of spring is even more tangible and stronger on the soul - you see less, but more anticipate. I stood by the window, through which the morning sun through double frames was throwing dusty rays on the floor of my unbearably boring classroom, and I was solving a long algebraic equation on a black board. In one hand I was holding Franker's tattered soft Algebra, in the other a small piece of chalk, which had already stained both hands, face and elbows of the half-coat. Nikolai, in an apron, with his sleeves rolled up, was beating off the putty with pliers and bending back the nails of the window that opened into the front garden. His occupation and the knocking he made entertained my attention. Moreover, I was in a very bad, dissatisfied frame of mind. Somehow I didn’t succeed: I made a mistake at the beginning of the calculation, so I had to start everything from the beginning; I dropped the chalk twice, felt that my face and hands were stained, the sponge had disappeared somewhere, the knock that Nikolai made somehow painfully shook my nerves. I wanted to get angry and grumble; I threw away the chalk, "Algebra" and began to pace the room. But I remembered that today is the Passionate middle, today we must confess, and that we must refrain from everything bad; and suddenly I came to some special, meek state of mind and went up to Nikolai.
“Let me help you, Nikolai,” I said, trying to give my voice the most meek expression; and the thought that I was doing well, suppressing my annoyance and helping him, further strengthened this meek mood of spirit in me.
The putty was repulsed, the nails were bent back, but despite the fact that Nikolai pulled the crossbars with all his might, the frame did not move.
“If the frame comes out now immediately, when I pull with it,” I thought, “then it’s a sin, and we don’t need to do more work today.” The frame leaned to one side and went out.
- Where can I take her? - I said.
- Excuse me, I'll manage it myself, - Nikolai answered, apparently surprised and, it seems, dissatisfied with my diligence, - we must not confuse, otherwise there, in the closet, they are by numbers.
“I'll see her,” I said, lifting the frame.
It seems to me that if the closet was two miles away and the frame weighed twice as much, I would be very pleased. I wanted to be exhausted by rendering this service to Nikolai. When I returned to the room, the bricks and salt pyramids had already been placed on the windowsill, and Nikolai was sweeping away the sand and sleepy flies with his wing, through the open window. The fresh odorous air had already entered the room and filled it. From the window could be heard the city noise and the chirping of sparrows in the front garden.
All the objects were brightly lit, the room became more cheerful, a light spring breeze stirred the sheets of my Algebra and the hair on Nikolai's head. I went to the window, sat down on it, bent over into the front garden and thought.
Something new to me, extremely strong and pleasant feeling suddenly penetrated into my soul. Wet ground, along which bright green needles of grass with yellow stalks were knocked out in some places, streams glistening in the sun, along which pieces of earth and chips curled, reddened twigs of lilacs with swollen buds swaying under the very window, the busy chirping of birds swarming in this bush, a blackish fence wet from the snow melting on it, and most importantly - this fragrant damp air and the joyful sun spoke to me distinctly, clearly about something new and beautiful, which, although I cannot convey the way it affected me, I will try convey the way I perceived it - everything told me about beauty, happiness and virtue, said that both are easy and possible for me, that one cannot be without the other, and even that beauty, happiness and virtue - same. “How could I not understand this, how bad I was before, how I could and can be good and happy in the future! I said to myself. - We must quickly, quickly, this very minute become a different person and begin to live differently. Despite this, however, I sat for a long time at the window, dreaming and doing nothing. Did you ever go to bed in the afternoon in cloudy rainy weather in the summer and, waking up at sunset, open your eyes and in the expanding quadrangle of the window, from under the linen side, which, puffing up, beats with a cane on the windowsill, see the shady, lilac side, wet from the rain a linden alley and a damp garden path, illuminated by bright oblique rays, suddenly hear the cheerful life of birds in the garden and see insects that curl in the window opening, shining in the sun, smell the after-rain air and think: "I was not ashamed to oversleep such an evening." - and hastily jump up to go into the garden to enjoy life? If it happened, then here is an example of the strong feeling that I experienced at that time.
While in the Caucasus, Tolstoy begins to create a novel about the formation of a person's personality, intending to title it in a generalized way: "Four epochs of development." An aspiring writer nurtures an extensive and interesting plan for the story of childhood, adolescence, adolescence and youth. The fourth part of the planned work was not written, and it formed into a trilogy, which became the first significant creation of Tolstoy and his artistic masterpiece.
Childhood Analysis
Trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth ”, which we will analyze, opens with“ Childhood ”. Tolstoy, while working on it, experienced a real creative fever. It seemed to him that before him no one had yet felt and depicted all the charm and poetry of childhood. The little hero, Nikolenka Irteniev, living in an atmosphere of patriarchal landlord life, perceives the world around him in its serenity, as a happy, idyllic and joyful existence. There are many reasons for this: everyone loves him, warmth and humanity reigns around the child in human relationships, a growing person lives in harmony with himself and the world opening up to him; he experiences a sense of harmony, which the writer treasures extraordinarily. One cannot but admire such characters of the book as teacher Karl Ivanovich, nanny Natalya Savishna. Tolstoy shows an amazing ability to trace the smallest movements of the human soul, the change in the experiences and feelings of a child. NG Chernyshevsky called this feature of the writer "the dialectic of the soul." It manifests itself both when the young hero gets to know himself, and when he discovers the reality around him. Such are the scenes of children's games, hunting, a ball, classes in the classroom, the death of the mother and Natalya Savishna, the circumstances when the complexity of human relationships is revealed, injustice, disagreement of people with each other, when bitter truths are discovered. Often the child shows aristocratic prejudices, but he also learns to overcome them. The sincerity of the little hero, his trust in the world, and the naturalness of his behavior are formed. In the story "Childhood" there is a very tangible autobiographical element: many episodes remind of Tolstoy's childhood, a number of the child's discoveries reflect the views and searches of the writer himself. At the same time, the author strives for generalization in revealing the pores of childhood, and therefore was very upset by the title - "The Story of My Childhood" - which the publishers of the magazine "Sovremennik" gave the story, where it was published. “Who cares about my childhood story? "- he wrote to Nekrasov, defending the typicality of the depicted.
Analysis of "Boyhood"
The second part of the trilogy - "Boyhood" - continuing many of the motives of the previous work, at the same time significantly differs from "Childhood". Nikolenka Irteniev's analytical thinking increases. He reads F. Schelling, and he has a need to philosophically comprehend the world. Alarming questions arise about where the soul goes after death, what is symmetry, whether objects exist outside of our relationship to them. The chapters "A trip to long", "Thunderstorm", "New look" reflect a new phase of the hero's spiritual development. A new idea of the world appears: the boy is aware of many other people's lives, which he had not seen before, “... not all interests, - argues Irteniev, - revolve around us ... there is another life that has nothing in common with us .. . ”This reflection on a wide and diverse world becomes an important milestone in the spiritual development of a teenager. He is sharp enough to see social inequality; Katya helps him to understand the existence of rich and poor, Karl Ivanovich reveals to him the extent of his misfortunes and the degree of his alienation from the world. There is a growing disunity between Nikolenka and the people around him, especially since he is clearly aware of his “I”. Irteniev's misadventures (chapters "The Unit", "Traitor") are becoming more frequent, which further exacerbates discord with the world, disappointment in it, conflict with other people. Existence is likened to life in the desert, the gloominess of the coloring of the narrative and the intensity of its plot increase, although there are still few external events in the narrative. But the overcoming of the mental crisis is also outlined: friendship with Nekhlyudov, who professes the idea of internal improvement, plays an important role in this. The critic S. Dudyshkin noted the high artistic merits of the story "Boyhood" and called the author "a true poet."
Analysis of "Youth"
"Youth" - the third part of the trilogy, published in "Sovremennik" in 1857, - tells about the strengthening of a new outlook on life, about the hero's striving for "moral improvement." The dreams, conveyed in the chapter of the same name, strengthen the young man in this striving, although they are quite divorced from real life, and soon the inability of the hero to carry out his intentions is revealed. High notions of life are replaced by a secular ideal comme il faut (good manners). However, Irteniev's sincere confession testifies to his gravitation towards truthfulness, nobility, his desire to become externally and internally more perfect. And the story in the last chapters about the admission of the young man to the university speaks of the hero's gravitation towards new people, the commoners he meets here, about the recognition of their superiority in knowledge. Irteniev acquires connections with people, and this is a significant milestone in the history of his maturation. However, the last chapter of the story is called "I Fail." This is a frank admission of the collapse of the old morality and philosophy, disillusionment with the adopted way of life, and at the same time - a guarantee of the further maturation of the hero's personality. It is no accident that the critic P. Annenkov wrote about the "heroism of inner honesty" shown by Tolstoy in "Youth".