Y. Sorokin
D.I. Pisarev
D. I. Pisarev is one of the outstanding figures of the sixties of the last century - an era that played an important role in the history of Russian social life, in the development of science, literature and art in our country. In the conditions of the most acute class struggle that unfolded during these years, Pisarev acted as a revolutionary democrat and materialist. His influence on the democratic youth was lively and strong. His works were avidly read, provoked heated debates, struck with boldness of conclusions and vividness of argumentation, awakened thought.
In subsequent years, the name of Pisarev, like other remarkable representatives of the Raznochinsk period in the Russian liberation movement, was not forgotten. The proletarian revolutionaries used the best pages of Pisarev's works in their struggle against tsarism, against the capitalist system, for the victory of the socialist revolution. In the memoirs of N. K. Krupskaya, evidence of the attitude of V. I. Lenin to Pisarev has been preserved. “Pisarev,” she points out, “Vladimir Ilyich read and loved a lot in his time.” “I was captivated,” wrote N. K. Krupskaya, “by Pisarev’s sharp criticism of the serfdom, his revolutionary attitude, wealth of thoughts. All this was far from Marxism, the thoughts were paradoxical, often very wrong, but it was impossible to read it calmly. Then in Shusha I told Ilyich my impressions of reading Pisarev, and he told me that he himself read Pisarev, praising the boldness of his thought. In the Shushensky album of Vladimir Ilyich, among the cards of his favorite revolutionary figures and writers, there was a photograph of Pisarev. (Pravda, October 3, 1935.) In his works, V. I. Lenin quoted some striking statements by Pisarev.
Soviet people highly value the work of this outstanding thinker and critic. In his works even now there are many pages filled with sharp hatred for the dark forces of reaction, full of militant optimism and ardent faith in the bright future of the people, in the forces of progress and democracy.
Pisarev's short creative path was complex and in many ways contradictory. His literary heritage requires a careful historical approach, a thoughtful objective assessment of what constitutes Pisarev's strength as a thinker, and those ideological errors and hesitations, paradoxical and incorrect conclusions that he has. Pisarev began his publicistic activity early, and died still quite young. His views during this short activity in democratic journalism on some issues changed significantly. These changes reflect the lively, unstoppable process of development of Pisarev's critical thought.
Speaking of Pisarev, K. A. Timiryazev in one of his works aptly described him as a critic of "being carried away, but also captivating." (K. A. Timiryazev, Works, vol. VIII, 1939, p. 175.) Pisarev’s works reflect the ideological search for the progressive thought of his era and the originality of Pisarev’s spiritual evolution in the complex and turbulent socio-political life of Russia at that time.
The 1860s went down in the history of our country as the years of the high rise of the democratic movement. Already during the Crimean War, a wave of peasant uprisings against the arbitrariness of the landowners was growing. The political situation in the country became especially aggravated after 1855. The defeat of tsarism in the Crimean War, which revealed a deep crisis in the feudal-serf system, the unbearable oppression of the landlords, which rested with all its weight on the shoulders of millions of peasants, and the police arbitrariness that reigned in the country, gave rise to a revolutionary situation. During these years, during the preparation and implementation of the "peasant reform" on February 19, 1861, the peasant movement received a particularly wide scope. The largest was the performance of the peasants, led by Anton Petrov, in the village of Bezdne in the Kazan province in April 1861, which was brutally suppressed by the tsarist troops. The year 1861 also saw the fall of serious student demonstrations in St. Petersburg and in some other cities, which had a pronounced democratic character. In 1861, the revolutionary organization "Land and Freedom" arose and expanded its activities. Proclamations are drawn up and distributed, addressed to the democratic youth, peasants, soldiers, and calling for an uprising, for resistance to the tsarist authorities and the feudal landowners. The Bell by Herzen and Ogarev and other publications of the uncensored press are widely distributed in Russia and contribute to the development of the democratic movement.
During these years, the most important question for revolutionary democrats was the question of preparing for a democratic peasant revolution, of merging the disparate actions of the peasants and democratic youth into a general offensive against the existing system. The ideological leaders of the unfolding movement, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, were preparing the democratic forces of society for this.
VI Lenin, defining in his work "The Collapse of the Second International" the main features of a revolutionary situation, pointed out that "not every revolutionary situation leads to revolution." (V. I. Lenin, Works, vol. 21, p. 189.) Nor did the revolutionary situation of 1859-1861 lead to a revolution. It did not lead, first of all, because at that time there was no such revolutionary class that would be capable of "revolutionary mass actions strong enough to break (or break) the old government, which will never, even in an era of crises, never" fall " if he is not “dropped.” (Ibid., p. 190.) The scattered actions of the peasants and democratic youth did not result in a general crushing action of the masses against the existing system.
The forces of reaction, led by the tsarist government, and the feudal landlords, fiercely resisted the developing revolutionary movement. The tsarist government brutally cracked down on individual protests by peasants and students. In a revolutionary situation, the bourgeois-noble liberals openly betrayed the interests of the people, the cause of the country's progress, and entered into a bloc with the feudal lords. In 1862, having suppressed the first wave of serious uprisings by the democratic forces, the reaction began a direct attack on the camp of democracy. In the summer of 1862, after a government provocation in connection with the May fires in St. Petersburg, mass repressions began against the revolutionary-minded democratic intelligentsia.
Difficult years came for the democratic movement, when it was necessary to resist the cruel onslaught of reaction, to gather and prepare forces for a new revolutionary upsurge. Having experienced these heavy blows, the revolutionary democrats did not stop their selfless struggle. But they continued it in new, very difficult conditions.
It was precisely at this time that the most intense literary activity of Pisarev falls. He came into the democratic movement towards the end of the revolutionary situation of 1859-1861. Shortly after starting his work in democratic journalism, he was subjected to a lengthy prison sentence. His release coincided with an even more violent reaction after the shooting of Karakozov in 1866. The journal, in which he had worked until that time, was closed, new repressions rained down on democratic literature. And just two years after his release, a tragic death ended the life of a young critic.
The difficult conditions in which Pisarev's brilliant but short-lived activity in the democratic press unfolded, and especially the general difficult situation for the democratic movement, starting from 1862, but could not affect the direction of this activity, could not but affect the individual contradictions inherent in Pisarev.
But for all that, Pisarev was a characteristic "man of the sixties", a leading fighter of the democratic movement. The main thing that catches the eye in his works, written often under the vivid impression of the heavy losses, defeats and difficulties experienced by the democratic movement, is a feeling of deep, militant optimism, a firm conviction in the inevitability of moving forward, confidence in the final victory of the forces of democracy, constant fighting the spirit and youthful enthusiasm of a fighter.
We cannot but be struck by the intensity of Pisarev's literary activity, the diversity of his interests as a thinker and critic, which are so indicative of the revolutionary democratic writers of the 1860s in general. In a little over seven years of work in the democratic press, he wrote more than fifty major articles and essays, not counting reviews, and meanwhile, during this time, his journal activity was interrupted twice.
Throughout his activities in 1861-1868, Pisarev remained in the ranks of conscious fighters for a better future for his homeland.
I
In one of his early reviews, Pisarev notes: “The first years of life deserve the full attention of a biographer: first impressions, the initial direction of education, the personalities of the people around them often have a decisive, indelible influence on the inclinations and character of the child. Unfortunately, it is usually very difficult to collect details about this the first period of life, the reported information is usually fragmentary, unclear and colorless. Rarely take the trouble to observe the gradual development of the child, notice its characteristic features, follow the awakening of the young mind. (DI Pisarev, Works, ed. 5, vol. I. St. Petersburg, 1909, p. 91.) These words can also be fully attributed to the characterization of Pisarev's childhood, adolescence and youth. Based on the few fragmentary and largely obscure information that his biographer now has, it is difficult to recreate a complete picture of Pisarev's initial development. But one thing stands out with particular relief: in the development of Pisarev, we are faced with the fact of a decisive and acute crisis, a spiritual turning point, which falls on the years of his graduation from the university and is determined by the influence of the social situation of the sixties.
Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev was born on October 14 (new style) 1840 in the village of Znamenskoye, Yelets district, Oryol province, into a wealthy and cultured noble family. He was brought up mainly under the influence of his mother, to whom he retained attachment for life.
He sought to give a versatile education. However, it did not go beyond the traditional framework. Particular attention was paid to languages. The boy developed quickly and beyond his years, read a lot and early got used to putting down on paper his impressions of what he saw, read and experienced. The memoirs of Pisarev's relatives, the few surviving letters and diary entries testify to his keen impressionability and early literary talent. But in vain would we look in these data for any hints about the future direction of Pisarev's critical thought.
The environment in which the boy was brought up, for all its culture, was far from advanced public interests. Recalling his childhood, Pisarev noted that although he read a lot, his reading circle was still very limited. His favorite books were the novels of Dumas and Cooper, and with the best works of Russian literature, he, by his own admission, was then more familiar with their titles and names. Describing the literary tastes of his teachers, he wrote: "Eugene Onegin" and "A Hero of Our Time" were considered immoral works, and Gogol was considered a greasy writer and completely inappropriate in a decent society. "To critical articles in magazines, Pisarev, in his own ironic words," looked like a code of hieroglyphic inscriptions.
In 1851, Pisarev was sent to one of the best gymnasiums in St. Petersburg. He later spoke of his gymnasium years no less ironically: “I belonged to the category of sheep in the gymnasium; I didn’t get angry and didn’t get smart, I crammed my lessons firmly, answered eloquently and respectfully at exams, and as a reward for all these undoubted merits I was recognized as “successful” However, other surviving data indicate that the boy was brought up in a loyal spirit at home and in the gymnasium, he was instilled with thoughts of respect for recognized "authorities", he was prepared for a brilliant and calm career; the heavy impressions of the surrounding poverty, social injustice, and feudal oppression did not fall on his soul.
Having successfully graduated from the gymnasium, Pisarev in 1856 entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. In the article "Our University Science", written only two years after graduation from the university. Pisarev speaks of his professors and faculty comrades in sharp pamphlet tones. He speaks ironically about his studies at the university. During his student years, Pisarev dreamed of an academic career. He became close to a circle of capable students of philology, one of his comrades at that time was the later famous literary critic L. N. Maikov. The members of this circle cultivated the interests of "pure academic science"; they kept aloof from political questions.
But in the same years, Pisarev's ideological searches first appeared. At the university, he studied a lot and successfully, received serious training in the field of history and philology. His first published work was an essay published in 1860 in the "Collection published by students of St. Petersburg University", devoted to the characterization of the famous German idealist philologist W. Humboldt. Graduating from the university, Pisarev chose a characteristic episode from the history of the decay of the slave-owning society in the Roman Empire as the topic of his Ph.D. The later works of Pisarev show how deep and versatile the historical knowledge he received was. But the main thing was not that.
With the development of revolutionary events in the early sixties, with the emergence of a democratic movement among the then students, a feeling of dissatisfaction with the environment, a painful consciousness of the impossibility of following the previously chosen path, was brewing and growing stronger in Pisarev. By the end of his stay at the university, Pisarev, according to his own confessions and according to the testimony of his fellow students, was increasingly moving away from the circle of philological students, in which narrowly specialized interests dominated. He is now attracted by a wide field of social activity, literary work; the range of interests is rapidly expanding, the feeling of living life takes its toll. A serious spiritual crisis is brewing, which soon took place in Pisarev.
Personal experiences also contributed to the brewing of this crisis. In 1858, Pisarev became seriously interested in his cousin, R. A. Koreneva. Love was unhappy: Pisarev's relatives were against her. This first serious encounter between Pisarev and his family also played a significant role in his spiritual development.
From the beginning of 1859, while still a university student, Pisarev began to collaborate in the journal Dawn, which had a characteristic subtitle: "A Journal of Sciences, Arts and Literature for Adult Girls." It was published by a certain V. A. Kremshsh, an artillery officer by education. Krempin's Journal was one of those pedagogical publications that was undertaken so often in the 1860s and usually had such a short existence. The journal's direction was not clear. Pisarev himself later aptly described it as "sweet, but decent." However, a number of progressive writers were involved in the journal's collaboration. One of the main roles fell to the share of the young man Pisarev: he led the literary-critical department in the magazine. Fascinated by the new work, Pisarev wrote a lot for the magazine. These were lively and cleverly composed reviews of articles from various journals of the time, talented short analyzes of new literary works. In them, Pisarev sought to acquaint young readers with the most important news of journalism, criticism and fiction, accustom them to conscious, serious reading, instill in them the right aesthetic taste, inspire them with progressive ideas about education, about the role and appointment of women in society.
Work in the journal was fruitful for Pisarev. By his own admission, one year of cooperation in "Dawn" did more good for his mental development than two years of intensive studies at the university. Pisarev's articles and reviews in Dawn give an idea of this peculiar preparatory period of his critical activity. With a relatively narrow range of topics, determined by the specific purpose and direction of the journal, the young critic showed here both a significant breadth of his interests and a good acquaintance with the latest literature. True, these first works do not yet give us the right to talk about Pisarev's democratic and materialistic convictions, but they reflect some of the progressive aspirations of that time.
Pisarev appears here as a supporter of the emancipation of women. In a review of the "Paris Letters" by M. L. Mikhailov, an ardent defender of women's rights, Pisarev shares his solidarity with the author. He develops the view that the area of conscious labor should be open to a woman, that she can fulfill her role of wife and mother well only if she is a man’s comrade in labor, if she lives by the vital interests that concern modern society. The pedagogical statements of the young Pisarev are also progressive. He advocates a broad, serious education, against coercion and a passive attitude towards "authorities".
The most interesting of the works of this period are three small critical articles devoted to the analysis of "Oblomov", "The Nest of Nobles" and the story of Leo Tolstoy "Three Deaths". Pisarev gives them a subtle critical assessment of these works, shows the originality of the artistic manner of each of the writers. For him, these works are important because they give a true realistic picture of reality. Pisarev's awakening democratic sentiments find expression in Oblomov's characterization as a product of "old Russian life", as a typical representative of the nobility. These sentiments are also expressed in a lively sympathy for the liberation of women. The general appreciation of the novel as a deeply artistic and topical work, especially the interpretation of the image of Olga Ilyinskaya, agrees in the most essential with what we find in Dobrolyubov's well-known article on Goncharov's novel. The assessment of "The Noble Nest" is also indicative, especially the analysis of the character of Lisa Kalitina. Condemning the mysticism that gripped her, Pisarev directly points out that the tragic fate of Liza is explained by the fact that her personality was formed under the influence of the characteristic elements of the landowner's environment, that Liza "walks along a false and dangerous road" leading her to spiritual death. Analyzing Tolstoy's story, Pisarev particularly appreciates his talent as an artist-psychologist. The recognition of nationality and realism as the main virtues of a literary work clearly appears in these three articles.
However, these early articles by Pisarev still lack the political poignancy of their conclusions. They find a place for vague, indefinite assessments, on the whole still far from a revolutionary-democratic view of the phenomena and types of modern life. Pisarev, for example, reacted uncritically to the image of Stolz. In agreement with Goncharov, he took Stolz as a model of a practical figure who can renew life, bring it out of stagnation. Oblomov's characterization often strays into abstract "universal" motives.
For a year of work in the journal "Rassvet" Pisarev entered the circle of active scientific and literary interests, thoroughly got acquainted with the best works of Russian and foreign fiction and scientific literature and criticism. In his early articles, one can already see an acquaintance with the works of Belinsky. Under the influence of Belinsky's ideas, Pisarev becomes a staunch supporter of the realistic trend in Russian literature. In one of his reviews in 1859, he highly appreciated the importance of Gogol for our literature. “Gogol was our first folk, exclusively Russian poet,” it says there, no one understood better than him all the shades of Russian life and the Russian character, no one depicted Russian society so amazingly correctly; the best contemporary figures in our literature can be called Gogol’s followers; their works bear the stamp of his influence, the traces of which will probably remain on Russian literature for a long time to come." (D. I. Pisarev, Works, ed. 5, vol. I, St. Petersburg 1909, p. 34.)
But, according to Pisarev himself, even at that time "a remnant of the past, a dead dogma, still hung" over his head. In the article "Our University Science", from which the words quoted here are taken, he points out, recalling the time of his work in Rassvet, that he still "disavowed the example of Dobrolyubov", did not understand the significance of his activities. The aspirations of the young critic split between the prospect of a quiet academic career as a philologist and a stormy journal activity. Without a doubt, the general character and direction of the journal Rassvet limited Pisarev's development. Work in such a magazine could not satisfy him for a long time. In the very environment in which he then rotated, there were no persons yet, rapprochement with which would give the final impetus to the formation of a new worldview.
Meanwhile, a serious crisis was already brewing in Pisarev's mind. The foundations of the old view of the environment were shaken and began to disintegrate, and the perception of new ideas was not yet fully prepared. This crisis brought an impressionable young man to a serious mental shock. By the end of 1859, Pisarev experienced that tense and enthusiastic state when, in his own words, he looked at himself as some kind of titan, Prometheus, who had stolen the sacred fire. An attack to the limit of intense energy was followed by a sharp decline in strength. In the spring of 1860, Pisarev became mentally ill and spent several months in a hospital.
In the summer of the same year, having recovered from a mental breakdown, Pisarev takes up literary work with renewed vigor. His plans expand, become bolder. The first test of strength after recovery was an article about the writings of Marko Vovchka. In it, Pisarev conceived not only to give a detailed critical analysis of the novels and stories of the famous Ukrainian democratic writer, but also to state his general view of literature. This article is a typical phenomenon of a transitional moment in Pisarev's development. Indicative is the very appeal to the works of Marko Vovchka, dedicated to the depiction of people from the people and imbued with deep sympathy for the working people, hostility to feudal oppression. The work of M. Vovchka was highly appreciated by Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. Pisarev was not yet able to rise to that militant, revolutionary-democratic assessment and interpretation of these stories, which distinguishes Dobrolyubov's article "Features for the Characteristics of the Russian Common People", which appeared in the autumn of that year. But in Pisarev's article, a protest against routine and stagnation sounds stronger than before, a sober, realistic attitude to life and its demands is more clearly expressed. However, Pisarev, obviously, was not yet able to fully cope with the broad tasks that he set for himself here, and the article remained unfinished.
In 1861 Pisarev graduated from the university. At the beginning of this year, he became a permanent contributor to the Russian Word magazine.
II
Pisarev was an employee of the Russian Word for five years. These are the years of his most intense literary-critical and journalistic activity, the time when his worldview took shape and strengthened, and his works attracted everyone's attention. It was at this time that Pisarev became one of the "rulers of thoughts" of the younger generation of the sixties. But a careful analysis of the numerous works of Pisarev, published in the "Russian Word", at the same time testifies to a very complex and often contradictory process of his spiritual growth and development. Two periods are clearly distinguished in this development of Pisarev as a critic of the Russian Word. One of them covers the first year of work in the journal, from the spring of 1861 to June 1862, when Pisarev was arrested and his activities temporarily ceased. The second period begins in 1863, when Pisarev's cooperation in the Russian Word resumed.
In the first year of work in the journal, Pisarev published almost two dozen articles, not counting small reviews and translations. The range of these articles was varied. They raised philosophical questions, and questions of history, and questions of natural science, literary criticism occupied a large place. These were questions of the most vital importance for the social life of that time. From his first steps in the new journal, Pisarev entered into a tense struggle waged by democratic journalism at the time against the forces of reaction. He expressed his views on the most acute and complex issues of modern reality with his characteristic directness and immediacy. At the same time, with the help of transparent allusions, analogies and vivid allegories, and sometimes expressive omissions, he was able to bypass the barriers that the tsarist censorship constantly erected in front of democratic literature.
Already in the first articles published in Russkoye Slovo in 1861, we have before us a democrat by conviction, ardently pursuing a certain range of ideas. How this transition of the critic to democratic positions took place, we can judge primarily on the basis of laconic, but decisive explanations of Pisarev himself. “In 1860,” the article “Mistakes of Immature Thought” says, “a rather sharp turn took place in my development. Heine became my favorite poet, and in Heine’s writings I began to like the sharpest notes of his laughter most of all. From Heine, the transition to Moleschott and natural science in general, and then there is a straight road to consistent realism and the strictest utilitarianism. In 1865, Sovremennik published a letter to the editor of V. D. Pisareva, the mother of the critic. In this letter, either written by the critic himself, who was then imprisoned, or in any case reviewed and approved by him, the influence of the editor of the Russian Word, G. E. Blagosvetlov, was pointed out as one of the factors that determined the change in Pisarev's worldview. However, somewhat later, in the article "Let's See!", Pisarev says that the ground for this had already been prepared in him by the time he joined Russkoe Slovo. It is indisputable that everything indicated by Pisarev played a certain role in his spiritual development. It is no coincidence that cooperation
Pisarev in the "Russian Word" began with the placement of his translation of Heine's poem "Atta Troll". Heine's irony and sarcasm, merciless ridicule of the moribund world, false authorities, romantic and liberal illusions could not fail to capture Pisarev during a period of acute spiritual crisis. Fruitful for the development and strengthening of Pisarev's materialistic views was his subsequent appeal to works on natural science. Pisarev's transfer to the Russkoe Slovo magazine was to have an even more significant significance.
This journal began to be published in 1859 at the expense of the philanthropist Count Kushelev-Bezborodko. At first, the magazine's positions were extremely vague and did not go beyond the boundaries of moderate liberalism. Things changed when, in 1860, the democratic publicist G. E. Blagosvetlov, who was close to revolutionary circles, became its editor. It was he who first appreciated Pisarev as an outstanding critic and publicist. The magazine "Russian Word" united a close circle of like-minded, combative and talented writers. N. V. Shelgunov, a well-known progressive democratic thinker, a student of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, a satirist poet D. D. Minaev, a talented young economist N. V. Sokolov, and a critic V. A. Zaitsev collaborated in it. The magazine published their works Ch. Uspensky, Reshetnikov and other democratic writers. By the mid-1860s, Russkoye Slovo had acquired a particularly strong influence on democratic youth.
But the journal owed this influence primarily to Pisarev's activities in it. Coming to the journal, he soon won the position of the first critic in it, and became, ideologically, the guiding force of the journal.
This gives us the right to conclude that by the beginning of permanent cooperation in Russkoye Slovo, a decisive turn in Pisarev's views had already taken place: they were sufficiently determined and matured.
There is no doubt that the most important factor that determined the ideological evolution of Pisarev, his arrival in the camp of revolutionary democracy, was the high rise of the democratic movement that the country experienced in 1860-1861. The works of Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov had a decisive influence on the ideological maturation of Pisarev. Clear signs of their influence are already visible in his first articles in Russkoye Slovo. On the pages of the magazine, he speaks in defense of Chernyshevsky's views, in defense of Sovremennik. Together with Sovremennik, he is fighting against reactionary and liberal journalism. He deeply sympathizes with the activities of Herzen.
True, Pisarev's critical thought followed its own paths. He was not a simple interpreter of the views of Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. Not everything in their ideological program he unconditionally accepted. Furthermore. On some significant issues, he disagreed with the conclusions of the critics of Sovremennik. This was also reflected in his works relating to the first period of cooperation in the Russian Word.
What were the most important features of Pisarev's worldview during this period of his activity? One of his first articles in Russkoye Slovo was the article "Plato's Idealism". It expresses views on the main issue of philosophy - the relation of consciousness to matter.
With the development of the democratic movement in Russia, the defense and substantiation of the materialistic worldview became of paramount importance. The revolutionary democrats of the 1840s and 1860s were staunch materialists. They resolutely opposed idealism and gave materialist philosophy the character of a militant, active world outlook. Based on the best traditions of advanced philosophical thought, having creatively accepted the ideas of the French Enlighteners of the 18th century and the outstanding German philosopher L. Feuerbach, they further developed materialistic views on nature and man. Defending and developing materialism in philosophy, the revolutionary democrats substantiated the need for society to move forward, the legitimacy and inevitability of its democratic reorganization. A remarkable feature of the philosophy of the Russian revolutionary democrats was their desire to free themselves from the metaphysical approach to the phenomena of reality, from the abstract, enlightening view of man and his activity. True, due to the backwardness of the social system, due to the absence in Russia of that time of a formed revolutionary class - the proletariat - they were unable to develop a complete materialistic understanding of history.
Pisarev, Yuri Alekseevich
Genus. 1916, mind. 1993. Historian, specialist in the history of international relations, labor and national liberation movements in the Balkans at the beginning. 20th century Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1987). Since 1992 he has been a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Pisarev, Yuri Alekseevich
Full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1992), worked at the Institute of Slavic and Balkan Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; born March 26, 1916; graduated in 1941 from Leningrad State University; main areas of scientific activity: modern and recent history of the countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe; Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1987); died in 1993
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CREATION OF THE YUGOSLAV STATE IN 1918:
HISTORY LESSONS
Yu.A. Pisarev,
corresponding member RAS
Now, when the whole world was agitated by the terrible events in Yugoslavia, it is important to remember how the Yugoslav state was created at the end of the First World War, what tasks at that time faced the peoples united in a single power and try to answer the question: were there already then the reasons for the current conflict or. on the contrary, what is happening today is a product of the separatism of certain parts of Yugoslavia, and in 1918 the foundations were laid for the existence of a viable and legal state.
BACKGROUND OF THE QUESTION
The state of Yugoslavia was formed as a result of the unification of a number of Yugoslav lands. Among them were both independent states - Serbia, Montenegro, and the lands that were part of Austria-Hungary - Croatia. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Slovenia and others
The path of the Yugoslav peoples to state independence was long.
On June 28, 1389, the army of the medieval Serbian state fell on the Kosovo field, defeated by the hordes of the troops of the Turkish Sultan Murad I. Since then, a dark night of foreign domination has descended over Serbia for many centuries. Only in 1878, after devastating wars with the Turks, Serbia finally gained independence.
Montenegro for a number of centuries defended its independence in the wars against the Ottoman Empire, and only after the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. strengthened its statehood.
As for Croatia and Slovenia, they lost their independence in the Middle Ages. Croatia in 1102 was included in the Kingdom of Hungary on the basis of a personal union, and in the 16th century. Hungary itself fell under the rule of the Habsburgs. At the same time, the territories where the Slovenes lived began to belong to the Habsburgs. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was divided into two parts: the Austrian, or Cisleithania. and Hungarian, or Transleitania, the conditional borders between which passed along the Leyte River. Both of these parts were formally equal, although in fact Austria had a number of advantages over Hungary. The Austrian part included Slovenia, Istria, Styria, Carinthia, and Croatia was part of the Hungarian part. Slavonia, Dalmatia. The population of these lands was mixed; Serbs professed, like their brothers in Serbia, Orthodoxy, Croats and Slovenes - Catholicism.
In 1868 an additional agreement was signed between Hungary and Croatia - the so-called "nagodba". which granted the latter additional rights that were not available in other Yugoslav lands, Croatia retained its historical name "Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia", received the right to elect the local parliament - the Sabor, to create its own government headed by the bearer of state power - the ban. Croatia sent its representatives to the Hungarian parliament, had a national banner, a state emblem, and local governments. However, it never became an independent state. largely subordinate to Hungary. The crown, in addition to the ban, appointed its representative to Croatia - the governor or the royal commissioner, the Hungarian parliament could suspend any law adopted by the Croatian Sabor, and the fiscal apparatus, the gendarmerie and the highest officials consisted only of Hungarians. Croatia did not have its own army, was deprived of the right to conduct international affairs.
Even fewer rights were granted to the Yugoslav regions in Cisleitania. The population of Slovenia, Istria, Styria and other lands elected their local legislative parliaments - Landtags and executive authorities, but were under the supreme control of the governors, who were appointed by Vienna. There was an inequality in the norms of representation in the Austrian Reichsrat. Slovenia actually did not participate in the work of the Austrian government.
The fate of both Bosnians and Herzegovinians was not easy. Back in the 15th century. Bosnia and Herzegovina were conquered by the Turks, in 1878 they were occupied by Austria-Hungary, and in 1908 they were finally included in its composition. The population of Bosnia and Herzegovina (most of them were Turkified Serbs, called "Muslims") was infringed on their civil rights. These areas were called the Reichsland and were under the jurisdiction of both Austria and Hungary. The supreme executive power in the country belonged to the governor-general, who was also the commander of the military district. The competence of local authorities was extremely limited, the provincial parliament - the Sabor in Bosnia - was created only in 1910.
The acquisition of freedom and independence, the revival of statehood has become the task of many Yugoslav peoples.
The system of dualism became more and more obsolete. It hindered the development of the productive forces and caused discontent among the Yugoslav political parties. Only the block ruling in Croatia - the Croatian-Serbian coalition - continued to support the 1868 agreement. The rest of the parties advocated a revision of this system, leaning towards trialism. those. to grant the Yugoslav territories equal rights with Austria and Hungary. These demands were half-hearted, since the parties of the Yugoslav lands did not raise the issue of creating an independent state, limiting themselves to its solution within the framework of the Habsburg monarchy. The social democratic parties of Croatia, Slavonia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina also took a reformist position. Their program provisions also did not go beyond the demands for the expansion of the cultural and national autonomy of the Yugoslav territories.
Significant changes in the political programs of the Yugoslav parties began to be introduced only during the First World War, which deepened the crisis of the dualistic system.
WORLD WAR I AND THE YUGOSLAV QUESTION
The First World War led to a new alignment of political forces in the Balkans. Bulgaria joined the Central Coalition. Serbia and Montenegro - to the Entente, Romania and Greece announced their observance of neutrality. Serbia, attacked by Austria-Hungary, waged a war of liberation, defending its independence. On December 7, 1914, she adopted the Nis Declaration, in which she formulated the goals of the war. This document stated that Serbia would fight for the liberation "still unliberated Yugoslav territories of Austria-Hungary".
The war was a catalyst for historical processes in Austria-Hungary. The very entry into the war of the Danube empire, poorly prepared for military operations, and the defeat at the front that it suffered after the very first battles, dispelled many of the illusions of the Yugoslav political parties about the possibility of implementing the planned transformations.
Defeatist sentiments appeared even among the ruling circles of the empire. .Count Ottokar Chernin. the future first minister and minister of foreign affairs (1916-1918), considered the entry of the empire into the war "suicide". "You can't foresee he wrote, what form the disintegration of the monarchy would have taken if war could have been avoided. But it would certainly be less terrible. We were doomed to die and had to die. But we could choose the kind of death, and we chose the most painful death."
Many shared the same view. In Croatia, one of the leading political organizations - Ante Starčević's Croatian Party of Rights, named after its founder, already in the autumn of 1914 proposed a truce. On October 13, the party's organ newspaper Khrvat published an article entitled "F. M. Dostoevsky on the War", which included excerpts from the Writer's Diary. The great Russian writer mercilessly castigated the militant Prussian chauvinism of the 70s of the 19th century. and condemned Bismarck's policies. The newspaper asked the question: does Austria-Hungary need conquests, for which they will have to pay with the blood of millions of people?
In Slovenia, writers Ivan Cankar and Oton Zupancic made anti-war works. They chose the genre of allegorical tales. So, Tsankar, in a small but extremely powerful historical story-legend "King Matthias", presented the Slavic people in the form of an ancient hero who passionately awaits the end of the war and dreams of liberation from a foreign yoke.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, writers Ivo Andric, Aleksa Šantic, Svetozar Corovic and others protested against the attack of Austria-Hungary on Serbia.
In a number of regions of Austria-Hungary, primarily in those where the Serb population lived - in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bačka, Sirmia (Srema), Banat and Slavonia, there was a transition of peasants and youth to the side of Serbia. Only in 1914, 35 thousand volunteers entered the Serbian troops
Great concern in Austria-Hungary was caused by the defeat of its troops in December 1914 from the Serbs in the battle on the Kolubara River. In these battles, the Austro-Hungarian troops lost almost a third of their composition. "During the Battle of Kolubara- wrote the English newspaper "Morning Post", - entire battalions of Austro-Hungarian troops refused to fight". There were cases when the troops, consisting of the Serbs of Hungary, did not go into battle even under the threat of execution. "Austrians. - wrote the Charge d'Affaires of Russia in Serbia V.N. Strandtman, - shelled their hastily retreating units with artillery fire". The Hungarian publicist Magyar Lajos wrote that already in the autumn of 1914, a "psychological breakdown", the successes of Serbian and Russian weapons dispelled the myth of the possibility of an easy victory for the imperial army. The military defeats of the Austro-Hungarian forces followed one after another. In 1916, they suffered a crushing loss during the Brusilov offensive. In 1917, up to 3 million soldiers and officers of the Austro-Hungarian army turned out to be in Russian captivity, and a significant part surrendered voluntarily. they were achieved thanks to the German troops.
For the first time during the war years, a significant part of the political and public figures of Croatia, Slovenia and Dalmatia began to focus on the victory in the war of Serbia and the powers of the Entente. Back in 1915, an organization of emigrants from Austria-Hungary, the Yugoslav Committee, was created in Paris, which soon moved to London, where it launched a broad anti-Austrian campaign. The Committee, headed by a prominent Croatian public figure, Dr. Ante Trumbich, founded its branches in Switzerland, Russia, France and in the countries of North and South America. He established connections both with political parties in Austria-Hungary itself and with the Serbian government. The Committee proclaimed the unity of the three Yugoslav peoples - Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, calling them one nation with three names, and spoke in favor of the possibility of their unification into an independent state outside the framework of the Habsburg monarchy.
The Yugoslav parties in Austria-Hungary itself continued to stand on their former positions of preserving the monarchy, not rising above the demands for the creation of territorial-national autonomy.
The February Revolution in Russia had a great influence on these parties. The ruling circles of Austria-Hungary were shocked and frightened by the ease of destroying the Russian monarchy. The emperor himself was alarmed. The Governor-General of Bosnia and Herzegovina, General Stefan Sarkotić, wrote in his diary on March 19, 1917: "Yesterday I visited the young emperor, who said that thoughts about the world occupy him day and night ... Turning to a conversation about the Russian revolution, he said that he assesses it as an event whose consequences are difficult to foresee". "Russian revolution, - Chernin stated in a secret report to Karl Habsburg on April 12. - affects our Slavs".
Even the most conservative leaders of the Yugoslav parties were forced to admit that after the overthrow of tsarism in Russia, it became impossible to govern the country by the old methods. "In our time, - stated one of the functionaries of the Slovenian People's Party (clerics), Ljubljana Bishop Anton Eglich Bonaventure, - the ranks of the democratic trend are growing, the influence of the Russian revolution is growing ... We need to change our old methods". Yeglich noted that the program provision of the Russian Provisional Government on granting peoples the right to self-determination had a great influence on the Yugoslavs. The idea of separatism, he said, could be used by "Serbian propaganda." Jeglich called for the expansion of the autonomy of Slovenia and other national lands of Austria-Hungary
The leaders of the Slovenian People's Party, Janez Krek and Anton Korošets, proposed considering the issue of joining Croatia to Slovenia and granting the newly created association the same rights as Austria and Hungary.
On May 30, Koroshets read out in the Reichsrat the programmatic declaration of the party, in which provisions were put forward on the unification of all territories inhabited by Slovenes, Croats and Serbs within the framework of the monarchy. The "May Declaration" - this was the name of this document - was a step forward compared to the previous programs of the party, but it still did not put forward demands for the separation of Slovenia and other lands from the Habsburg monarchy. The programs of political parties in Croatia were of the same character. All these organizations continued to stand on the position of preserving the Danubian empire. Fundamental changes in the political line of the bourgeois Yugoslav parties took place only at the very end of the war.
The October Revolution in Russia had a significant influence on these parties, especially the provisions put forward by it on the conclusion of a general democratic peace without annexations and indemnities and on the right of nations to self-determination up to state secession. On November 12, the Croatian newspaper Narodne Novine published an article under the heading "Russia's Peace Proposals", which raised the question of the possibility of implementing these slogans in Austria-Hungary as well. The next day, a similar article appeared in the organ of the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the newspaper Glas Sloboda, and on November 14, in the newspaper Dom, published in Zagreb by the Popular Peasant Party of Stjepan Radić, which is popular in Croatia. In the article "A New Stage in the Russian Revolution," the newspaper noted that Russia had withdrawn from the war, adopted a decree on the transfer of land to the peasants, and implemented a number of measures in favor of the working people. Soon the People's Peasant Party was renamed into "Republican".
Changes were also taking place in Slovenia. The leader of the Slovenian People's Party, Anton Koroshets, made an interpellation in the Austrian Reichsrat on December 8 on the legitimacy of maintaining the outdated system of dualism in the empire. "Can it be considered that there is equality and freedom in Austria if the Austrians, who constitute a minority of the population, have the majority of mandates in the Reichsrat, while the Slavs are almost devoid of representation, although they outnumber the Austrians?" he asked. Another functionary of this party, V. Spincic, said: "We do not want the power of the Germans, Hungarians or Italians. We do not want any foreign power at all. We want the freedom of the nation"
December 18 Czech Union. The Yugoslav faction and the Ukrainian faction in the Reichsrat jointly demanded that their representatives be included in the Austro-Hungarian delegation at the Brest-Litovsk peace talks with Soviet Russia. "We want, the statement said, that peace be made between peoples and nations". The Austro-Hungarian government managed with difficulty to delay the further development of the crisis in the country. However, in October 1918 it broke out with renewed vigor. Its main reason was the catastrophic defeat of the Austro-Hungarian army at the front and the revolutionary movements of the masses in the rear. Both historical events are described in comparative detail in the literature: on November 3, the Austro-Hungarian army capitulated. On November 10, the monarchy was overthrown in Austria, on November 16 - in Hungary. The Habsburg Empire ceased to exist, and national states began to be created on its ruins.
CORF DECLARATION -
NEW PROGRAM FOR THE CREATION OF THE YUGOSLAVIC STATE
At this time, Serbia, on the contrary, consolidated its forces. and its army, on September 15, 1918, going on the offensive on the Thessaloniki front, began to liberate the homeland, occupied in 1915 by the countries of the Central Coalition. In the rear of the occupying troops, a liberation movement of the Serbian and Montenegrin peoples unfolded. At the end of September, Bulgaria capitulated, where an uprising of the soldier masses broke out. On November 1, Serbian troops entered the liberated capital Belgrade. who, developing the offensive, began to liberate Vojvodina. Montenegro, advancing to the borders of Croatia.
By this time, the Serbian government had developed a new program for solving the Yugoslav question, having coordinated it with the emigrant Yugoslav Committee. According to the Corfu Declaration, signed on July 20, 1917 by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Serbia, Nikola Pasic, and the Chairman of the Yugoslav Committee, Ante Trumbich. It was envisaged the creation of a united Yugoslav state, which was supposed to include Serbia. Montenegro and the Yugoslav lands of Austria-Hungary: Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and others. The head of state was supposed to elect a representative of the Serbian dynasty Karageorgievich, and the state itself was called the "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes."
The Corfu Declaration proceeded from the principle of observance of constitutional rights and political freedoms and the complete equality of the three peoples - Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, recognized freedom of religion: Orthodox. Catholic and Muslim (for Turkified Serbs). According to the declaration, the supreme legislative power was exercised by the national parliament - the People's Assembly, elected by the entire population of the country on the basis of equal and universal suffrage by direct and secret ballot. Executive power, according to the declaration, belonged to the government, responsible to the monarch, and locally - to self-government bodies.
The Corfu Declaration, however, was missing a number of important provisions. So. it bypassed the issue of the rights of national minorities - Macedonians, Albanians, Hungarians and other peoples. Nothing was said about the competence of local self-government bodies, there was no clause on the rights of the parliaments and governments of Croatia, Slovenia, Dalmatia and other national regions. The document did not specify the provision on the prerogatives of the monarch, and the question of the formation of the legislative power was postponed until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.
Along with the Corfu Declaration in the Yugoslav lands of Austria-Hungary at the end of the war, there were other programs for solving the Yugoslav question, which were less radical in their views. The military defeat of the Habsburg monarchy and the revolution that broke out in the country forced the Yugoslav bourgeois parties to raise the question of taking power.
"STATE OF SLOVENS, CROATS AND SERBS"
The Slovenian parties were the first to undertake this task. On August 16, 1918, they formed the People's Council, the majority of which belonged to the Slovenian People's Party (clericals). On October 5, the People's Council of Croatia arose in Zagreb, which became the representative body of all Yugoslav lands and received the functions of a coordinating center. Bourgeois authorities also arose in Dalmatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in Bačka, Banat and Srem. where many nationalities lived, not one, but several national committees were created - Croatian, Serbian, Hungarian and Romanian.
For a long time, the central and local people's veche did not begin to perform direct functions, waiting for how events would develop, continuing to cooperate with the Austro-Hungarian authorities. In Croatia, the former ban Mikhalevich became the head of government, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the governor-general of the province, General Sarkotić, continued to be listed as the commander of the military district. The Habsburg monarchy, in turn, tried to retain power until the last moment. On October 16, Emperor Charles issued a manifesto on the transformation of Cisleithania into a federation, without extending this rescript to Transleithania. This half-hearted solution could not satisfy either Austria or Hungary, much less the Yugoslav peoples. It led to the actual rupture of historical ties. The manifesto of Karl Habsburg turned out to be unacceptable for the powers of the Entente and the USA. US President Wilson said on October 18 that it is now too late to play federalism - the peoples want full independence.
The break with Austria-Hungary was announced by the national committees: Yugoslav. Czech, Polish, Galician-Ukrainian and Romanian. On October 29, the People's Council in Zagreb issued an official declaration of readiness to take power into their own hands. This decision was supported by the Croatian-Serbian coalition, which had previously collaborated with the Hungarian government, after which the People's Council proclaimed the creation of the "State of Slovenes. Croats and Serbs", stating that it extends its power to all the South Slavic lands of the former Austria-Hungary. The "coup d'etat," as it is called in bourgeois historiography, took place peacefully, without the participation of the broad masses of the people. Executive power was transferred from hand to hand by the old apparatus of the Habsburg monarchy. Many senior officers of the Austro-Hungarian army and officials of the Hungarian royal service went over to the side of the People's Council. The naval base in Pola, commanded by Admiral Miklos Horthy, the future dictator of Hungary, was transferred to the People's Council.
The People's Council did not express its attitude towards the overthrow of the Habsburg monarchy, confining itself to a statement about secession from Austria-Hungary.
The new organs of power were established not democratically with the help of popular elections, but from above - by the bourgeois parties themselves, who co-opted their representatives in them. The leader of the Slovenian clerics, Anton Koroshets, became the chairman of the People's Council, and the leader of the Croatian-Serbian coalition, Svetozar Pribichevich, a Serb by nationality, became the deputy chairman.
In terms of its social composition, the People's Council was a representation of the large and medium Croatian, Slovene and Serbian bourgeoisie and intelligentsia. It received the support of these layers, who provided financial assistance to the new government in the form of an indefinite loan of 1 million crowns. The People's Council was also supported by the Catholic Church (the Orthodox Church abstained). The social reformists declared their cooperation with the bourgeois authorities, who, however, received secondary positions in the administrative apparatus. The left socialists of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the contrary, refused to contact the bourgeois authorities and began to support the Zagreb Workers' Council. They also had influence in a number of local governments in Rijeka (Fiume), Karlovac, Osijek, Pakrac, Varaždin and elsewhere in Croatia.
The created "State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs" (State of SHS) turned out to be unviable. It lasted only one month and two days and failed to fulfill any of its promises. The planned agrarian reform was never carried out, social measures in favor of the working people were announced but not carried out, the announced elections to local authorities did not take place. The People's Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs has not received official international recognition. Only two governments - Hungary and Serbia - sent their representatives to Zagreb, who, however, did not have official status.
The people's council failed to get out of the war. On October 31, it declared its neutrality, but the Entente powers and the United States continued the war until the surrender of Austria-Hungary. Italy participated in the occupation of Dalmatia and the Croatian Littoral and after it, referring to the London Treaty of 1915, according to which these lands were recognized as an Italian sphere of influence.
Local people's veche did not obey the central one. A vivid picture of the activities of the People's Council in Novi Sad was drawn by one of its members, M. Petrovich. In his memoirs, he wrote: "The state authorities ceased to exist, and the locals were powerless ... We gathered daily at 4-5 pm. Everyone said what he wanted and how much he wanted. Sometimes even about what was gossip in the city. Some of us noticed that if the writer Branislav Nusic were co-opted to the committee, then brilliant satirical material would be found for him".
Anarchy continued to reign in the state, caused by war and revolution. In some areas, instead of the disintegrated Austro-Hungarian army, rebel detachments operated. "Ljubljana People's Council, - recalled the Slovenian publicist A. Prepelukh-Adbitus, - had no more than a hundred soldiers and officers. Caught and detained during the day, soldiers returning from the front dispersed to their villages at night. The guards, set up in the evening, disappeared God knows where. In the morning they found only a rifle leaning against the wall in the guardroom.. November 4 began the invasion of Italian troops in Dalmatia. Istria, Croatian Primorye. The Italians captured the navy based in the harbor of Pula, as well as the ports of Trieste, Kotaro, Zadar and Split, and began to threaten the main city of Slovenia, Ljubljana.
The people's council asked Serbia, England, France and the United States to send their troops to the Adriatic coast to neutralize the actions of the Italians. It also pursued another goal - to hinder the development of the revolutionary movement in the country. Responding to the call of the People's Council. US Secretary of State Robert Lansing wrote: "It is necessary to apply paragraph 4 of the armistice agreement(with Austria-Hungary. - Yu.P.}, for only the Allied occupation of the former Austria-Hungary can stop a movement which, as in Russia, threatens the foundations of society".
To strengthen the defense of the "state" from Serbia, a military mission was sent to Zagreb, headed by Colonel Dusan Simovic, the future Minister of War of Yugoslavia. He formed a detachment of troops that took part in the defense of Ljubljana, Podravina and Styria, preventing the occupation of these areas not only by Italian, but also by Austrian troops.
In November, Pasic made an attempt to discuss with representatives of the People's Council and the Yugoslav Committee the question of creating a joint government. To this end, he came to Geneva, where he met with Koroshetz and Trumbich. During the negotiations, which took place on November 6-10, an agreement was reached on the formation of an interim government in Paris for subsequent discussion of the issue of creating a coalition cabinet with the allies.
However, this decision was not implemented. Both sides spoke out against him: Prince Regent Alexander, who did not want to postpone the creation of the Yugoslav state until a peace conference, and the People's Council. who did not agree to a coalition with both the Serbian government and the Yugoslav Committee.
A week later, the People's Council changed its mind and itself began to look for ways to rapprochement with Serbia. This new move by Zagreb was prompted by a change in the situation in Dalmatia, Slovenia and the Croatian Littoral, where Italian troops were expanding their occupation of the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, as well as a sharp deterioration in the political atmosphere in the country.
ON THE WAY TO UNITE WITH SERBIA
By mid-November, the internal political crisis in the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs reached its climax. 12 local self-government bodies stepped out of obedience to the central authorities, an independent republic was created in Banja Luka (Bosnia), and complete anarchy reigned in a number of regions. The People's Council was greatly concerned about the insecurity of the state's borders. In Dalmatia, Italian troops captured one territory after another, Austrian troops concentrated on the border of Austria and Slovenia, and Hungarian military units in Banat.
Food difficulties arose everywhere, and rail transport did not work well. Here is how a member of the local People's Council M. Petrovich described the situation with transport in Vojvodina: “Thousands of Austro-Hungarian troops from Serbia passed through Novi Sad every day, and as many, and maybe more, from Austria-Hungary to Serbia - former prisoners of war, internees and others. The sick arrived in cattle cars, where they often lay on bare boards, without bread. They traveled all day long, and many, never reaching Novi Sad, died. The corpses of the dead lay in the streets, on the banks of the Danube ".
On November 19, the regional government of Dalmatia presented an ultimatum to the central People's Council: in the next two weeks to resolve the issue of food supply to the country and take measures to prevent the invasion of Italian troops, saying that otherwise it would ask Belgrade to annex Dalmatia to Serbia. Following Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina made identical demands. Banat, Bačka, Srem and a number of local governments in Slavonia.
These intentions undermined the very foundations of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, depriving it of access to the Adriatic Sea, the fuel resources of Bosnia and the bread of Banat and Slavonia.
On November 24, a plenary session of the Central People's Council was convened to discuss the mentioned ultimatum. It was stormy. Members of the Croatian-Serbian coalition and most other parties were in favor of immediate unification with Serbia, while Slovenian clerics and two or three other organizations were against it. The positions of the parties were determined by their political and economic interests. The Croatian-Serbian coalition, reflecting the interests of the big bourgeoisie, which lost the Hungarian market after the collapse of the Danubian monarchy, was interested in a new market - in the Balkans, which it could acquire after unification with Serbia. The party of the middle and petty bourgeoisie and intelligentsia - the Slovenian clerics - feared competition from Serbian capital, as well as the hegemony of the Orthodox Church. The Croatian People's Republican Party of Stjepan Radić was opposed to the Karageorgievich monarchy and Serbian centralism, speaking in favor of a federal republic.
Some parties took a vacillating position. These included the Croatian Party of Rights of Ante Starčević. She either supported the supporters of unification with Serbia, or, on the contrary, was afraid of him. Its leaders made a rubber decision: "Let's enter the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as organized republicans, but let's hope that our republican beginnings will very soon lead to the democratization of the constitution"- stated in the resolution of the party. The Social Democrats took a similar position. Speaking in favor of a republic, they believed that for the time being it was not necessary to raise the question of the form of the state system and that it could be decided at a constituent assembly.
After long disputes, the People's Council adopted a resolution on the unification of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs with the Kingdom of Serbia, sending a representative delegation to Belgrade.
FORMATION OF THE YUGOSLAV STATE
On November 29, the delegation of the People's Council arrived in Belgrade. At first, she was going to make a number of additions to the program of negotiations with the Serbian government, expanding the rights of Croatia and Slovenia in the future state, but then she refused this, obediently signing the required document. Three circumstances influenced the change in the initial intentions of the delegation: the firm position of the Serbian government, which did not agree to make any additional concessions, a written demand from the chairman of the People's Council Korošets to sign an agreement with Serbia without any preconditions, and a message from the chairman of the Yugoslav Committee, Trumbich, that that at the forthcoming peace conference the Allies intend to deal only with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and not with the ephemeral "SHS State".
After that, the question of unification with Serbia was a foregone conclusion. The delegation of the People's Council presented a welcome address to the Prince Regent of Serbia, Alexander Karageorgievich, with a statement on the reunification of the Yugoslav lands of the former Austria-Hungary with the Serbian kingdom. Alexander made a return speech, swearing an oath to be faithful to the constitution and the crown.
The historic event has happened. It happened on December 1, 1918 at 8 o'clock in the evening in the residence of Prince Alexander on Terazija in the one-story mansion of the merchant Krshmanovich. The official part was rather casual, the regent's speech was solemn, but somewhat dry, the meeting was strictly businesslike.
The population of the Serbian capital, on the contrary, greeted the news of the creation of a united Yugoslav state with great enthusiasm. Crowds of people came to Therazia. A national holiday lasted for several days, three state flags were hung on the streets of Belgrade - Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian. The new state became known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (since 1929 - the Kingdom of Yugoslavia).
Soon a government of 20 ministers was formed. Serb Stojan Protich, the first assistant to Pashic, became the head of the cabinet, and Anton Koroshets, a Slovene, became his deputy. Croatian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ante Trumbich. Pasic was appointed head of the Yugoslav delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, Trumbich became his assistant, and the Slovenian Bogumil Voshnyak, former member of the board of the Yugoslav Committee, became the secretary of the delegation.
At first, all the Yugoslav lands were represented in the new government. Initially, local self-government bodies also remained. Bačka was also part of the kingdom. Srem and Western Banat, called "Vojvodina". The People's Assemblies convened in these countries in November spoke in favor of joining the new state. The Montenegrin Great National Assembly in the city of Podgorica on November 26 decided to depose the Petrovich-Negosh dynasty. Montenegro became part of the new state.
ALLIES AND THE CREATION OF THE YUGOSLAV STATE
France played an important role in the creation of the united state. England and USA. They not only defeated Austria-Hungary, which allowed the Yugoslav peoples to free themselves from foreign domination, but also took a direct part in the very formation of Yugoslavia.
At the beginning of the war, the Great Powers took a wait-and-see attitude on this issue, supporting Serbia only in her military efforts, but without expressing anything definite about her unionist plans to unite all the Yugoslav peoples. None of the allies officially approved the Nis Declaration of the Serbian Parliament of December 7, 1914, which proclaimed the task of annexing the Yugoslav lands of Austria-Hungary to Serbia. While fighting together with Serbia against Austria-Hungary, the Entente powers did not put forward the task of destroying the anarchy of the Habsburgs and creating new national states on its ruins. Against. England, France, and since 1917 the USA stood for the preservation of the multinational empire, limiting themselves to proposals for its reorganization on the basis of first national-territorial autonomy, and since 1918 - federalism. This was explained by the most strategic task of the Entente powers in the war - they hoped to split the Central Coalition, to persuade Austria-Hungary to their side, concentrating all efforts on the war with Germany.
Even at the beginning of 1918, the Allies continued to cherish these plans. So. On January 5, 1918, the Prime Minister of England, D. Lloyd George, in a speech at the Congress of British Trade Unions, stated: "The collapse of Austria-Hungary does not meet our military plans". The same was repeated in a message to Congress by American President Wilson on January 8: "The Habsburg Monarchy is an important bastion(in the East of Europe. - Yu. P.). The French government took a similar position until the end of the war. More active than other allies, supporting Serbia militarily, it postponed the decision to create a Yugoslav state until the end of the war.
Italy was opposed to the unification of Yugoslavia around the Serbian kingdom. Fearing the rivalry of Greater Serbia in the Adriatic basin and the Balkans, she advocated the preservation of the weak and scattered Yugoslav states: she supported the plans for the revival of Montenegro, spoke out for granting Croatia broad rights to autonomy, which did not prevent her from encroaching on Croatian territories.
Tsarist Russia was the only one of the great powers that advocated the creation of a strong and united Yugoslav state. Interested in creating its outpost in the Balkans, the Russian Empire encouraged the plans of the Serbian kingdom. However, at the beginning of the war, Russia did not officially support the Nis Declaration, and in 1915, together with England and France, participated in the signing of the secret London Treaty, which provided Italy with a number of Yugoslav territories. The imperialist interests of tsarism turned out to be stronger than considerations for an alliance with Serbia.
The departure of the Allies from their former position began in late 1916 - early 1917, when the war entered a new phase: Austria-Hungary in December 1916 undertook a sounding about the conclusion of peace, Germany in early 1917, on the contrary, unleashed an all-out submarine war, the United States joined the Entente in April 1917. significant changes took place in Russia after the overthrow of tsarism.
In July 1917, Serbia and the Yugoslav Committee in London came up with a new program for resolving the issue of creating a united Yugoslav state by signing the Corfu Declaration mentioned above. The allies did not immediately react to this document, but they could not remain in their previous positions either. The Provisional Government of Russia was the first to speak about the Corfu Declaration. It welcomed this document, which provided for the creation of a united and independent Yugoslav state, an equal union of all the peoples included in it - Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
In a welcoming telegram from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government, M.I. Tereshchenko said that "Democratic Russia supports the intentions of the participants in the Corfu Conference to unify the Yugoslavs on the basis of self-determination and legal recognition of mutual rights and consent of the political and economic interests of the peoples". After signing the Corfu Declaration, Tereshchenko sent Pasic a new telegram, officially confirming the position of the Provisional Government on the recognition of the "Pasic-Trumbich Agreement", which provided for the creation of a Serbo-Croat-Slovenian state.
The British government recognized the Corfu Declaration after much hesitation. At first, Lord Robert Cecil, Assistant Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, expressed doubts about the convening of the Corfu Conference. Upon learning of Trumbich and his colleagues' trip to Corfu, he asked Forinoffis employees; "Why are they doing that?" In November, speaking in Parliament, Lord Cecil spoke differently, endorsing the Corfu Declaration as "important democratic document".
The Italian government, as before, rejected the unionist plans of Serbia and the Yugoslav Committee. Italian Foreign Minister Sonnino called the declaration "a document hostile to Italy".
The French government took an ambivalent position. On the one hand, it continued to support the old idea of the possibility of preserving Austria-Hungary and solving the Yugoslav question within its framework. On the other hand, the ruling circles of France went to meet Serbia's plans to conquer the country's outlet to the Adriatic Sea and turn the Serbian kingdom into a strong maritime power.
23 July. immediately after the signing of the Corfu Declaration. The information department of the French General Staff prepared an analytical note "On the Political Situation in Austria-Hungary", in which an opinion was expressed on the Yugoslav question. The document handed over to Marshal Joffre stated: "The Allies did not undertake the obligation to unify the Yugoslavs into a single state of Serbs from the Kingdom and all Yugoslavs from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Unification with Serbia by annexing the lands - Croatia, Slovenia and Dalmatia, which are culturally superior to it - should not be desired in the interests of the Serbs themselves.The most that can be done for the Yugoslavs(Austria-Hungary. - Yu.P.). is to create an autonomous state. Serbia should get access to the sea by unification with Montenegro. She can also freely use the port of San Giovanni di Medua(in Albania. - Yu.P.} ... Austria must cede to her all of Bosnia and Herzegovina or part with access to the Adriatic Sea. including Dubrovnik and Kataro. In the end, the interests of Serbia would have to be secured through an economic convention with Greece, giving her free access to Thessaloniki".
As you can see, France, although it agreed that Austria-Hungary "may still exist", has already raised the question of annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia, as well as Dubrovnik and the sea harbor of Kataro. At the same time, the French government feared that Serbia would go for the annexation of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slovenia. Apparently, at this stage, it stood for the creation of two Yugoslav states - the Serbian kingdom, which swallowed Montenegro. part of Albania and part of Austria-Hungary, and united Slovenia and Croatia.
This plan. however, it did not last long: already at the end of 1918, a program was developed in France to unite all the Yugoslav lands of Austria-Hungary with Serbia.
The gradual reorientation of France and England towards Serbia is evidenced by the position of the French and British governments on the question of their attitude towards the Yugoslav Committee, which, although cooperating with the Serbian government, expressed its point of view on a number of issues. claiming a leading or at least equal role with the Serbian government in the management of the future Yugoslav state. Trumbich repeatedly petitioned the Allies for the official recognition of his organization as a representative of the interests of the Yugoslav peoples, but each time he was refused by them.
So. for example, Trumbich's attempt to draw the attention of the French and British governments to this issue at a meeting of their representatives in Paris, held in late September - early October 1917, ended in complete failure. This meeting was attended by French President Poincaré, head of the French government Briand, representative Ke d " 0rse Painlevé and the English diplomat Harding. Trumbich bitterly noted in his diary that the question he had raised was discussed only in passing and did not attract attention. Poincaré, Trumbich wrote, spoke about the problem "extremely careless", and Harding even stated that he "the constant requests of the Serbs, Greeks and Romanians are bothering" about the recognition of their plans by the British government. "We cannot always fight for Serbian, Greek and Romanian extravagant demands", - he said.
The Yugoslav Committee failed to obtain recognition from England and France even later, in 1918, although both states recognized the Czechoslovak National Committee. The Archives of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb contains an interesting document about Trumbich's meeting with British Foreign Secretary A. Balfour. held on October 5, 1918, Balfour, welcoming the plans of the Serbian government and the Yugoslav Committee for the creation of a united Yugoslav state, at the same time made it clear that the British government would support only Pasic, and not Trumbich's intentions to lead the unionist movement. "Allies the minister said, we have adopted your idea of unification into one state and will do everything to implement it. This is the task of you and peace in Europe. There is no compromise with Austria. It must be divided.
Turning to the question of the recognition of the Yugoslav Committee. Balfour dismissed Trumbich's complaint about that. that Pasic does not consider him and is going to unite the Yugoslavs "according to the Prussian model." Having then met with Pasic, Balfour limited himself to advice to be softer with Trumbich. The Serbian Prime Minister replied that the Yugoslav Committee was just a "propaganda organization" and could not claim equal representation with Serbia in the government of the future Yugoslav state
Even Prime Minister D. Lloyd George failed to persuade Pasic. He also advised Pasic to negotiate with Trumbich and even threatened him, saying that "Yugoslavs(former Austria-Hungary. - Yu.P.) they can decide their own fate." but those were just empty words. Pasic, and after a conversation with Lloyd George, continued to defend his line.
At the end of the war, the Serbian version of unification was most decisively supported by France. The troops of the French Eastern Army of General Louis Franchet d "Espere, together with the Serbian troops, participated in the liberation of the Balkans, the general chose the capital of Serbia, the city of Belgrade, as his headquarters, he was also the main representative of the Entente powers in South-Eastern Europe.
By order of Franchet d'Espere, Serbian troops (together with the French) entered Montenegro and Banat. On his instructions, the Belgrade truce with Hungary was signed on November 13, 1918, which infringed upon the interests of Hungary and, on the contrary, turned out to be beneficial for Serbia.
France patronized the Serbian government in settling disputes with Italy. The French ambassador in Rome made the following presentation in November 1918 to Italian Prime Minister Orlando:
- 1) Italy must be within the boundaries established by the terms of the armistice at Padua of November 3;
- 2) Italy must refrain from occupying territories outside these frontiers, since such an occupation could be carried out by Franco-Serbian troops;
- 3) Italy and other allied forces must establish close cooperation in the occupied territory.
At the Paris and subsequent peace conferences, the state borders of the Yugoslav state were approved. In 1919 - 1920. it received international recognition. The United States was the first to recognize it, the last - Italy. On June 28, 1921, on Vidov's day, 532 years after the Battle of Kosovo, the constitution of the new state was adopted, called "Vidovdan".
SUMMING UP
The formation of a united state was of great importance for the Yugoslav peoples.
Serbia restored its independence, increased its international prestige, becoming the center of the unification of the southern Slavs. Croatia. Slovenia, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other Yugoslav lands of the former Austria-Hungary freed themselves from the oppression of the Habsburg monarchy. Montenegro and Macedonia joined the general process of the political, economic and cultural life of the Yugoslav peoples. In a single state, a common market began to be created, new opportunities arose for the growth of capitalist productive forces, the development of science, culture, art, and applied knowledge. The united Yugoslavia received significant guarantees for a successful defense against the aggression of other powers. began to play a prominent role in the Balkans.
However, along with the positive results of the unification of the previously disparate Yugoslav lands, this process also revealed miscalculations that subsequently had a negative impact on state building.
Thus, when creating the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the important principle of equality of all peoples living in it was not taken into account. Manifesto of the Prince Regent of Serbia Alexander Karageorgievich. promulgated on December 1, 1918 and the Vidovdan Constitution of 1921 ignored the rights of national minorities - Albanians, Hungarians, Macedonians, Turks, Muslim Bosnians and other peoples who were part of the united Yugoslav state.
Even before the creation of Yugoslavia, the need to take into account the interests of national minorities was pointed out by many prominent public and political Yugoslav figures. This was written about, for example, in 1915 by one of the leaders of the Yugoslav Committee, a representative of its radical wing, Croat Frano Supilo. Speaking for the unification of the Yugoslav lands of Austria-Hungary with Serbia, he insisted at the same time on the federal structure of the state and the unconditional equality of all peoples.
Another representative of the Yugoslav political emigration, a Croat from Dalmatia, Dr. L. Voinovich, in his appeal to N. Pasic, sent on December 14, 1915 through the Russian ambassador in Rome M.N. Girsa, warned the head of the Serbian government about the danger of forgetting this principle. "The reality is- wrote Voinovich, - that the countries currently inhabited in the Serbo-Croatian region(Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia - Herzegovina. Dalmatia, Croatia - Slavonia. Istria and Fiume) , have such a peculiar historical identity and such deeply rooted cultural differences. social and confessional, that the fusion of these elements on the basis of the administrative principles in force in Serbia ... would soon imply the emergence of one of the most serious difficulties and the early decomposition of the young state, even a civil war".
An identical document is the "Memorandum of the Seaside Southern Slavic Emigrants", prepared by 25 representatives of Slovenia. Istria, Croatia, Dalmatia and the Yugoslav people's organization in Rijeka (Fiume). was transferred on February 11, 1915 to the acting Russian ambassador in Rome, A.N. Krupensky. This document was signed by the head of the Croatian student organization of the radical direction, the editor of the magazine "Whirlwind" Vladimir Cherina. editor of the newspaper "Yugoslavia" published in Prague, academician of painting Lubomir Leontych. Lubomir Malin, chairman of the Dalmatian Assemblies society in Trieste, Antun Lekchevich, leader of the Yugoslav people's organization, and others. Agreeing with the unification with Serbia, they defended the principle of strict observance of the rights of all peoples who would enter the united state. Finally, in 1915 or early 1916 (there is no date under the document), the prominent Russian diplomat A.M. Petryaev, who became assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1917, wrote about the indispensable observance of this principle. In his State Councilor's Note, he made two conclusions:
- 1) about the expediency of creating a single Yugoslav state, which could provide the peoples with conditions for economic, cultural and political development and defend independence from any expansion and
- 2) on the unconditional observance in this state of equal rights and freedoms to all peoples inhabiting it.
The royal government violated these principles. Already with the administrative-territorial division of the country into districts and counties, the government bypassed the interests of national minorities. In Vojvodina, only Serbian authorities were formed, although, along with the Serbs, Hungarians, Romanians, Croats, Ukrainians, and others lived there. In Croatia. on the contrary, the Serbs turned out to be a national minority, despite the fact. that they constituted one-third of the population of that country. In Kosovo, the rights of the Albanians were ignored, in Macedonia, the rights of the Macedonians.
In 1918, the mechanism for the development of market relations in the new state was not worked out and the particularistic tendencies of the bourgeoisie of its various regions, including Slovenia and Croatia, were not overcome. The economically stronger Slovene and Croatian bourgeoisie in the competition for the Yugoslav market won the Serbian bourgeoisie, which resorted to violent actions in response. without giving any real results.
Not everything went smoothly with the development of state building in the Yugoslav kingdom. In 1929, a monarcho-fascist coup took place in the country, which strengthened the dictatorship of the Great Serbian bourgeoisie and the ruling dynasty, but did not eliminate the causes of ethnic conflicts.
They reached an unprecedented scope and acuteness during the Second World War, when Hitler's Germany artificially divided Yugoslavia into parts. An "independent" Croatian state was created in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the coast of the Adriatic Sea was transferred under the control of fascist Italy, which also occupied Montenegro and Southern Slovenia, which was called the "Ljubljana Province". The northern part of Slovenia went to the "Third Reich". Serbia fell under the direct control of Germany, Horthy Hungary received Banat, Baranya and other lands, and Tsarist Bulgaria received Vardar Macedonia. So the Yugoslav peoples, who had fought for freedom and independence for centuries, again fell under the foreign yoke. In these fatal years for Yugoslavia, as a result of fascist propaganda and the "divide and rule" policy, interethnic contradictions took on very sharp forms.
After the end of the war, the people's government of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia took measures to strengthen the unity of the peoples, but it failed to complete this task completely. At the same time, in Yugoslavia, new contradictions joined the former economic, national, confessional contradictions between the individual republics of the SFRY, which gave rise to disagreements on national grounds, which led to the tragic events taking place in this country recently.
DI. Pisarev. Y. Sorokin
Thank you for downloading the book from the free e-library http://filosoff.org/ Happy reading! D.I. Pisarev. Yu. Sorokin D. I. Pisarev is one of the outstanding figures of the sixties of the last century - an era that played an important role in the history of Russian public life, in the development of science, literature and art in our country. In the conditions of the most acute class struggle that unfolded during these years, Pisarev acted as a revolutionary democrat and materialist. His influence on the democratic youth was lively and strong. His works were avidly read, provoked heated debates, struck with boldness of conclusions and vividness of argumentation, awakened thought. In subsequent years, the name of Pisarev, like other remarkable representatives of the Raznochinsk period in the Russian liberation movement, was not forgotten. The proletarian revolutionaries used the best pages of Pisarev's works in their struggle against tsarism, against the capitalist system, for the victory of the socialist revolution. In the memoirs of N. K. Krupskaya, evidence of the attitude of V. I. Lenin to Pisarev has been preserved. “Pisarev,” she points out, “Vladimir Ilyich read and loved a lot in his time.” “I was captivated,” wrote N. K. Krupskaya, “by Pisarev’s sharp criticism of the serfdom, his revolutionary attitude, wealth of thoughts. All this was far from Marxism, the thoughts were paradoxical, often very wrong, but it was impossible to read it calmly. Then in Shusha I told Ilyich my impressions of reading Pisarev, and he told me that he himself read Pisarev, praising the boldness of his thought. In the Shushensky album of Vladimir Ilyich, among the cards of his favorite revolutionary figures and writers, there was a photograph of Pisarev. (Pravda, October 3, 1935.) In his works, V. I. Lenin quoted some striking statements by Pisarev. Soviet people highly value the work of this outstanding thinker and critic. In his works even now there are many pages filled with sharp hatred for the dark forces of reaction, full of militant optimism and ardent faith in the bright future of the people, in the forces of progress and democracy. Pisarev's short creative path was complex and in many ways contradictory. His literary heritage requires a careful historical approach, a thoughtful objective assessment of what constitutes Pisarev's strength as a thinker, and those ideological errors and hesitations, paradoxical and incorrect conclusions that he has. Pisarev began his publicistic activity early, and died still quite young. His views during this short activity in democratic journalism on some issues changed significantly. These changes reflect the lively, unstoppable process of development of Pisarev's critical thought. Speaking of Pisarev, K. A. Timiryazev in one of his works aptly described him as a critic of "being carried away, but also captivating." (K. A. Timiryazev, Works, vol. VIII, 1939, p. 175.) Pisarev’s works reflect the ideological search for the progressive thought of his era and the originality of Pisarev’s spiritual evolution in the complex and turbulent socio-political life of Russia at that time. The 1860s went down in the history of our country as the years of the high rise of the democratic movement. Already during the Crimean War, a wave of peasant uprisings against the arbitrariness of the landowners was growing. The political situation in the country became especially aggravated after 1855. The defeat of tsarism in the Crimean War, which revealed a deep crisis in the feudal-serf system, the unbearable oppression of the landlords, which rested with all its weight on the shoulders of millions of peasants, and the police arbitrariness that reigned in the country, gave rise to a revolutionary situation. During these years, during the preparation and implementation of the "peasant reform" on February 19, 1861, the peasant movement received a particularly wide scope. The largest was the performance of the peasants, led by Anton Petrov, in the village of Bezdne in the Kazan province in April 1861, which was brutally suppressed by the tsarist troops. The year 1861 also saw the fall of serious student demonstrations in St. Petersburg and in some other cities, which had a pronounced democratic character. In 1861, the revolutionary organization "Land and Freedom" arose and expanded its activities. Proclamations are drawn up and distributed, addressed to the democratic youth, peasants, soldiers, and calling for an uprising, for resistance to the tsarist authorities and the feudal landowners. The Bell by Herzen and Ogarev and other publications of the uncensored press are widely distributed in Russia and contribute to the development of the democratic movement. During these years, the most important question for revolutionary democrats was the question of preparing for a democratic peasant revolution, of merging the disparate actions of the peasants and democratic youth into a general offensive against the existing system. The ideological leaders of the unfolding movement, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, were preparing the democratic forces of society for this. VI Lenin, defining in his work "The Collapse of the Second International" the main features of a revolutionary situation, pointed out that "not every revolutionary situation leads to revolution." (V. I. Lenin, Works, vol. 21, p. 189.) Nor did the revolutionary situation of 1859-1861 lead to a revolution. It did not lead, first of all, because at that time there was no such revolutionary class that would be capable of "revolutionary mass actions strong enough to break (or break) the old government, which will never, even in an era of crises, never" fall " (Ibid., p. 190.) The scattered actions of the peasants and democratic youth did not result in a general crushing action of the masses against the existing system. "The tsarist government brutally cracked down on individual actions of peasants and students. In a revolutionary situation, the bourgeois-noble liberals openly betrayed the interests of the people, the cause of the country's progress and entered into a bloc with the feudal lords. In 1862, having suppressed the first wave of serious actions of democratic forces, the reaction began direct attack on the camp of democracy.In the summer of 1862, after the government provocations in connection with the May fires in St. Petersburg, mass repressions began against the revolutionary-minded democratic intelligentsia. Difficult years came for the democratic movement, when it was necessary to resist the cruel onslaught of reaction, to gather and prepare forces for a new revolutionary upsurge. Having experienced these heavy blows, the revolutionary democrats did not stop their selfless struggle. But they continued it in new, very difficult conditions. It was precisely at this time that the most intense literary activity of Pisarev falls. He came into the democratic movement towards the end of the revolutionary situation of 1859-1861. Shortly after starting his work in democratic journalism, he was subjected to a lengthy prison sentence. His release coincided with an even more violent reaction after the shooting of Karakozov in 1866. The journal, in which he had worked until that time, was closed, new repressions rained down on democratic literature. And just two years after his release, a tragic death ended the life of a young critic. The difficult conditions in which Pisarev's brilliant but short-lived activity in the democratic press unfolded, and especially the general difficult situation for the democratic movement, starting from 1862, but could not affect the direction of this activity, could not but affect the individual contradictions inherent in Pisarev. But for all that, Pisarev was a characteristic "man of the sixties", a leading fighter of the democratic movement. The main thing that catches the eye in his works, written often under the vivid impression of the heavy losses, defeats and difficulties experienced by the democratic movement, is a feeling of deep, militant optimism, a firm conviction in the inevitability of moving forward, confidence in the final victory of the forces of democracy, constant fighting the spirit and youthful enthusiasm of a fighter. We cannot but be struck by the intensity of Pisarev's literary activity, the diversity of his interests as a thinker and critic, which are so indicative of the revolutionary democratic writers of the 1860s in general. In a little over seven years of work in the democratic press, he wrote more than fifty major articles and essays, not counting reviews, and meanwhile, during this time, his journal activity was interrupted twice. Throughout his activities in 1861-1868, Pisarev remained in the ranks of conscious fighters for a better future for his homeland. I In one of his early reviews, Pisarev notes: “The first years of life deserve the full attention of a biographer: first impressions, the initial direction of education, the personalities of the people around them often have a decisive, indelible influence on the inclinations and character of the child. Unfortunately, it is usually very difficult to collect details about In this first period of life, the reported information is usually fragmentary, unclear and colorless. Rarely take the trouble to observe the gradual development of the child, notice its characteristic features, follow the awakening of the young mind. (DI Pisarev, Works, ed. 5, vol. I. St. Petersburg, 1909, p. 91.) These words can also be fully attributed to the characterization of Pisarev's childhood, adolescence and youth. Based on the few fragmentary and largely obscure information that his biographer now has, it is difficult to recreate a complete picture of Pisarev's initial development. But one thing stands out with particular relief: in the development of Pisarev, we are faced with the fact of a decisive and acute crisis, a spiritual turning point, which falls on the years of his graduation from the university and is determined by the influence of the social situation of the sixties. Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev was born on October 14 (new style) 1840 in the village of Znamenskoye, Yelets district, Oryol province, into a wealthy and cultured noble family. He was brought up mainly under the influence of his mother, to whom he retained attachment for life. He sought to give a versatile education. However, it did not go beyond the traditional framework. Particular attention was paid to languages. The boy developed quickly and beyond his years, read a lot and early got used to putting down on paper his impressions of what he saw, read and experienced. The memoirs of Pisarev's relatives, the few surviving letters and diary entries testify to his keen impressionability and early literary talent. But in vain would we look in these data for any hints about the future direction of Pisarev's critical thought. The environment in which the boy was brought up, for all its culture, was far from advanced public interests. Recalling his childhood, Pisarev noted that although he read a lot, his reading circle was still very limited. His favorite books were the novels of Dumas and Cooper, and with the best works of Russian literature, he, by his own admission, was then more familiar with their titles and names. Describing the literary tastes of his teachers, he wrote: "Eugene Onegin" and "A Hero of Our Time" were considered immoral works, and Gogol was considered a greasy writer and completely inappropriate in a decent society. "To critical articles in magazines, Pisarev, in his own ironic words, " looked like a code of hieroglyphic inscriptions." In 1851, Pisarev was sent to one of the best gymnasiums in St. Petersburg. He later spoke of his gymnasium years no less ironically: "I belonged to the category of sheep in the gymnasium; I did not get angry and did not be smart, I learned my lessons firmly, I answered eloquently and respectfully at examinations, and as a reward for all these undoubted merits, I was recognized as "successful." In this later autocharacteristic, the colors are, of course, thickened. However, other surviving data also indicate that the boy at home and in the gymnasium was brought up in a loyal spirit, he was instilled with thoughts of respect for recognized "authorities", he was prepared for a brilliant and calm career; the heavy impressions of the surrounding poverty, social injustice, and feudal oppression did not fall on his soul. Having successfully graduated from the gymnasium, Pisarev in 1856 entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. In the article "Our University Science", written only two years after