June 18 2012
In one of his letters to Pauline, Viardot Turgenev speaks of the special excitement that a fragile green twig causes in him against the background of a distant blue sky. Turgenev is worried about the contrast between a thin twig, in which the living one beats tremulously, and the cold infinity of the sky indifferent to it. “I can’t stand the sky,” he says, “but life, reality, its whims, its accidents, its habits, its fleeting beauty ... I adore all this.” What is the secret of Turgenev's poetic attitude? Is it not in a strange love for this earthly life with its impudent, fleeting beauty? He is "chained to the ground". To everything that can be "seen in the sky", he "prefers the contemplation of the hurried movements of a duck, which with a wet paw scratches the back of its head on the edge of a puddle, or long, shiny drops of water slowly falling from the muzzle of a motionless cow that has just drunk in the pond where it entered up to the knee.
The sharpness of Turgenev's artistic vigilance is exceptional. But the more fully he grasps the beauty of passing moments, the more anxiously he feels their shortness. “Our time,” he says, “requires to catch modernity in its transient images; You can't be too late." And he is not late. All six of his novels not only fall into the “ currently” public life Russia, but in their own way they are ahead of it, anticipate it. Turgenev is especially sensitive to what stands "on the eve", what is still in the air. According to Dobrolyubov, Turgenev quickly guesses "new needs, new ideas introduced into the public consciousness, and in his works he certainly draws attention to the question that is on the line and is already vaguely beginning to excite society." This means that he sees further and sharper than his contemporaries. Looking ahead, Turgenev determines the ways, prospects for the development of literature of the second half of XIX centuries. In “Notes of a Hunter”, in “The Nest of Nobles”, Tolstoy’s epic, “people’s thought”, the spiritual searches of Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov are already foreseen. In "Fathers and Sons" Dostoevsky's thought, the characters of his future heroes are anticipated. Turgenev, like none of his contemporaries, is sensitive to the passage of time. He sensitively listens to the incessant murmur of its wheels, peering thoughtfully into the wide sky above his head. Turgenev is considered a chronicler of this tense, dramatic period of Russian history, when, according to V. I. Lenin, “transformations took place in several decades that took whole centuries in some old European countries.”
But Turgenev, if he is a chronicler, is of a strange nature. He doesn't follow historical events. He doesn't keep his distance. Against! He keeps running ahead. A sharp artistic flair allows him to catch the future by obscure, still vague strokes of the present and recreate it in unexpected concreteness, in living fullness. Turgenev carried this gift all his life like a heavy cross. After all, with his farsightedness, he caused constant irritation among contemporaries who did not want to live, knowing their fate in advance. And stones often flew at Turgenev. But such is the fate of any artist endowed with the gift of "foresight and foreboding." When the struggle subsided, there was a lull, the same persecutors went to bow to him with a surrendered head. The spiritual image of the people of the cultural stratum of society in (* 78) the era of Turgenev changed very quickly. This brought drama to the writer's novels: they are distinguished by a swift plot, a bright, fiery climax and a sharp, unexpected decline with a tragic, as a rule, ending. They capture a small period of time, so accurate chronology plays an essential role in them. Turgenev's life is extremely limited in time and space. If the characters of Onegin and Pechorin "reflected the age", then in Rudin, Lavretsky or Bazarov - the spiritual aspirations of the minute. The life of Turgenev's heroes is like a brightly flashing, but quickly fading spark in the ocean of time. measures them a tense, but too short fate. All Turgenev's novels are included in the rigid rhythms of the annual cycle. The action usually begins in the spring, culminates in the hot days of summer, and ends under the “whistle of the autumn wind” or in the “cloudless silence of the January frosts”. Turgenev shows his heroes in the happy moments of the full flowering of their vitality. But these moments turn out to be tragic: Rudin dies on the Parisian barricades, on a heroic rise, the life of Insarov suddenly ends, and then Bazarov, Nezhdanov ...
And yet, the tragic notes in Turgenev are not the result of fatigue or disappointment in the sense of history. Rather, on the contrary: they are generated by a passionate love for life, reaching a thirst for immortality, to a daring desire that the human individuality does not disappear, that the phenomena, having reached fullness, do not fade away, but turn into beauty eternally abiding on earth. In his novels, topical events, the heroes of their time are placed in the face of eternity. Bazarov in “Fathers and Sons” says: “The narrow place that I occupy is so tiny in comparison with the rest of the space where I am not and where there is no concern for me; and the part of the time that I will be able to live is so insignificant before eternity, where I was not and will not be ... And in this atom, in this mathematical point, the blood circulates, the brain works, it also wants something ... What a disgrace, what nonsense!” The nihilist is skeptical. But let us note how, at the limit of the denial of the meaning of life, a secret embarrassment breaks through in Bazarov, even confusion before the paradoxical power of the human spirit. And this embarrassment refutes his vulgar materialism. After all, if Bazarov is aware of the biological imperfection of a person, if he is indignant at this imperfection, then he is also given a spiritualized starting point (* 79) that elevates his spirit above “indifferent nature”. This means that he unconsciously carries in himself a particle of a perfect, supernatural being. And what are “Fathers and Sons” if not a proof of the truth that those who rebel against the higher world order in their own way, from the contrary, prove its existence.
“On the Eve” is a novel about Russia's impulse towards new social relations, about consciously heroic natures pushing forward the cause of liberation. And at the same time, this is a novel about the eternal search and the eternal challenge that a daring human throws to the blind and indifferent laws of an imperfect, unembodied nature. Suddenly, Insarov falls ill, not having had time to carry out the great work of liberating Bulgaria. The Russian girl Elena, who loves him, cannot come to terms with the fact that this is the end, that his friend's illness is incurable. "Oh my God! - thought Elena, - why death, why separation, illness and tears? or why this beauty, this sweet feeling of hope, why the soothing awareness of a lasting refuge, unchanging protection, immortal patronage? What does this smiling, blessing sky mean, this happy, resting earth? Is it really all only in us, and outside of us is eternal cold and silence? Are we really alone ... alone ... and there, everywhere, in all these inaccessible abysses and depths - everything, everything is alien to us? Why, then, this thirst and joy of prayer?.. Is it really impossible to beg, turn away, save... O God! Is it really impossible to believe a miracle? Unlike Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Turgenev does not give a direct answer to this eternal, disturbing question. He only reveals the secret, bowing his knees before the beauty that embraces the world: “Oh, how quiet and gentle was the night, with what dove-like meekness the azure air breathed, like any suffering, any grief should have been silent and fall asleep under this clear sky, under these holy, innocent rays!” Turgenev will not formulate Dostoevsky's winged thought: "beauty will save the world." But don't all of his novels affirm faith in the world-changing power of beauty, in the creative power of art? Do they not refute bitter disbelief in the meaning of beauty? And do they not give rise to hope for her steady liberation from the power of the blind material process, great hope humanity to transform the mortal into the immortal, the temporal into the eternal?
“Stop! How I see you now - stay forever like this in my memory ... (* 80) What a light, thinner and cleaner sunlight spilled over all your members, over the slightest folds of your clothes? What God, with his gentle breath, threw back your scattered curls? .. Here it is - an open secret, the secret of poetry, life, love! ... At this moment you are immortal ... At this moment you have become higher, you have become beyond everything transient, temporary. This moment of yours will never end.” It is to her, to the beauty that promises to save the world, that Turgenev stretches out his hands. With Turgenev, the poetic companion of the Russian hero, the “Turgenev girl” - Natalia Lasunskaya, Lisa Kalitina, Elena Stakhova, Marianna entered life not only into literature, into life ... chooses a flowering period in the female fate, when, in anticipation of the chosen one, the girlish soul will wake up, wake up to a temporary triumph all its dormant possibilities. In these moments, the spiritualized female being is beautiful in that it transcends itself. Such an excess of vital forces is radiated, which will not receive a response and earthly incarnation, but will remain a tempting promise of something infinitely higher and more perfect, a pledge of eternity. “on earth - a transitional being, which is in the process of general genetic growth,” says Dostoevsky. Turgenev is silent. But by intense attention to the extraordinary upswings of the human soul, he confirms the truth of this thought.
Need a cheat sheet? Then save it - " Transient and Eternal in the Artistic World of Turgenev - part 1. Literary writings!Temporary and eternal in modern poetry “One of the merits of literature,” I. Brodsky said, “is that it helps a person to clarify the time of his existence, to distinguish himself in the crowd of both his predecessors and his own kind, to avoid tautology, that is, a fate otherwise known as an honorary named "victim of history". In our private life, as well as in public life, the situation of choice exists constantly. Thoughts and feelings are formed in a whimsical picture of culture, and in this diverse ornament of being we read ourselves. The rhythm of life today, as never before, is consistent with the main formal indicator of the poetic word - the rhythm of the speech formula for expressing the plurality of meanings (both individual and appropriated by many). The Russian poetic language managed to preserve those voiced lines that were developed back in the 18th century. Derzhavin's "river of time" leaves on its banks ("through the sounds of the lyre and trumpet") what we call tradition, but the constantly renewing waters also bring new organisms - a product of the new time. Poetry in general, and Russian poetry in particular, has always been ahead of history. This is the only way to avoid clichés, to make an individual aesthetic (and sometimes ethical) choice. From the already distant Silver Age, poets who are not among the living conduct their private conversation with the reader. The warmth of the breath of the departed left its imprint on the “glasses of eternity”. Poets living today often remain in their shadow, do not enter school anthologies with their poems, are not published in mass editions, do not lie books of their poems in bookstores. Only lovers of poetry are interested in poetry. But the crisis of society does not always entail a crisis of culture. The age is shaken again, but the poet's quiet conversation with the reader continues. We are obsessed with singing. And again, for the umpteenth time, You listen to us with angelic patience. Oh, invisible listener, For the fact that you are invisible, We thank you from the bottom of our wounded soul. What the soul was hungry for - She does not know herself. Our vocals make it easy to go crazy. But you weren't afraid. And, without revealing his face, He decided to listen to us Until the very end. (Larisa Miller) Today they write in rhyme and without, observing classical rhythmic patterns and not, long and short, smart and “abstruse”, adhering to the rules of grammar and without punctuation marks and looking back at the norms. They write in a variety of ways, not a single periodical fulfills the mission of a “trendsetter of taste”. The more is required from the reader - poetry must be able to read. For example, such: passing through the world where there is no connection and wefts exorbitant this harsh this foundation, the fabric of being is spreading like a decayed scarf like a rotten path, but again and again and again the oars are lowered so that the water is wearily crushed and pull this thread that this path alone redeemed and again this the flute howls piercingly all night the galley was lost in space and time was gone (Vladimir Strochkov) How can one understand the rejection of signs? Continuity, interchangeability in word order, discreteness, disunity within the language - "there is no connection and ducks." Thousands of tons of verbal ore are processed before a precious gram of radium is extracted - the correspondence of thought, feeling, impression, moment and word. Poems by Svetlana Kekova, Sergei Gandlevsky,
Natalia Gorbanevskaya, Igor Melamed, Bakhyt Kenzheev, Olga Sedakova, Olesya Nikolaeva, Vladimir Strochkov. Larisa Miller, Nadezhda Pavlova, Semyon Lipkin, Evgeny Rein, Timur Kibirov, D.A. Prigov, L. Rubinstein ... Fashionable and hidden in the depths of the pages of "Stars", "New World", "Arion", other "carriers" of modern literature . “I would like to name everyone…” Who sings in the thorn bush, who in the oats, who in the rye, who sprinkles essays in the field at the boundary, but all, all, as one, are the culprits… (Vladimir Strochkov) Does poetry help to ask a question? Not to find the answer - the search for the Answer is eternal ... Questions are more important. What is the basis for modern man? In the absence of a foundation? In God? In the many-sided and labyrinth-like language of culture? Each "culprit" offers his own interpretation of time and eternity. Completing earthly labors, I want to finally whisper: “Where the traces were left, there was your only way.” I already understand with difficulty what kind of vein is trembling at the temple, and why is your only house built on loose sand? ... With a blue forget-me-not in your hand, your Angel will fly over the earth, and the water in the spring will rise again - and turn itself into a radiance ... (Svetlana Kekova) A new drawing is laid out in a kaleidoscope of fragments of Blok's “Night. Street. Flashlight. Pharmacy". The discontinuity and continuity of being comes through in the poems of conceptualists and poets of “metaphysicians”. It's hardships and worries. That is hope and consolation. That sky over Austerlitz. And then some solution will arrive in time ... Those are sticky notes. Then compare each with the next and the previous. It becomes quite clear that this cannot continue indefinitely. And then there is no end in sight... (Lev Rubinshtein) Today there is no underground, the civic pathos of poetry is not being pumped, public performance poets were replaced by the biennale. Kenzheev comes to OGI and reads his poems... Not everyone goes out to smoky cafes with bookshelves and booksellers with read eyes. Modern poetry is embarrassed by pathos in general, it refuses open emotionality. Often the visual experience of reading becomes the main one - Rubinstein's poems are written on library index cards. It later becomes part of the genre of his verse. For conceptualists, the main character is the language itself, the text itself, the philosophy of life is read from a set of gestures, attacks, specially built and then filled voids. I struggle with domestic entropy As a source of divine energy Imperceptible blind forces I win in the fight of non-ceremonial In the day I will wash the dishes three times I will wash the floor all over the world I build the meaning and structure of the world On an empty place, it would seem. (D.A.Prigov)
In an interview with Inga Kuznetsova (published in Questions of Literature, 2003, No. 6), Larisa Miller formulated personal experience poet: “The higher the entropy, the stronger my need for harmony. I am so afraid of chaos, I feel it so much in the world, around ... A poem is like a boat on which I must stay. The harmony of the verse, even with its tragic content, is itself a lifeline. The flinty path that attracted Lermontov also attracts our contemporaries. Each in his own way overcomes not stones, but stone indifference on the part of potential interlocutors of readers. For Svetlana Kekova, this is the comprehension of the Christian attitude to the world: “Always rejoice, pray without ceasing, give thanks for everything.” Man lives and man writes, says Kekova. Through fear, silence, without a goal to be heard by many. Having overcome the painful silence, Oleg Chukhontsev trusts the intensity of such a confession to the verse: Vekzalozhnik, the seal of Cain on the lips and on the ramen. You can blow everything up and start again, you can do everything, but fear is the killer... I want, I try to say something, but a wheeze comes out of my throat, like from a kettle that has boiled away long ago to the core, and the metal burns. Should a modern poet, through external experiments, “awaken good feelings with a lyre”? “Of course you should! But how to do this, what kind of feelings are considered good, and whether it is possible at all - these are the most pressing questions of literature. Well, “to glorify freedom in our cruel age” is, without question, the direct duty of every poet,” replies Timur Kibirov. Experiments with form determined the general field of polystylistics. Styles get lost in one section of the text, voices interrupt each other, affirm each other. In modern poetry everyone will find what they are looking for. You just have to search long enough. A metaphysical feeling of life taking place here and now, but gaining meaning on the basis of certain, often unspoken, values. The word of poetry is pronounced with effort, and when muffled it sounds even more mysterious, inviting to participate in the “silences” of thought. Determining the particularity and universality of being. Questions and assignments Remember, Akhmatova's poems grow like dandelions, burdocks, quinoa, Tsvetaeva's poems also grow like stars and like roses. And you can grow on suitable soil. Grapes grow on different soils (“vine flower blooms”) and edelweiss blooms. Whose poems found their soil in you? What turned out to be close, what interested you, what are you ready to argue with. Write an essay about a poet you have discovered. Working in groups, prepare for the seminar “Forms and “Contents” of Modern Poetry”: 1st group - poets of the Anozovo, 2nd group - poets of the association "Moscow Time", 3rd group - poets of "metaphysics", 4th group - poetic individuality, group 5 - the poetry of Russian rock. Notes The article is more like an essay than a lesson summary. It is difficult to install methodical folding beds here. A conversation about poetry is possible when everyone who enters his zone is ready. The degree of this readiness is determined based on the specific situation. The content of the article itself contains a number of problematic issues, starting with the title. You can stop at any site and talk about time, about poetry, about yourself. Poems are read by the teacher, but high school students can also join in, each lesson is given a small collection of poems by contemporary poets (compiled by the teacher), accompanied by a list of references on the topic. Materials can be used in the preparation of a lecture, depending on personal settings, the genre features of the lesson are also determined (lecture with elements of conversation, colloquium, etc.)
References 1. Perelmuter V. Requiem for forbidden love (III) // “Arion” 2000, No. 1. 2. Shaitanov I. At the “end of the century” - at the beginning of the millennium // “Arion” 2003, No. 4. 3. Shtypel A. Reflections of a practicing poet // “Arion” 1997, No. 4. 4. Miller L. In the creative workshop. Boat shape // “Questions of Literature”, 2003, No. 6. 5. Kekova S. In the creative workshop. “And verses are subtle matter…” // “Questions of Literature” 2002, No. 2. 6. Kekova S. Chalcedon Lilies// “Znamya” 1998, No. 7. 7. Kekova S. Constellation of sleeping children. Poems / / “Znamya” 2003, No. 7. 8. Kibirov T. “Who goes where - and I'm in Russia ...”. M., “Time”, 2001. 9. Miller L. Poems about verses. M., “Glas”, 1996. 10. Gandlevsky S. Two poems. Poems // “Banner”, 1999, No. 5. 11. Gandlevsky S. Two poems. Poems // “Znamya” 2004, No. 1. 12. Kenzheev B. Poems recent years. M., 1992. 13. Kenzheev B. Cicada in a handful. Poetry// " New world” 2003, No. 6. 14. Prigov D.A. Conversion. Poems// “Znamya” 2001, № 5. 15. Rubinshtein L. Cases from language. St. Petersburg, Ivan Limbakh's Publishing House, 1998. 16. Nikolaeva O. Here. Verses and poems. M., “ Soviet writer”, 1990. 17. Sedakova O. Poems. M., "Gnosis" - "Carte blanche", 1994 (afterword by S. Averintsev). 18. Gorbanevskaya N. Vosmistishiya military. Poems // “Star” 2003, No. 3. 19. Strochkov V. Ruins. Poems// “Arion” 2000, № 2. 20. Melamed I. Grape of retribution. Poems / / “New World”, 2002, No. 2. 21. Chukhontsev O. Melika and vocabularies. Poems// “Znamya” 2003, № 4. 22. Rein E. Darkness of mirrors. M., “Soviet writer”, 1990. Appendix Themes and motives of the modern poet's lyrics Talk about love and God and ask yourself questions. Svetlana Kekova Speaking about contemporary poet, one cannot confuse his temporary sojourn in the world with the modernity of his verse. In poetry - the eternal, the truth, which cannot be determined by the specificity of chronology. Subtle poetic mystery is subject to a few; only he who feels the invisible connections between things, who understands this correlation of the phenomena of the visible world from the source, can find precious verbal formulas for expressing the eternal. The poet is a mediator between eternity and humanity. There is such a recognition effect: when you read poetry and you may not even understand what they are about, but you feel: this is yours. Coincidence of sentiments? Poems by Svetlana Kekova are published in almost all literary magazines, Grigory Kruzhkov and Bakhyt Kenzheev write articles about her, her “creative workshop” attracts both journalists and professional philologists. Mirrors of poetic lines… They reflected heaven and earth, flying fish and birds swimming in the depths of the ocean, space and time, the sails of days and the airy limits of the soul. The poetess herself finds a symbol for her metaphysical poetry - Jacob's ladder. Where does the staircase of her poems lead? Love and God are something irrefutable that is higher than human strength, something that exists independently of our desires in ourselves. Love and God hold the whole world, the world of poetic thought... And He also said to the river water, and to the sand of the sea, and to a flock of birds, that the radiance of love lives everywhere, reflected in those who do not hide their faces. There is a line in the psalm: "Let every breath praise the Lord." According to Kekova, this is the true task of poetry. In our time religious culture both attracts and repels people. Everyone strives to find a foothold for “independence”, but, tempting fate, we always return to the primary foundations of being. Poems are the expression of the soul, and the soul and conscience of a person know more than the mind can comprehend. Svetlana Kekova has been teaching literature for twenty-five years, she is a person of high philological culture, and her images are completely organic.
poetry weave the unity of the world in the word God. He is everywhere, as the root cause, as the result of poetic thoughts about the world and man in the world: in the smell of clover, in the chirping of birds, in the majesty of trees ... I will say quietly, bypassing the beauty of the syllable: “A bird is flying in the sky - the feathered helper of God.” The poet, in order to speak, must hear, feel and understand what is hidden from the philistine eye, ear, mind: ... and I see - forest flowers dressed in chintz clothes. Art feeds on passions, brings the temptation of knowledge into the world. Love and understanding of one's own gift pulsate in the rhythm of the line. The main thing in the poet is the awareness of this gift and the acceptance of the entire burden of responsibility for the opportunity to “tell” people the soul. The gift allows you to penetrate into the unknown depths of the universe, to subdue a clever word to the pen, to find the right rhythm, to achieve harmony of thought and feeling. Poppy pods have ripened, the ravine is overgrown with burdock, and the word comes out of the darkness and again goes into the darkness. You can’t catch him, you can’t hide him, you can’t hide him forever - alas - among the multi-colored treasures of the grass growing in the wild. Its precious meaning cannot be touched by the prophet. Rocker arms hang over the water as a reason to read between the lines ... And between the lines, behind each word of the verse - “transparent, like water in a handful,” the soul. A soul that lives in a world where “heaven is the basis for everything”, the construction of a house begins with a red corner, “so that there is somewhere to ... put the icon of the Savior”. And under every moment is his palm, and there is no death in the depths of eternity, fire burns in the core of the world, and any darkness hides the light. What is this world? Is he an illusion or an individual reality hidden from prying eyes? This world is a weightless space created from “glare” by “anguish of the mind, a play of imagination”, here we can distinguish the “law of heart movement”, here the paths of the soul lie. The soul of Svetlana Kekova follows in the footsteps of the words: ... and the soul flies into this blinding darkness. The poetess lives in a world where time flows according to the church calendar, freedom is limited only by the sky, where “there are icons of trees”: At the edge of love, in space and time, I kneel in front of a word, a flower and an object ... Kekova’s poetic texts feel a special sensitivity to flora. Herbs, flowers for her are the perfect image of prayer. They have an artless beauty, an absolute absence of aggression. The elements of earth, water, air attract the poetic consciousness of S. Kekova: I really want to have wings, fins, leaves and buds ... - Why, O God, did You punish me by depriving me of dove wings? - - You do not need to free yourself from shackles, like the water of a river - from the water of springs: try to get a simple hope for a miracle from under the bushel. Conversations with God give rise to an endless number of questions in Kekova's verse, which she asks not only to herself, but also to the reader. Trying to answer them herself, she does not deprive us of the right to vote either, leaving a space between the lines in which each “deduces his own step”. Jacob's ladder... But how, tell me, can we learn at the crossroads of two roads to love a flower and a bird as much as God loves a man? Words are the bearers of the worldview, the monograms of life flashing in the mind: ... I catch weightless drops with my lips, the soul flies out of the close abode ... It never returns to its already written poems. Relations with the past are always complex: life is broken into segments, parts. S. Kekova is persistently looking for a bond that binds the idea of her own
life and poetry. Her poems are stars, and “if the stars are lit, then someone needs it,” especially if these stars lined up in a path in Milky Way, which Kekova invites you to step on and see the world from above ... And at night, when Bootes rises above the water and drives the herd of stars somewhere to the north, you suddenly feel the smell of chamomile and clover - and no one will take away your joy from you. The height of the Christian attitude to the world is expressed for the poetess in the words of the Apostle Paul: "Always rejoice, pray without ceasing, give thanks for everything." This height is far away. Tragedy is one of the criteria for realizing the truth of being. How a person goes his way, how he takes steps along the steps - this is what constitutes his creativity. And the branch will scratch the glass and the sun will shine like copper, and tears will drip inaudibly, and the heart will suffer and sing ...
Lesson Objectives:
- Systematize student knowledge.
- Improve the skills of analyzing a literary work.
- Development of skills of independent thinking, introspection, self-organization.
- Development of communication skills of students.
Lesson equipment:
- Portrait of I. S. Turgenev.
- Illustrations for the novel "Fathers and Sons"
- Textbook Lysy I. Yu. "Russian literature of the 19th century. Practicum", Mnemosyne, Moscow, 2001 or printout of assignments from this textbook.
Epigraph of the lesson:
Turgenev quickly guessed new needs, new ideas introduced into the public consciousness, and in his works he certainly drew (as circumstances allowed) attention to the question that was on the line and was already vaguely beginning to excite society.
N. A. Dobrolyubov. When will the real day come? 1860
Lesson questions:
- What is the peculiarity of Turgenev's novels?
- Feature of the plot-compositional structure of the novel.
- The role of landscape in Turgenev's novel.
- "Secret" psychologism of the novel.
- Means of expressing the author's position.
- Meaning of the title of the novel.
- Bazarov: "A hamletizing Don Quixote or a rationalist" to the tips of his fingers "?
- What dangers for the individual and society does the writer warn against in the novel?
(Questions 1 to 5 are given in advance as homework)
During the classes
Introductory speech of the teacher:
It is known that every book, like people, has its own destiny. In different ways they enter the consciousness of readers - contemporaries and again awaken the interest and attention of readers of subsequent generations. Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" has, perhaps, one of the most unusual destinies. With its appearance, it caused such a storm that no book has caused before or since. It is indicative that student meetings about the novel "Fathers and Sons" sometimes even ended with the adoption of resolutions in which the writer was accused of presenting the younger generation in the image of Bazarov in a distorted light.
The second century of the "life" of Turgenev's novel is already underway. It is "life" because it is read, the hero continues to debate. What is the reason for this? After all, much of what worried the heroes of the novel and its first readers is long gone. In addition, the novel is not rich in events, does not have a fascinating plot. We will talk about all this with you today.
1. What is the peculiarity of Turgenev's novels?
The novel is a genre of narrative literature that reveals the history of many human destinies over a long period of time. The peculiarity of the novel is its ramification of the plot, which reflects the complexity of relations in society.
The spiritual image of people in the middle of the 19th century changed very quickly. Everything in Turgenev's novels takes place "in the present moment." "Our time demands to catch modernity in its transient images: it is impossible to be too late" (I. S. Turgenev) The writer is sensitive to what is happening "on the eve", what is still in the air. "(Turgenev): he quickly guessed new needs, new ideas introduced into the public consciousness, and in his works he certainly paid (as far as circumstances allowed) attention to the question that was on the line and was already vaguely beginning to excite society." (N. A. Dobrolyubov "When will the real day come" 1860)
I. S. Turgenev wrote a number of socio-psychological novels, which depict a typical "hero of the time", through which the current state of society is characterized. (Scientists (A. B. Krinitsyn, S. I. Kormilov) call this type of novel "face novels").
The novel is built as a trial of the hero's social significance, as an answer to the question - is the social force that the character represents productive, is it capable of playing a positive role in the further development of Russia.
Let us recall that Rudin, the hero of the novel of the same name, an intellectual idealist of the 40s of the 19th century, brought up on the philosophy of Hegel, in The Nest of Nobles, the figure of the Slavophile Lavretsky comes to the fore, Insarov, the hero of the novel On the Eve, a revolutionary. In the novel "Fathers and Sons" the hero becomes a man who opposes himself to the nobles.
The appearance of the "heroes of time" changed very quickly, so Turgenev's novels are dramatic and small in scope. They are distinguished by a rapid plot, a bright climax, a sharp decline, unexpected with a tragic ending. The writer shows his heroes in the moments of the highest prime of life, but these moments turn out to be tragic.
All novels are included in the rigid rhythm of the annual circle: the beginning is in the spring, the climax is summer, the denouement is "the whistle of the autumn wind or the January frost"
2. Feature of the plot-compositional structure of the novel.
In terms of plot and composition, the novel is clearly divided into three parts, which are directly correlated with the spatial movement of the characters. First, in Maryino, the Kirsanovs' estate, the first acquaintance of the future antagonists takes place and they present their views. This is the favorite plot construction of Turgenev's novels: an unexpected arrival in a certain local, but typical and long-established environment of a new person - an exponent of the latest trends of the times, which allows, on the one hand, to assess the established environment from the standpoint of modernity, and on the other, to thoroughly study a new figure, immediately attracting everyone's attention.
Then the second part begins - testing the heroes and their ideas with life. Arkady and Bazarov go to the city, where they are already shown against the backdrop of a whole provincial society, they also get acquainted with Odintsova and are soon poisoned to her in Nikolskoye, where a test of love takes place. From there they come to the village of Bazarov, where readers have the opportunity to compare Yevgeny with his parents and evaluate his future prospects for life after university.
With the departure of Bazarov from his parents, the final compositional part begins - "summing up". Friends return to Maryino, where Bazarov separates from Arkady and later appears alone on the pages of the novel. First, he draws a duel in his relationship with Pavel Petrovich, then in the second round he goes to Nikolskoye to say goodbye to Odintsova, and to his parents, where he "settles scores" with life in general.
3. The originality of psychological analysis in the novel.
“In Turgenev, we only see the results that Bazarov came to, we see the external side of the phenomenon, that is, we hear what Bazarov says, and find out how he acts in life, how he treats different people. Psychological analysis, a free list of Bazarov’s thoughts, we we do not find; we can only guess what he thought and how he formulated his convictions to himself, "wrote D. I. Pisarev in the article" Bazarov ", 1862
"The central theoretical position of" Turgenev's "psychologists": the writer "should know and feel the roots of phenomena, but represents only the phenomenon itself," says A. I. Batyuto in the book "Turgenev the Novelist", 1972.
"Dialogue in its purest form is the main instrument in the orchestra of Turgenev's novel. If circumstances and conflicts of private life mainly affect the action of the novel, then deep ideological contradictions are found in the dialogue. Everyone speaks in his own way, down to the manner of pronouncing individual words, because he thinks differently. And at the same time, this individual thinking is socially typical: other people think the same way:
The author is attracted not by the correctness of this or that interlocutor, but by the conviction of the arguing, their ability to take extreme positions in their views and in life and go to the end, the ability to express their worldview in a living Russian word, "says A. V. Chicherin in the book" Rhythm image", 1973
Exercise. Based on these statements , analyze one of the dialogue scenes of the novel , reveal role in the plot and the psychological content of the episode of the novel.
Externally, the hero is not dependent on the author. In reality, the author's assessment is manifested in the plot, in the selection of situations. Checking the hero for significance, Turgenev proceeds from his system of values. Bazarov despises nobles, but comes to a noble estate, communicates with noble owners, makes visits, falls in love with an aristocrat, fights in a duel. The author reveals the advantages and disadvantages of the hero from the point of view of the nobles, because we know that the writer was born and raised in a noble family.
5. The role of the landscape in the novel.
“The beautiful is spilled everywhere, its influence extends even over death. But nowhere does it shine with such force as in human individuality, here it speaks to the mind most of all,” wrote I. S. Turgenev to Viardot’s Pauline on August 28, 1850.
In Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" there are few detailed landscapes, with the exception of chapter 11, but the function of the landscape in it is rather polemical.
The harmony of beauty, the harmony of life, the harmony of nature - this is, first of all, the vital force that Bazarov is trying to defeat. From this follows one of the main conflicts of the novel - the opposition of the deified personality to the faceless universal whole. It is under the influence of nature that the protagonist begins to suffer eternal questions life to which he cannot find an answer.
Explain Bazarov's behavior in the scene under the haystack (Chapter 21). Formulate"eternal" questions to which the hero cannot find answers. (1. What is the role of man in the universe? 2. What is the great meaning of life? 3. What is the meaning of human progress?........)
(In the scene under the haystack, Turgenev, the artist, and Turgenev, the philosopher, puts his proud and free man in the face of nature that is not subject to him, indifferent and always triumphant, which alone can be a worthy rival to him. Man tragically turns out to be only a thinking "atom", feeling " mathematical point". Bazarov is humiliated by the nonsense of a single and random human existence in boundless time and boundless space.
Are there any undoubted values in this world? For Bazarov, such a value is only the strength of the human spirit. Bazarov is undoubtedly a heroic personality, tested in the most extreme situations, both by the force of things and by his own strength. K. I. Tyunkin "Bazarov through the eyes of Dostoevsky", 1971.)
Not all people are able to accept their own insignificance before eternity. Perhaps the recognition of one's own exclusivity is not accidental here.
The weakness of Bazarov in an attempt to squeeze himself and his environment into the narrow framework of biological laws. Bazarov cannot fully accept life in all its complexity and diversity.
What did Turgenev write about in his novel?
A. About the complexity of human relationships.
B. About the role of progress in human life.
V. About the meaning of life.
G.About love.
D. About eternal laws.
E. On the harmony of nature and man.
The next part of the lesson is in the form of group work. Students receive tasks (from No. 1-No. 4) at the same time, one per group. No more than 10 minutes are given to prepare an answer, then the class listens to the messages, participates in denouncing the problem.
6. The image of Bazarov.
Task number 1.
Reread chapters 20-21. What role do scenes play in the parental home for understanding the image of Bazarov?(The task is performed in groups)
Who, in your opinion, is right in assessing Bazarov's relationship with his parents?
(Printing. Bald I. Yu. "Russian literature of the 19th century. Practicum", Mnemosyne, Moscow, 2001, pp. 230-231)
Task number 2.
Compare Bazarov's love story with the love story in Turgenev's story "Asya". In what way did Turgenev reconsider in the novel "Fathers and Sons" the collision of "the Russian man on rendez vous"? Why? (The task is performed in groups)
(GIVE PRINT ARTICLE)
Task number 3.
"Read the judgments of the critics below and give a reasoned answer to the question. Bazarov's death: an accident or his own fatal decision, or the idea of this life. (The task is performed in groups)
Question number 7 of the lesson plan is included in the group work system.
Task number 4.
Read the judgments of the critics below and give a reasoned answer to the question. Which assessment of Bazarov, in your opinion, is more fair: "Hamletizing Don Quixote" or a rationalist to the tips of his fingers? (The task is performed in groups)
(Printing. Bald I. Yu. "Russian literature of the 19th century. Practicum", Mnemosyne, Moscow, 2001, pp. 236-237)
8. What dangers for the individual and society does the writer warn about in the novel?
Don't think of yourself as a god.
Do not judge and you will not be judged.
Do not try to remake the whole world alone.
Don't interrupt the natural flow of life.
Do not disturb the harmony of life. Life is Beautiful.
Love your neighbor.
Love God.
Summing up is based on a repeated appeal to the epigraph of the lesson, an excerpt from Turgenev's letter to Pauline Viardot dated August 28, 1850 and verses 12-15, 31-32 of Chapter 8 of the Gospel of John.
Turgenev quickly guessed new needs, new ideas introduced into the public consciousness, and in his works he certainly drew (as circumstances allowed) attention to the question that was on the line and was already vaguely beginning to excite society.
N. A. Dobrolyubov. When will the real day come? 1860
"The beautiful is the only immortal thing, and as long as even the slightest remnant of its material manifestation continues to exist, Immortality is preserved,
Beauty is poured everywhere, its influence extends even over death. But nowhere does it shine with such force as in human individuality, here it speaks to the mind most of all, "wrote I. S. Turgenev to Viardot's Pauline on August 28, 1850.
"I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. You judge according to the flesh; but I do not judge anyone. If you continue in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (Verses 12-15, 31-32, Chapter 8 of the Gospel of John)
Choose a title for your written work:
"Yes, no urine: a million torments ..."
"I understand....."
Write a few abstracts as a gift to the essay writer on the topic
"Temporary and Eternal in I. S. Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons".
10. Reflection.
Add 1-2 sentences, comprehend your condition at the seminar:
"What was important....."
"When it was hard..."
"What did you like..."
References:
- I. S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons"
- Russian literature of the 19th-20th century in 2 volumes, edited by B. S. Bugrov and M. M. Golubkov, 4th edition. - M.: Publishing House of Moscow. un-ta, 2002.
- Russian literature of the 19th century. Grade 10 .. Textbook - workshop for educational institutions/ Ed. Yu. I. Lysy - M .: Mnemosyne, 2001
- Gospel of John.
Yu.V.Lebedev
The transient and the eternal the art world Turgenev.
In one of his letters to Pauline, Viardot Turgenev speaks of the special excitement that a fragile green twig causes in him against the background of a distant blue sky. Turgenev is worried about the contrast between the thin twig, in which the living life, and the cold infinity of the sky indifferent to it. “I can’t stand the sky,” he says, “but life, reality, its whims, its accidents, its habits, its fleeting beauty ... I adore all this.”
What is the secret of Turgenev's poetic attitude? Is it not in a strange love for this earthly life with its impudent, fleeting beauty? He is "chained to the ground". To everything that can be "seen in the sky", he "prefers the contemplation of the hurried movements of a duck, which with a wet paw scratches the back of its head on the edge of a puddle, or long, shiny drops of water slowly falling from the muzzle of a motionless cow that has just drunk in the pond where it came up to the knee."
The sharpness of Turgenev's artistic vigilance is exceptional. But the more fully he grasps the beauty of passing moments, the more anxiously he feels their shortness. "Our time," he says, "requires to catch modernity in its transient images; one must not be too late." And he is not late. All six of his novels not only fall into the "present moment" of Russian social life, but in their own way they are ahead of it, anticipate it. Turgenev is especially sensitive to what stands "on the eve", what is still in the air. According to Dobrolyubov, Turgenev quickly guesses "new needs, new ideas introduced into the public consciousness, and in his works he certainly draws attention to the question that is on the line and is already vaguely beginning to excite society."
This means that he sees further and sharper than his contemporaries. Looking ahead, Turgenev determines the paths and prospects for the development of literature in the second half of the 19th century. In the "Notes of a Hunter", in "The Nest of Nobles" Tolstoy's epic, "people's thought", the spiritual searches of Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov are already foreseen. In "Fathers and Sons" Dostoevsky's thought, the characters of his future heroes are anticipated.
Turgenev, like none of his contemporaries, is sensitive to the passage of time. He sensitively listens to the incessant murmur of its wheels, peering thoughtfully into the wide sky above his head. Turgenev is considered the chronicler of this tense, dramatic period of Russian history, when, according to V. I. Lenin, "transformations took place in several decades, which took whole centuries in some old European countries."
But Turgenev, if he is a chronicler, is of a strange nature. He does not follow on the heels of historical events. He doesn't keep his distance. Against! He keeps running ahead. A sharp artistic flair allows him to catch the future by obscure, still vague strokes of the present and recreate it in unexpected concreteness, in living fullness.
Turgenev carried this gift all his life like a heavy cross. After all, with his farsightedness, he caused constant irritation among contemporaries who did not want to live, knowing their fate in advance. And stones often flew at Turgenev. But such is the fate of any artist endowed with the gift of "foresight and foreboding." When the struggle subsided, there was a lull, the same persecutors went to bow to him with a surrendered head.
The spiritual image of the people of the cultural stratum of society in the era of Turgenev changed very quickly. This brought drama to the writer's novels: they are distinguished by a swift plot, a bright, fiery climax and a sharp, unexpected decline with a tragic, as a rule, ending. They capture a small period of time, so accurate chronology plays an essential role in them. The life of Turgenev's hero is extremely limited in time and space. If the characters of Onegin and Pechorin "reflected the age", then in Rudin, Lavretsky or Bazarov - the spiritual aspirations of the minute. The life of Turgenev's heroes is like a brightly flashing, but quickly fading spark in the ocean of time. History measures them a tense, but too short fate. All Turgenev's novels are included in the rigid rhythms of the annual cycle. The action usually begins in the spring, culminates in the hot days of summer, and ends under the "whistle of the autumn wind" or in the "cloudless silence of the January frosts." Turgenev shows his heroes in the happy moments of the full flowering of their vitality. But these moments turn out to be tragic: Rudin dies on the Parisian barricades, on a heroic rise, the life of Insarov suddenly ends, and then Bazarov, Nezhdanov ...
And yet, the tragic notes in Turgenev's work are not the result of fatigue or disappointment in the sense of history. Rather, on the contrary: they are generated by a passionate love for life, reaching a thirst for immortality, to a daring desire that the human individuality does not disappear, that the beauty of the phenomenon, having reached fullness, does not fade away, but turns into beauty eternally abiding on earth. In his novels, topical events, the heroes of their time are placed in the face of eternity. Bazarov in "Fathers and Sons" says: "The narrow place that I occupy is so tiny in comparison with the rest of the space where I am not and where I do not care; and the part of the time that I manage to live is so insignificant before eternity, where I haven't been and won't be... And in this atom, in this mathematical point, the blood circulates, the brain works, it wants something too... What a disgrace, what a trifle!"
The nihilist is skeptical. But let us note how, at the limit of the denial of the meaning of life, a secret embarrassment breaks through in Bazarov, even confusion before the paradoxical power of the human spirit. And this embarrassment refutes his vulgar materialism. After all, if Bazarov is aware of the biological imperfection of a person, if he is indignant at this imperfection, then he is also given a spiritualized starting point that elevates his spirit above "indifferent nature." This means that he unconsciously carries in himself a particle of a perfect, supernatural being. And what is the novel "Fathers and Sons" if not a proof of the truth that those who rebel against the higher world order in their own way, from the contrary, prove its existence.
"On the Eve" is a novel about Russia's impulse towards new social relations, about consciously heroic natures pushing forward the cause of liberation. And at the same time, this is a novel about the eternal search and the eternal challenge that a daring human personality throws to the blind and indifferent laws of an imperfect, incomplete nature. Suddenly, Insarov falls ill, not having had time to carry out the great work of liberating Bulgaria. The Russian girl Elena, who loves him, cannot come to terms with the fact that this is the end, that his friend's illness is incurable. “Oh God!” thought Elena, “why death, why separation, sickness and tears? Or why this beauty, this sweet feeling of hope, why the soothing awareness of a lasting refuge, unchanging protection, immortal protection? What does this smiling, blessing sky mean? this happy, resting land? Is it really all only within us, and outside of us is eternal cold and silence? Are we really alone ... alone ... and there, everywhere, in all these inaccessible abysses and depths - everything, everything is alien to us "Why, then, this thirst and joy of prayer?... Is it really impossible to beg, turn away, save... Oh God! Is it really impossible to believe in a miracle?"
Unlike Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Turgenev does not give a direct answer to this eternal, disturbing question. He only reveals the secret, bowing his knees before the beauty embracing the world: "Oh, how quiet and gentle was the night, with what dove-like meekness the azure air breathed, like any suffering, any grief should have been silent and fall asleep under this clear sky, under these holy, innocent rays!" Turgenev will not formulate Dostoevsky's winged thought: "beauty will save the world." But don't all of his novels affirm faith in the world-changing power of beauty, in the creative power of art? Do they not refute bitter disbelief in the meaning of beauty? And do they not give rise to hope for its steady liberation from the power of the blind material process, the great hope of mankind for the transformation of the mortal into the immortal, the temporal into the eternal?
"Stop! How I see you now - stay forever like that in my memory ...
What light, thinner and purer than sunlight, has spilled over all your limbs, over the smallest folds of your clothes?
What God, with his gentle breath, threw back your scattered curls? ..
Here it is - an open secret, the secret of poetry, life, love! ... At this moment you are immortal ... At this moment you have become higher, you have become beyond everything transient, temporary. This moment of yours will never end."
It is to her, to the beauty that promises to save the world, that Turgenev stretches out his hands. With Turgenev, the poetic image of the companion of the Russian hero, the "Turgenev girl" - Natalia Lasunskaya, Liza Kalitina, Elena Stakhova, Marianna entered life not only in literature, but in life ... all its dormant possibilities will wake up to a temporary triumph. In these moments, the spiritualized female being is beautiful in that it transcends itself. Such an excess of vital forces is radiated, which will not receive a response and earthly incarnation, but will remain a tempting promise of something infinitely higher and more perfect, a pledge of eternity. "Man on earth is a transitional being, in the process of general genetic growth," Dostoevsky asserts. Turgenev is silent. But by intense attention to the extraordinary upswings of the human soul, he confirms the truth of this thought.
Together with the image of the "Turgenev's girl", the image of "Turgenev's love" is included in the writer's works. As a rule, this is the first love, inspired and pure. There is something akin to a revolution in it: “The monotonous, regular structure of the current life is broken and destroyed in an instant, youth stands on the barricade, its bright banner flies high, and no matter what awaits it ahead - death or new life - everything sends his enthusiastic greetings. All Turgenev's heroes are tested by love - a kind of test of viability. loving person beautiful, spiritually inspired. But the higher he flies on the wings of love, the closer the tragic denouement and - the fall ...
In one of his letters to Pauline, Viardot Turgenev speaks of the special excitement that a fragile green twig causes in him against the background of a distant blue sky. Turgenev is disturbed by the contrast between a thin twig, in which living life trembles tremblingly, and the cold infinity of the sky, indifferent to it. “I can’t stand the sky,” he says, “but life, reality, its whims, its accidents, its habits, its fleeting beauty ... I adore all this.” What is the secret of Turgenev's poetic attitude? Is it not in a strange love for this earthly life with its impudent, fleeting beauty? He is "chained to the ground". To everything that can be "seen in the sky", he "prefers the contemplation of the hurried movements of a duck, which with a wet paw scratches the back of its head on the edge of a puddle, or long, shiny drops of water slowly falling from the muzzle of a motionless cow that has just drunk in the pond where it came up to the knee."
The sharpness of Turgenev's artistic vigilance is exceptional. But the more fully he grasps the beauty of passing moments, the more anxiously he feels their shortness. "Our time," he says, "requires to catch modernity in its transient images; one must not be too late." And he is not late. All six of his novels not only fall into the "present moment" of Russian social life, but in their own way they are ahead of it, anticipate it. Turgenev is especially sensitive to what stands "on the eve", what is still in the air. According to Dobrolyubov, Turgenev quickly guesses "new needs, new ideas introduced into the public consciousness, and in his works he certainly draws attention to the question that is on the line and is already vaguely beginning to excite society." This means that he sees further and sharper than his contemporaries. Looking ahead, Turgenev determines the paths and prospects for the development of literature in the second half of the 19th century. In the "Notes of a Hunter", in "The Nest of Nobles" Tolstoy's epic, "people's thought", the spiritual searches of Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov are already foreseen. In "Fathers and Sons" Dostoevsky's thought, the characters of his future heroes are anticipated. Turgenev, like none of his contemporaries, is sensitive to the passage of time. He sensitively listens to the incessant murmur of its wheels, peering thoughtfully into the wide sky above his head. Turgenev is considered the chronicler of this tense, dramatic period of Russian history, when, according to V. I. Lenin, "transformations took place in several decades, which took whole centuries in some old European countries."
But Turgenev, if he is a chronicler, is of a strange nature. He does not follow on the heels of historical events. He doesn't keep his distance. Against! He keeps running ahead. A sharp artistic flair allows him to catch the future by obscure, still vague strokes of the present and recreate it in unexpected concreteness, in living fullness. Turgenev carried this gift all his life like a heavy cross. After all, with his farsightedness, he caused constant irritation among contemporaries who did not want to live, knowing their fate in advance. And stones often flew at Turgenev. But such is the fate of any artist endowed with the gift of "foresight and foreboding." When the struggle subsided, there was a lull, the same persecutors went to bow to him with a surrendered head. The spiritual image of the people of the cultural stratum of society in (* 78) the era of Turgenev changed very quickly. This brought drama to the writer's novels: they are distinguished by a swift plot, a bright, fiery climax and a sharp, unexpected decline with a tragic, as a rule, ending. They capture a small period of time, so accurate chronology plays an essential role in them. The life of Turgenev's hero is extremely limited in time and space. If the characters of Onegin and Pechorin "reflected the age", then in Rudin, Lavretsky or Bazarov - the spiritual aspirations of the minute. The life of Turgenev's heroes is like a brightly flashing, but quickly fading spark in the ocean of time. History measures them a tense, but too short fate. All Turgenev's novels are included in the rigid rhythms of the annual cycle. The action usually begins in the spring, culminates in the hot days of summer, and ends under the "whistle of the autumn wind" or in the "cloudless silence of the January frosts." Turgenev shows his heroes in the happy moments of the full flowering of their vitality. But these moments turn out to be tragic: Rudin dies on the Parisian barricades, on a heroic rise, the life of Insarov suddenly ends, and then Bazarov, Nezhdanov ...
And yet, the tragic notes in Turgenev's work are not the result of fatigue or disappointment in the sense of history. Rather, on the contrary: they are generated by a passionate love for life, reaching a thirst for immortality, to a daring desire that the human individuality does not disappear, that the beauty of the phenomenon, having reached fullness, does not fade away, but turns into beauty eternally abiding on earth. In his novels, topical events, the heroes of their time are placed in the face of eternity. Bazarov in "Fathers and Sons" says: "The narrow place that I occupy is so tiny in comparison with the rest of the space where I am not and where I do not care; and the part of the time that I manage to live is so insignificant before eternity, where I haven't been and won't be... And in this atom, in this mathematical point, the blood circulates, the brain works, it wants something too... What a disgrace, what a trifle!" The nihilist is skeptical. But let us note how, at the limit of the denial of the meaning of life, a secret embarrassment breaks through in Bazarov, even confusion before the paradoxical power of the human spirit. And this embarrassment refutes his vulgar materialism. After all, if Bazarov is aware of the biological imperfection of man, if he is indignant at this imperfection, then he has been given a spiritualized point of reference (* 79) that elevates his spirit above "indifferent nature." This means that he unconsciously carries in himself a particle of a perfect, supernatural being. And what is the novel "Fathers and Sons" if not a proof of the truth that those who rebel against the higher world order in their own way, from the contrary, prove its existence.
"On the Eve" is a novel about Russia's impulse towards new social relations, about consciously heroic natures pushing forward the cause of liberation. And at the same time, this is a novel about the eternal search and the eternal challenge that a daring human personality throws to the blind and indifferent laws of an imperfect, incomplete nature. Suddenly, Insarov falls ill, not having had time to carry out the great work of liberating Bulgaria. The Russian girl Elena, who loves him, cannot come to terms with the fact that this is the end, that his friend's illness is incurable. “Oh God!” thought Elena, “why death, why separation, sickness and tears? Or why this beauty, this sweet feeling of hope, why the soothing awareness of a lasting refuge, unchanging protection, immortal protection? What does this smiling, blessing sky mean? this happy, resting land? Is it really all only within us, and outside of us is eternal cold and silence? Are we really alone ... alone ... and there, everywhere, in all these inaccessible abysses and depths - everything, everything is alien to us "Why, then, this thirst and joy of prayer?... Is it really impossible to beg, turn away, save... Oh God! Is it really impossible to believe in a miracle?" Unlike Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Turgenev does not give a direct answer to this eternal, disturbing question. He only reveals the secret, bowing his knees before the beauty embracing the world: "Oh, how quiet and gentle was the night, with what dove-like meekness the azure air breathed, like any suffering, any grief should have been silent and fall asleep under this clear sky, under these holy, innocent rays!" Turgenev will not formulate Dostoevsky's winged thought: "beauty will save the world." But don't all of his novels affirm faith in the world-changing power of beauty, in the creative power of art? Do they not refute bitter disbelief in the meaning of beauty? And do they not give rise to hope for its steady liberation from the power of the blind material process, the great hope of mankind for the transformation of the mortal into the immortal, the temporal into the eternal?
"Stop! How I see you now - remain forever in my memory like that ... (* 80) What kind of light, thinner and purer than sunlight, spilled over all your members, over the slightest folds of your clothes? What God threw back with his gentle breath your scattered curls?.. Here it is - an open secret, the secret of poetry, life, love!... At this moment you are immortal... At this moment you have become higher, you have become beyond everything transient, temporary. This moment of yours will not end never". It is to her, to the beauty that promises to save the world, that Turgenev stretches out his hands. With Turgenev, the poetic image of the companion of the Russian hero, the "Turgenev girl" - Natalia Lasunskaya, Liza Kalitina, Elena Stakhova, Marianna entered life not only in literature, but in life ... all its dormant possibilities will wake up to a temporary triumph. In these moments, the spiritualized female being is beautiful in that it transcends itself. Such an excess of vital forces is radiated, which will not receive a response and earthly incarnation, but will remain a tempting promise of something infinitely higher and more perfect, a pledge of eternity. "Man on earth is a transitional being, in the process of general genetic growth," Dostoevsky asserts. Turgenev is silent. But by intense attention to the extraordinary upswings of the human soul, he confirms the truth of this thought.
Together with the image of the "Turgenev's girl", the image of "Turgenev's love" is included in the writer's works. As a rule, this is the first love, inspired and pure. There is something akin to a revolution in it: “The monotonous, regular structure of the current life is broken and destroyed in an instant, youth stands on the barricade, its bright banner flies high, and no matter what awaits it ahead - death or new life - everything sends his enthusiastic greetings. All Turgenev's heroes are tested by love - a kind of test of viability. A loving person is beautiful, spiritually inspired. But the higher he flies on the wings of love, the closer the tragic denouement and the fall ... This feeling is tragic because the ideal dream that inspires the soul of a person in love is not fully feasible within the earthly, natural circle. More than any other Russian writer, Turgenev discovered the ideal meaning of love. Turgenev's love is a vivid confirmation of the rich and yet unrealized possibilities (*81) of a person on the path of spiritual perfection. The light of love for him was never limited to the desire for physical possession. He was for him a guiding star to the triumph of beauty and immortality. That is why Turgenev looked so sensitively at the spiritual essence of first love, pure, fiery and chaste. The love that promises a person in his beautiful moments triumph over death. That feeling where the temporal merges with the eternal in a higher synthesis, impossible in married life and family love. Here is the secret of the ennobling influence of Turgenev's love on human hearts.
