The novel What to do was written in. "What to do?", Analysis of the novel by Chernyshevsky

17.10.2021

Features of the genre of the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky "What is to be done?"

I. Introduction

The novel as a leading genre in Russian literature of the mid-19th century. (Turgenev, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy). Features of the Russian novel: attention to the problem of personality, focus on moral and ethical problems, wide social background, developed psychologism.

II. main part

1. All of these features are inherent in the novel "What is to be done?" In the center of the novel are the images of "new people", primarily the image of Vera Pavlovna. The author traces the formation and development of Vera Pavlovna's personality, the formation of her self-awareness, the search for and acquisition of personal happiness. The main problematic of the novel is ideological and moral, connected with the affirmation of the philosophy and ethics of the "new people". The novel quite fully presents the social and everyday way of life (especially in the chapters "The Life of Vera Pavlovna in the Parental Family" and "First Love and Legal Marriage"). The characters of the main characters, especially Vera Pavlovna, are revealed by the author through the image of their inner world, that is, psychologically.

2. Genre originality of the novel "What is to be done?":

so what to do?" - first of all, a social novel, for it the problem of the relationship between the individual and society is extremely important. Outwardly, it is built like a love novel, but, firstly, in the love story of Vera Pavlovna it is precisely the connection between personality and living conditions that is emphasized, and secondly, the problem of love itself is for Chernyshevsky a part of a wider problem - the position of a woman in society: what it was what it is now and how it should and can be;

b) in the novel "What is to be done?" There are also features of a family and everyday novel: it traces in detail the everyday arrangement of the family life of the Lopukhovs, Kirsanovs, Beumont, down to the location of the rooms, the nature of everyday activities, food, etc. This side of life was important to Chernyshevsky because in the problem of the emancipation of women the family and everyday life plays a very significant role: only with its change can a woman feel equal and free;

c) Chernyshevsky introduces elements of a utopian novel into his work. Utopia is an image of people’s life, happy and devoid of internal contradictions, as a rule, in a more or less distant future. Such a utopian picture is presented by most of the "Fourth Dream of Vera Pavlovna", in which Chernyshevsky in detail, down to the smallest details (palaces made of glass and aluminum, furniture, dishes, winter gardens, the nature of work and rest), paints a picture of the future happy life of mankind. Utopian pictures of this kind are important for Chernyshevsky from two points of view: firstly, they give him the opportunity to express his social and moral ideal in a visual form, and secondly, they are designed to convince the reader that new social relations are indeed possible and achievable;

d) Chernyshevsky's novel can also be characterized as a journalistic one, since, firstly, it is devoted to topical problems of our time (the “women's question”, the formation and development of the intelligentsia of different ranks, the problem of reorganizing the social system in Russia), and secondly, the author does not once directly speaks out about these topical problems, addresses the reader with appeals, etc.

III. Conclusion

So, the genre originality of Chernyshevsky's novel is determined both by the general features of the Russian novel (psychologism, ideological and moral problems, etc.), and the original combination in one work of genre features inherent in different types of novel.

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Nikolay Chernyshevsky

Original language: Date of writing: Date of first publication:

1863, "Contemporary"

The text of the work in wikisource

"What to do?"- a novel by the Russian philosopher, journalist and literary critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky, written in December 1862 - April 1863, while imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. Was written partly in response to the work of Ivan Turgenev "Fathers and Sons".

1 History of creation and publication
2 Plot
3 Artistic originality
4 Interesting facts
5 Literature
6 Screen adaptations
7 Notes
8 See also
9 References

History of creation and publication

Chernyshevsky wrote the novel while in solitary confinement at the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863. From January 1863, the manuscript was transferred in parts to the commission of inquiry on the Chernyshevsky case (the last part was transferred on April 6). The commission, and after it the censors, saw only a love line in the novel and gave permission to print. The oversight of the censorship was soon noticed, and the responsible censor, Beketov, was removed from office. However, the novel had already been published in the journal Sovremennik (1863, no. 3-5). Despite the fact that the issues of Sovremennik, in which the novel What Is to Be Done? Were published, were banned, the text of the novel in handwritten copies spread throughout the country and caused a lot of imitations.

N. S. Leskov:

“They talked about Chernyshevsky’s novel not in a whisper, not quietly, but at full throat in the halls, at the entrances, at Mrs. Milbret’s table and in the basement pub of Shtenbokov’s passage. They shouted: 'disgusting', 'lovely', 'abomination', etc. - all in different tones. "

P.A.Kropotkin:

"For the Russian youth of that time, it was a kind of revelation and turned into a program, became a kind of banner."

In 1867, the novel was published as a separate book in Geneva (in Russian) by Russian émigrés, then it was translated into Polish, Serbian, Hungarian, French, English, German, Italian, Swedish and Dutch. In Soviet times, also into Finnish and Tajik ( Farsi). The influence of Chernyshevsky's novel is felt in Emil Zola (Ladies' Happiness), Strindberg (Utopias in Reality), the activist of the Bulgarian National Revival Lyuben Karvelov (Is Fate is to Blame is written in Serbian). What is to be done, as well as "Fathers and Sons" gave rise to the so-called anihilistic novel, in particular "At the Knives" by Leskov, where motives of Chernyshevsky's work are parodically used.

The ban on the publication of the novel "What is to be done?" was filmed only in 1905. In 1906, the novel was first published in Russia as a separate edition.

Plot

The central character of the novel is Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya. To avoid marriage imposed by a selfish mother, the girl marries a medical student Dmitry Lopukhov (teacher of her younger brother, Fedya). Marriage allows her to leave her parental home and take control of her life on her own. Vera studies, tries to find her place in life, and finally opens a “new type” sewing workshop - a commune where there are no hired workers and owners, and all the girls are equally interested in the well-being of the joint venture.

Soon Vera Pavlovna realizes that she loves Lopukhov's friend, with whom they studied together at the Medical Academy, Alexander Kirsanov. Kirsanov, for his part, has long been in love with the heroine. To give his exhausted wife freedom, Lopukhov fakes a suicide (the novel begins with an episode of an imaginary suicide), he himself leaves for America to study industrial production in practice. After a while, Lopukhov, under the name of Charles Beaumont, returns to Russia. He is an agent of an English firm and came on its behalf to purchase a stearin factory from the industrialist Polozov. Delving into the affairs of the plant, Lopukhov visits Polozov's house, where he meets his daughter Ekaterina. Young people fall in love with each other and soon get married, after which Lopukhov-Beumont announces his return to Kirsanov. A close friendship is struck between families, they settle in the same house and a community of “new people” is growing around them - those who wish to arrange their and social life “in a new way”.

One of the most significant heroes of the novel is the revolutionary Rakhmetov, a friend of Kirsanov and Lopukhov, whom they once introduced to the teachings of the utopian socialists. Rakhmetov is devoted to a short digression in Chapter 29 ("A Special Man"). This is the hero of the second plan, only episodically connected with the main storyline of the novel (he brings Vera Pavlovna a letter from Lopukhov explaining the circumstances of his alleged suicide). However, in the ideological outline of the novel, Rakhmetov plays a special role. what it consists of, Chernyshevsky explains in detail in the XXXI part of chapter 3 ("Conversation with the discerning reader and his expulsion"):

I wanted to portray ordinary decent people of the new generation, people whom I meet as many as hundreds. I took three such people: Vera Pavlovna, Lopukhova, Kirsanov. (…) If I had not shown the figure of Rakhmetov, most readers would have been confused about the main characters in my story. I bet that until the last sections of this chapter, Vera Pavlovna, Kirsanov, Lopukhov seemed to the majority of the public to be heroes, persons of a higher nature, perhaps even idealized persons, perhaps even impossible in reality due to too high nobility. No, my friends, my evil, bad, pitiful friends, this is not how you imagined it: they are not standing too high, but you are standing too low. (…) At the height at which they stand, all people must stand, can stand. Higher natures, which you and I cannot keep up with, my pathetic friends, higher natures are not like that. I showed you a slight outline of the profile of one of them: you see the wrong features. Chernyshevsky.

Artistic identity

“The novel“ What is to be done? ”Plowed me deeply. This is a thing that gives a charge for life. " (Lenin)

The clearly entertaining, adventurous, melodramatic beginning of the novel was supposed not only to confuse the censorship, but also to attract a wide audience of readers. The external plot of the novel is a love story, but it reflects new economic, philosophical and social ideas of the time. The novel is permeated with hints of the coming revolution.

L. Yu. Brik recalled Mayakovsky: “One of the books closest to him was“ What is to be done? ”By Chernyshevsky. He constantly returned to her. The life described in it echoed ours. Mayakovsky, as it were, consulted with Chernyshevsky about his personal affairs, found support in him. "What to do?" Was the last book he read before he died. "

In the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky "What is to be done?" aluminum is mentioned. In the "naive utopia" of Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream, he is called the metal of the future. Aluminum reached its "great future" in the middle of XX-XXI centuries.
The “Lady in Mourning” appearing at the end of the work is Olga Sokratovna Chernyshevskaya, the writer's wife. the end of the novel deals with the liberation of Chernyshevsky from the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was at the time of writing the novel. He did not wait for release: on February 7, 1864, he was sentenced to 14 years in hard labor, followed by settlement in Siberia.
The main characters with the surname Kirsanov are also found in the novel by Ivan Turgenev "Fathers and Sons", but the researchers deny the connection between the novel characters of Chernyshevsky and Turgenev.

FM Dostoevsky argues with the ideas of Chernyshevsky, in particular with his thoughts about the future of mankind, in Notes from the Underground. Thanks to the "Notes ..." the image of the "crystal palace" has become a widespread motif of the world literature of the twentieth century.

Literature

Nikolaev P. Revolutionary novel // Chernyshevsky N. G. What to do? - Moscow, 1985.

Screen adaptations

"What to do?" - a three-part television play (directors: Nadezhda Marusalova, Pavel Reznikov), 1971.

"Che fare?" ("What is to be done?") - a five-part television production of Italian television (director: Gianni Serra http://gianniserracinema.wordpress.com/), 1979.
- 1st part
- 2nd part
- 3rd part
- 4th part
- 5th part

Notes (edit)

"Northern Bee". 1863. No. 142
Kropotkin P.A. Ideals and Reality in Russian Literature. - SPb., 1907 .-- S. 306-307
The phrase is given in the memoirs of N. V. Valentinov "Meetings with Lenin" (1953)
Lib.ru/Classic: Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich. V. Mayakovsky in the memoirs of his contemporaries

What to do? (novel) Information About

The novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky "What is to be done?" created by him in the chamber of the Peter and Paul Fortress in the period from 12/14/1862 to 04/04/1863. in three and a half months. From January to April 1863, parts of the manuscript were transferred to the commission on the writer's case for censoring. The censorship found nothing reprehensible and allowed the publication. The oversight was soon discovered and the censor Beketov was removed from office, but the novel was already published in the Sovremennik magazine (1863, No. 3-5). The bans on the issues of the magazine did not lead to anything and the book was distributed throughout the country in "samizdat".

In 1905, under Emperor Nicholas II, the ban on publication was lifted, and in 1906 the book was published in a separate edition. The reaction of readers to the novel is interesting, as they are divided in opinions into two camps. Some supported the author, others considered the novel devoid of artistry.

Analysis of the work

1. Socio-political renewal of society through revolution. In the book, the author, due to censorship, could not expand on this topic in more detail. It is given by half-hints in the description of Rakhmetov's life and in the 6th chapter of the novel.

2. Moral and psychological. That a person with the power of his mind is able to create in himself new given moral qualities. The author describes the whole process from small (the fight against despotism in the family) to large-scale, that is, revolution.

3. Women's emancipation, norms of family morality. This topic is revealed in the history of Vera's family, in the relationship of three young people before Lopukhov's alleged suicide, in Vera's first 3 dreams.

4. Future socialist society. This is a dream of a beautiful and bright life, which the author unfolds in the 4th dream of Vera Pavlovna. Here is the vision of lightened labor with the help of technical means, that is, the technogenic development of production.

(Chernyshevsky writes a novel in the chamber of the Peter and Paul Fortress)

The pathos of the novel is the propaganda of the idea of transforming the world through revolution, the preparation of minds and the expectation of it. Moreover, the desire to actively participate in it. The main goal of the work is the development and implementation of a new method of revolutionary education, the creation of a textbook on the formation of a new worldview for every thinking person.

Story line

In the novel, it actually covers the main idea of the work. It was not for nothing that at first even the censors considered the novel nothing more than a love story. The beginning of the work, deliberately entertaining, in the spirit of French novels, aimed to confuse the censorship and, along the way, attract the attention of the majority of the reading public. The plot is based on an uncomplicated love story, which hides the social, philosophical and economic problems of that time. Aesop's narrative language is permeated through and through with the ideas of the coming revolution.

The plot is as follows. There is an ordinary girl Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya, whom the selfish mother tries in every possible way to pass off as a rich man. Trying to avoid this fate, the girl resorts to the help of her friend Dmitry Lopukhov and enters into a fictitious marriage with him. Thus, she gains freedom and leaves her parents' house. In search of earnings, Vera opens a sewing workshop. This is not an ordinary workshop. There is no hired labor here, women workers have their share of the profits, therefore they are interested in the prosperity of the enterprise.

Vera and Aleksandr Kirsanov are mutually in love. To free his imaginary wife from remorse, Lopukhov fakes a suicide (it is with his description that the whole action begins) and leaves for America. There he acquired a new name, Charles Beaumont, became an agent of an English firm and, fulfilling its assignment, came to Russia to acquire a stearic plant from the industrialist Polozov. Lopukhov at Polozov's house meets his daughter Katya. They fall in love with each other, the affair ends with a wedding. Now Dmitry is announced to the Kirsanov family. Friendship begins with families, they settle in the same house. Around them, a circle of "new people" is formed who want to arrange their own and social life in a new way. Lopukhov-Beumont's wife Ekaterina Vasilievna also joins the business, arranges a new sewing workshop. Such is the happy ending.

main characters

The central character of the novel is Vera Rozalskaya. She is especially sociable, belongs to the type of "honest girls" who are not ready to compromise for a profitable marriage without love. The girl is romantic, but, despite this, she is quite modern, with good administrative inclinations, as they would say today. Therefore, she was able to interest the girls and organize a sewing production and more than one.

Another character in the novel is Dmitry Sergeevich Lopukhov, a student at the Medical Academy. Somewhat closed, prefers loneliness. He is honest, decent and noble. It was these qualities that prompted him to help Vera in her difficult situation. For her sake, he drops out of his last year and begins to engage in private practice. Considered the official husband of Vera Pavlovna, he behaves towards her in the highest degree decent and noble. The apogee of his nobility is his decision to stage his own death in order to allow Kirsanov and Vera, who love each other, to unite their fates. Just like Vera, he refers to the formation of new people. Smart, adventurous. This can be judged if only because the British firm entrusted him with a very serious matter.

Kirsanov Alexander is the husband of Vera Pavlovna, Lopukhov's best friend. He is very impressed by his attitude towards his wife. He not only loves her dearly, but is also looking for something to do for her in which she could fulfill herself. The author feels deep sympathy for him and speaks of him as a courageous person who knows how to carry on to the end the work he has undertaken. At the same time, the person is honest, deeply decent and noble. Not knowing about the true relationship of Vera and Lopukhov, falling in love with Vera Pavlovna, disappears from their house for a long time, so as not to disturb the peace of his loved ones. Only Lopukhov's illness compels him to appear for the treatment of a friend. The fictitious husband, realizing the state of the lovers, imitates his death and makes room for Kirsanov next to Vera. Thus, lovers find happiness in family life.

(In the photo, the artist Karnovich-Valois in the role of Rakhmetov, the play "New People")

A close friend of Dmitry and Alexander, the revolutionary Rakhmetov is the most significant hero of the novel, although little space is allotted to him in the novel. In the ideological outline of the narrative he played a special role and is devoted to a separate digression in chapter 29. The person is extraordinary in all respects. At the age of 16, he left the university for three years and wandered around Russia in search of adventure and character education. This is a person with already formed principles in all spheres of life, in material, physical and spiritual. At the same time, he has an ebullient nature. He sees his future life in serving people and prepares for this, tempering his spirit and body. He even refused his beloved woman, because love can limit his actions. He would like to live like most people, but he cannot afford it.

In Russian literature, Rakhmetov became the first practical revolutionary. Opinions about him were completely opposite, from indignation to admiration. This is the ideal image of a revolutionary hero. But today, from the standpoint of knowledge of history, such a person could only arouse sympathy, since we know how accurately history proved the correctness of the words of the Emperor of France Napoleon Bonaparte: "Revolutions are conceived by heroes, performed by fools, and scoundrels use its fruits." Perhaps the voiced opinion does not quite fit into the framework of the image and characteristics of Rakhmetov formed for decades, but this is really so. The above does not in the least detract from the qualities of Rakhmetov, because he is a hero of his time.

According to Chernyshevsky, using the example of Vera, Lopukhov and Kirsanov, he wanted to show ordinary people of the new generation, of whom there are thousands. But without the image of Rakhmetov, the reader could have a deceptive opinion about the main characters of the novel. According to the writer, all people should be like these three heroes, but the highest ideal that all people should strive for is the image of Rakhmetov. And with this I completely agree.

More than a hundred years ago, in the mighty and eternal garden of world literature, an amazing creation of human genius grew - the novel by Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky "What is to be done?"

Many times the typesetter bent over the set of this unique book, the letters of dozens of languages of the world again and again made up the pages of the novel, which has, is today and will always have a significant impact on the spiritual life of people and entire nations.

Knowing how to love a person and humanity, deeply understanding the needs and hardships of the life of his native people, N. G, Chernyshevsky was looking for new ways of development of Russia, dreamed of its wonderful socialist future. The enormous talent of Chernyshevsky - a thinker, philologist and historian, publicist and organizer, critic and writer - was directed towards the realization of this dream.

The novel "What is to be done?" - an amazing document of the human spirit, the personal courage of the author, his unshakable conviction in the righteousness of the cause to which his life was given, in the historical inevitability of social progress.

In the original "What to do?" in the chapter "New faces and the denouement" Chernyshevsky introduced a dialogue that explains the reason for the appearance among the "new people" of a "special person" - Rakhmetov.

This dialogue was not included in the journal text of Sovremennik, apparently for censorship reasons. The professional revolutionary Rakhmetov - a hero who stepped into literature, undoubtedly, out of life - according to the author, was born of historical necessity, the atmosphere of the then revolutionary reality.

Here is this restrained dialogue, covered with a veil of conspiratorial considerations, but nevertheless quite clear to the reader of any degree of insight, the dialogue in which we are talking about Rakhmetov who is abroad:

“- And it's time for him to come back!

Yes, it's high time.

I. Don't worry, don't miss your time.

Yes, but what if he doesn’t come back?

So what then? (You know, a holy place is never empty.) There is never a stop for people, if they are concerned; - there would be another, - there would be bread, but teeth will be.

II. And the mill grinds, grinds a lot! - Prepares bread! "

Yes, the revolutionary mill in the 50s and 60s of the 19th century grinded hard and tirelessly in Russia. The horizons of Russian history were constantly blazing now with an unabated wave of peasant riots, now with a red rooster of fires in estates with indomitable and merciless reprisals against their owners, now with magmatic impulses of the ideology of “godless Voltairians” grouped around Petrashevsky, now with the disobedience of the student’s voice , who called invitingly from the foggy distance of London, then a grievous defeat in the Crimean War, in which the ridiculous rattle of tsarism showed its creaky worthlessness and backwardness. It seemed that history craved for change and was eager for it. Revolutionary Russia first put forward Belinsky and Herzen in response, and then spawned from the bowels of its bowels a gigantic figure - Chernyshevsky.

The transfer of the revolutionary baton, a kind of relay race in the field of literary-critical thought from Belinsky to Chernyshevsky, I would like to compare with that amazing fact in the history of Russian literature, when a poetry pen, knocked out of the hands of the great Pushkin, was picked up on the fly by the young genius of Lermontov.

A few years after the death of the “frantic Vissarion,” N. G. Chernyshevsky, paying tribute to the great significance of his work in Russian criticism and history, wrote in Sketches of the Gogol Period of Russian Literature: period, will clearly understand that its character completely depended on our historical position; and if Belinsky was the representative of criticism at that time, it was only because his personality was exactly what was required by historical necessity. If he were not like that, this inexorable historical necessity would have found for itself another minister, with a different surname, with different facial features, but not with a different character: a historical need evokes people to activity and gives the strength of their activity, but itself does not obey anyone, does not change to please anyone. "Time demands its servant", according to the deep saying of one of these servants "

Time demanded the appearance of Chernyshevsky, and he came to accomplish his amazing life feat, which is forever inscribed in the history of Russia, the revolutionary movement, in the history of literature.

Updated: 2012-02-17

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Year of writing: Publication:

1863, "Contemporary"

Separate edition:

1867 (Geneva), 1906 (Russia)

in wikisource

"What to do?"- a novel by the Russian philosopher, journalist and literary critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky, written in December - April, during his imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress of St. Petersburg. The novel was written in part in response to Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons.

History of creation and publication

Chernyshevsky wrote the novel while in the solitary cell of the Alekseevsky Ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress, from December 14, 1862 to April 4, 1863. Since January 1863, the manuscript has been transferred in parts to the commission of inquiry on the Chernyshevsky case (the last part was submitted on April 6). The commission, and after it the censors, saw only a love line in the novel and gave permission to print. The oversight of the censorship was soon noticed, and the responsible censor, Beketov, was removed from office. However, the novel had already been published in the journal Sovremennik (1863, no. 3-5). Despite the fact that the issues of Sovremennik, in which the novel What Is to Be Done? Were published, were banned, the text of the novel in handwritten copies spread throughout the country and caused a lot of imitations.

“They talked about Chernyshevsky’s novel not in a whisper, not quietly, but at full throat in the halls, at the entrances, at Mrs. Milbret’s table and in the basement pub of Shtenbokov’s passage. They shouted: 'disgusting', 'lovely', 'abomination', etc. - all in different tones. "

"For the Russian youth of that time, it [the book" What is to be done? "] Was a kind of revelation and turned into a program, became a kind of banner."

In the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky "What is to be done?" aluminum is mentioned. In the "naive utopia" of Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream, it is called the metal of the future. And this great future by now (mid XX - XXI century) aluminum has already reached.
The “Lady in Mourning” appearing at the end of the work is Olga Sokratovna Chernyshevskaya, the writer's wife. At the end of the novel, we are talking about the release of Chernyshevsky from the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was at the time of writing the novel. He did not wait for release: on February 7, 1864, he was sentenced to 14 years in hard labor, followed by settlement in Siberia.
The main characters with the surname Kirsanov are also found in the novel by Ivan Turgenev "Fathers and Sons".

Literature

Nikolaev P. Revolutionary novel // Chernyshevsky N.G. What to do? M., 1985

Screen adaptations

1971: Three-part television play (directors: Nadezhda Marusalova, Pavel Reznikov)

Notes (edit)

Links

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Nikolay Chernyshevsky
Political novels
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