Ossetian literature in the second half of the 19th century Literary process in Ossetia
In the first half of the XIX century. in Ossetia the number of literate and educated people was still small. But the modest forces of the "enlighteners" were enough to set high spiritual goals for the society. One of these goals was the creation on the basis of the young Ossetian writing literary works... The founder of the Ossetian literary tradition was Ivan Yalguzidze, a natural Ossetian, a native of the Dzau Gorge of South Ossetia. I. Yalguzidze's literary work has not been sufficiently studied. So far, researchers have only one of his works - the poem "Alguziana". The poem is a historical and literary work dedicated to the successful military campaigns of the Ossetian king Alguz. In it, I. Yalguzidze showed himself as an excellent literary narrator, well versed in historical material.
I. Yalguzidze was an outstanding representative of the early Ossetian enlightenment. After him in the field of enlightenment and creative activity a group of Ossetian devotees appeared. These included priests Aleksey (Akso) Koliev, Mikhail Sokhiev, deacon Aleksey Aladzhikov, teachers Solomon Zhuskaev, Yegor Karaev and Georgy Kantemirov. They were the pioneers of Ossetian culture, experts in the Ossetian language, history and ethnography of their people. Dedicating yourself school education At the same time, these people laid the foundations of scientific Ossetian studies, which studied the problems of history, language and culture of the Ossetian people. Solomon Zhuskayev, for example, was the first Ossetian ethnographer to publish articles and essays on the history, traditions, life and customs of the Ossetians in the Caucasian periodicals.
A major phenomenon in the culture of Ossetia was scientific activity Academician Andrei Mikhailovich Sjogren, who arrived in Vladikavkaz in 1836. The outstanding linguist began studying the Ossetian language. A.M.Shogren improved the graphics of the Ossetian language, wrote "Ossetian grammar", providing it with short Ossetian-Russian and Russian-Ossetian dictionaries. A.M. Sjogren's grammar, which laid the foundation for scientific Ossetian linguistics, was printed in Petersburg. Its appearance aroused a keen interest in the Ossetian language, prompted its scientific study and practical use. Already in the middle of the 19th century, after A.M. Sjogren, Joseph Chepigovsky took up the Ossetian language - compiling practical grammar, Russian-Ossetian dictionary and primer. The first representatives of the Ossetian creative intelligentsia helped him.
Ossetian folklore. First publications. In the first half of the XIX century. oral folk art continued to develop. Its rich tradition did not dry up with the spread of Ossetian writing and the emergence of literary creativity. The Ossetian written culture did not create monuments similar to Russian chronicles or European chronographs. The lack of historical narratives of this kind was completely filled with oral "Tales", heroic songs, historical legends or stories. The peculiarity of the Ossetian oral tradition was the narrator's desire to accurately convey the historical reality to which the folklore work was dedicated. Artistic processing historical plots produced by the storyteller, as a rule, did not violate the reliability of the facts or events that took place.
In folklore works of the first half of the 19th century. real events are captured, the eyewitnesses of which were the storytellers. For example, the narrator reproduces the resettlement of Ossetians to the Russian border line and to Mozdok against the background of aggravated Ossetian-Kabardian relations. In these relations, he sees the main reason why the Ossetians moved to the Russian border. In the stories "Taurag", "Why Masukau and Dzaraste withdrew from Ket and settled in the vicinity of Mozdok" and others, the narrator refers to the desire of the Ossetians to obtain Russian patronage and to protect themselves from attacks from the Kabardian feudal lords.
First third of the 19th century - the time of frequent punitive expeditions sent to Ossetia by the Russian administration. Oral folk art sensitively responded to the dramatic events associated with the armed resistance of the Ossetians to the Russian troops. The most striking work, which reflected the struggle of the Ossetian people for freedom and independence, is the "Song of Khazbi". The main character works - Khazbi Alikov, who bravely fought against Russian punishers. Khazbi is a real person, he participates in specific historical events that took place in East Ossetia. The prominent Ossetian writer Seka Gadiev wrote down the earliest oral legends about Khazbi Alikov. According to them, Khazby died in 1812 in the town of Duadonyastau, fighting with the detachment of the Vladikavkaz commandant, General Delpozzo. Later recordings of "Song of Khazbi" link the participation of Khazbi Alikov with battles against General Abkhazov (1830). Such a displacement of the hero from some events and his inclusion in the plot of others had its own logic. The people's memory, as it were, brought together the most popular hero and the most dramatic events associated with the struggle against the establishment of an autocratic regime in Ossetia. During the Caucasian War, small detachments from Chechnya and Dagestan often attacked settlements in Ossetia. The facts of armed clashes with these detachments are also reflected in the oral folk art of the Ossetians. The heroic song "Tsagdi Mar-dta", for example, reproduces the true events associated with the death of the Ossetian Cossacks near Mozdok in a battle with one of Shamil's detachments.
Folklore works also illuminated such a tragic page in the history of Ossetia as the epidemics of cholera and plague ("emyna") of the late 18th - first quarter of the 19th centuries. They recorded the disappearance of entire surnames, the death of individual people, a catastrophic decline in the population of Ossetia.
In general, on folklore works of the first half of the XIX century. lies the stamp of a rich creative tradition that has been developing among the Ossetian people for centuries. The genre diversity and originality of this tradition in the 50s. XIX century. drew the attention of teachers Vasily Tsoraev and Daniel Chonkadze. They were the first to record and preliminary systematize the works of oral folk art of the Ossetians. V. Tsoraev and D. Chonkadze presented their materials to Academician A. A. Shifner, who published these materials in several issues in the Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Another part of these materials was later published by V. Tsoraev and D. Chonkadze in the Ossetian and Russian languages in the "Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences". Two domestic enthusiasts, with their publications, have come close to such a scientific discovery as the extraction of Nart legends from the treasury of Ossetian oral folk art - an outstanding heroic epic of the people.
Great changes have also taken place in the field of health care. In pre-revolutionary Ossetia, medical care was received mainly by representatives of the privileged classes. Care for the health of the people was left to healers, self-taught healers and all kinds of charlatans who robbed the workers. In 1913 there was only one medical station and one private pharmacy in the town of Tskhinvali in the whole of South Ossetia.
Under Soviet rule, health care was placed at the service of the people. Created big number medical and sanitary-prophylactic institutions, serving the population free of charge. Medical stations and paramedic and obstetric stations are open in the most remote corners of the mountain gorges. Thanks to the good organization of medical services and a radical improvement in working and living conditions of the population, the incidence of tuberculosis, malaria and other previously widespread diseases has sharply decreased, and diseases such as smallpox, cholera, etc. have been completely eliminated.
The growth of health care in North Ossetia can be clearly shown on the example of the city of Mozdok, where before the revolution there was not a single medical institution. Currently, there is a hospital with 250 beds, a polyclinic, a tuberculosis and children's hospitals, women's and children's clinics, a maternity hospital, a physiotherapy hospital, a children's home, a sanitary-epidemiological station, an outpatient clinic.About 200 medical workers of the city have higher and secondary specialized education.
On the territory of South Ossetia in 1958 there were 21 hospitals with 670 beds, 12 outpatient clinics, 3 paramedic points, 5 maternity hospitals, 2 sanitary-epidemic stations and others. medical institutions... The medical staff has grown accordingly. If in 1922 there were only 6 doctors and 10 nurses in the region, then in 1958 there were 178 doctors and 642 nurses.
A large number of rest houses and sanatoriums have been created in the republic and in the region, some of which are of all-Union significance; such is, for example, the South Ossetian resort Dzau, founded in 1930, famous for its mineral springs.
Folklore and Literature
Over the centuries, the Ossetian people have created works of oral folk art: epic legends, fairy tales, songs, proverbs, riddles. An important place in Ossetian folklore is occupied by Nart legends - the most ancient epic of the Caucasian peoples. The Nart legends of the Ossetians are original and rich in content. They took shape over many centuries and reflected the change in socio-economic formations - from the primitive communal system to feudalism, inclusive. The Nart legends reflect the economic and social structures, customs, beliefs and other aspects of the life of the Ossetians. A well-known role in the formation of these legends was played by the mythological representations of the people.
Nart legends glorify the courage and love of freedom of the people, devotion to their homeland, human stubbornness in the fight against the elements of nature, etc.
The collection and study of the Nart epic of the Ossetians was started by the Ossetian intelligentsia (V. Tsoraev, the Shanaev brothers, etc.) in the 60s. years XIX v; pre-revolutionary Russian scientists (academicians V. Miller, A. Shifner, etc.) made a great contribution to this matter. However, only in Soviet time systematic work was undertaken to record, systematize, study and publish the Nart epic. The North Ossetian and South Ossetian scientific research institutes published in 1925-1930. collections of Nart legends ("Monuments of folk art of Ossetians") in two dialects of the Ossetian language and in Russian.
Later, government committees were created in North and South Ossetia, which, together with research institutes, carried out an enormous amount of work in the villages of Ossetia to record the Nart legends and prepare the epic for publication.
In 1946, a consolidated text of Nart legends in the Ossetian language was published in North Ossetia, and then published in prose and verse narratives of Nart legends in the Ossetian and Russian languages. In 1954 (to the 30th anniversary of the autonomy of North Ossetia) a consolidated text of the Nart legends in the Ossetian and Russian languages was published.
In South Ossetia, the consolidated text of the Nart legends was published in 1942 in the Ossetian language, and in 1957 it was published in Russian translation by the publishing house of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In the coming years, an academic publication of the Ossetian Nart epic is planned in several volumes. Russian scientists and writers take an active part in the collection, translation and publication of Nart legends.
Ossetians have a rich musical folklore. Folk songs are diverse: labor songs associated with agriculture, cattle breeding and hunting, heroic, historical, everyday, ritual, lyrical, etc. Many * folk songs were created in Soviet times - songs about V.I. Lenin and The communist party, about heroics civil war, about socialist construction, about a new collective farm village. During the Great Patriotic War there were songs dedicated to the heroic struggle of the peoples of the USSR against the German fascist invaders. Dance melodies also play an important role in folk music.
The best works and traditions of oral folk art had a great influence on the development of Ossetian literature, the emergence of which dates back to the 19th century.
Writing in the Ossetian language has existed since the end of the 18th century. based on the Church Slavonic alphabet. In 1798, this alphabet was used to print the first book in the Ossetian language, "Primary Teaching by a Man Who Wants to Learn the Books of Divine Scripture."
In South Ossetia, attempts were made to create an Ossetian script based on the Georgian alphabet. One of the initiators of this was Ivan Yalguzidze - a famous Ossetian educator of the late 18th - early 19th centuries, the author of the poem "Alguziani".
In the 40s of the XIX century. Russian scientist Academician Andrey Shegren compiled a more perfect alphabet of the Ossetian language on the basis of the Russian civil alphabet and wrote "Ossetian grammar". Sjogren's grammar was of great importance for the spread of literacy and the development of Ossetian writing. The modern Ossetian alphabet is also based on Russian graphics. Under the influence of the Russian * language, the Ossetian language is developing and enriched, especially its vocabulary.
The creator of the Ossetian literary language and the founder fiction was a revolutionary democrat, a follower of the great Russian revolutionary democrats, Kosta Levanovich Khetagurov (1859-1906), a native of the villages. Nar in mountainous Ossetia. K. Khetagurov is not only an outstanding poet, prose writer and publicist, but also a talented artist, the founder of national painting. K. Khetagurov studied in the Russians educational institutions and wrote in Ossetian and Russian. The formation of him as a poet was greatly influenced by the classics of Russian literature A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. A. Nekrasov, as well as Ossetian folk art. The poet's deep love for the mighty, Russian literature is evidenced by such poems as "In memory of A. S. Griboyedov", "In memory of A. N. Ostrovsky" and others.
Most of the works of K. Khetagurov are devoted to the life of the working mountaineers, their struggle against the exploiting classes. The poet boldly exposed the colonialist policy of the autocracy and the predatory exploitation of the people by the local feudal nobility and the Russian bourgeoisie. The tsarist government persecuted K. Khetagurov for his revolutionary activities; he was repeatedly deported from his native land.
With his literary and social activities, K. Khetagurov contributed to a closer rapprochement of the Ossetian people with the great Russian people. K. Khetagurov's influence on Ossetian literature is enormous; young Ossetian poets and writers were brought up and educated on his works. The literary heritage of K. Khetagurov became the property of the entire Soviet people. His works have been translated into 13 languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Georgian, Armenian, Azeri, Kabardian, etc. The traditions of Kosta Khetagurov were continued by Ossetian writers S. Gadiev, B. Gurzhibekov, A. Kotsoev, R. Kocisova, Ts. Gadiev, E. Britaev, Niger (I. Dzhanaev) and others.
Contemporary Ossetian literature is part of the multinational Soviet literature. She develops under beneficial influence Russian literature and the best examples of literature of other fraternal peoples. In Soviet times, all literary genres developed in Ossetia - fiction, poetry, drama. Two literary magazines are published in the Ossetian language: in North Ossetia "Makh Dug" ("Our era"), in South Ossetia - "Khurzarin" ("Sunlight"), as well as almanacs "Soviet Ossetia", "Pioneer", etc.
The best works of Ossetian writers are widely known. Totally agree last years in Moscow, more than 20 collections of Ossetian literature and books by individual authors have been published in Russian. A. Tokayev's play "The Grooms" is staged in many cities Soviet Union... In turn, Ossetian writers translate the works of Russian writers and writers of other nations into their native language.
Further development writing and schooling. Originated back in the 18th century. the fundamental foundations of culture - the development of writing, school education, printing - were perceived by Ossetian society as natural and the necessary conditions for the life of the people. In Ossetia, there were no religious or any other social forces that would interfere with the modern forms of development of Ossetian culture for that time. Nor were there any external "aggressive" political forces that would impose cultural values alien to Ossetia. There was a stable internal disposition of the people to perceive the fundamental achievements of European culture. The people realized the lag behind this culture. This awareness, as well as the belonging of the Ossetians to the Indo-European branch of peoples (in the past, the Ossetians experienced a powerful cultural evolution) saved Ossetia at a new stage of social development from upheavals in the cultural sphere.
Ossetian society of the first half of the 19th century showed the ability to integrate achievements both in the field of writing, school education, and fiction and the humanities - areas inaccessible to peoples engaged in organizing the initial forms of cultural formation.
At the beginning of the XIX century. there was a further improvement of the Ossetian written culture. On the basis of the young writing system, primarily books of religious content appeared, as well as textbooks for Ossetian schools. New were the translations of state acts and the involvement of the Ossetian language in the service of the administrative-state sphere. For example, at the beginning of the 19th century. a prominent public and cultural figure of Ossetia Ivan Yalguzidze (Gabaraev), who was fluent in Russian, translated into the Ossetian language the “Provision on Provisional Courts and Oaths”.
Ossetian writing developed on the basis of Russian graphics. At the same time, in Ossetia, there was a search for graphic means that most fully reflected the lexical and phonetic features of the Ossetian language. They tried, in particular, the graphic capabilities of the Georgian writing system. The same Ivan Yalguzidze, based on Georgian graphics, created the Ossetian alphabet and published the first primer in the Ossetian language in Tiflis.
The experience of Ivan Yalguzidze in attracting Georgian graphics for the development of Ossetian writing was applied later. However, the active involvement of Ossetia in the cultural environment of Russia made the Russian language a priority for the Ossetians, and with it its written schedule. Another thing was also important - the belonging of the Ossetian and Russian languages to the same Indo-European language branch.
The most popular sphere of the cultural life of the Ossetians was school education. In the first quarter of the XIX century. small schools were opened in the villages of Saniba, Unal, Jinat and others. Those who graduated from them could continue their studies at the theological school of Vladikavkaz. The children of wealthy parents also entered the Astrakhan and Tiflis theological seminaries, which trained clergy for Ossetia.
In the 30s. XIX century. interest in secular education is growing. Many pupils of the Vladikavkaz religious school preferred to enter a military or civilian educational institution.
In the dissemination of education, an important place was occupied by schools that functioned at military units - regiments, battalions. They were also called "schools of military pupils", the purpose of which was to educate children of honorary classes. In such schools, children under 17 years of age studied at public expense. Those who graduated from school entered the military or civilian service. Among children and parents, the Navaginskaya school, created in 1848 in Vladikavkaz for children of privileged classes, was especially popular.
In Ossetian society, interest in school education was so great that already in the first half of the 19th century. in Ossetia, the issue of women's educational institutions was discussed. The opening of the first schools for girls dates back to the 50s. XIX century. One of them, founded by Zurapova-Kubatieva, was a small boarding school for the preparation of "religious, pious mothers" from Ossetian girls. The same boarding house was opened in Salugardan.
A more thorough question of women's education was raised by Akso Koliev, a priest and inspector of the Vladikavkaz religious school. At his own expense, he opened an elementary school for Ossetian girls, which was later transformed into the Olginsky three-class school.
The organization of women's education in Ossetia became possible thanks, first of all, to the traditional culture of the Ossetians, democratic in character. Concern for women's education was a consequence of the important social role that women were assigned in Ossetia.
The origin of the literary tradition and scientific Ossetian studies. In the first half of the XIX century. in Ossetia the number of literate and educated people was still small. But the modest forces of the "enlighteners" were enough to set high spiritual goals for the society. One of these goals was the creation of literary works based on the young Ossetian writing. The founder of the Ossetian literary tradition was Ivan Yalguzidze, a natural Ossetian, a native of the Dzau Gorge of South Ossetia. I. Yalguzidze's literary work has not been sufficiently studied. So far, researchers have only one of his works - the poem "Alguziana". The poem is a historical and literary work dedicated to the successful military campaigns of the Ossetian king Alguz. In it, I. Yalguzidze showed himself as an excellent literary narrator, well versed in historical material.
I. Yalguzidze was an outstanding representative of the early Ossetian enlightenment. After him, a group of Ossetian devotees appeared in the field of enlightenment and creative activity. These included priests Aleksey (Akso) Koliev, Mikhail Sokhiev, deacon Aleksey Aladzhikov, teachers Solomon Zhuskaev, Yegor Karaev and Georgy Kantemirov. They were the pioneers of Ossetian culture, experts in the Ossetian language, history and ethnography of their people. Having devoted themselves to school education, these people at the same time laid the foundations of scientific Ossetian studies, which studied the problems of history, language and culture of the Ossetian people. Solomon Zhuskayev, for example, was the first Ossetian ethnographer to publish articles and essays on the history, traditions, life and customs of the Ossetians in the Caucasian periodicals.
A major phenomenon in the culture of Ossetia was the scientific activity of Academician Andrei Mikhailovich Sjogren, who arrived in Vladikavkaz in 1836. The outstanding linguist began studying the Ossetian language. A.M.Shogren improved the graphics of the Ossetian language, wrote "Ossetian grammar", providing it with short Ossetian-Russian and Russian-Ossetian dictionaries. A.M. Sjogren's grammar, which laid the foundation for scientific Ossetian linguistics, was printed in Petersburg. Its appearance aroused a keen interest in the Ossetian language, prompted its scientific study and practical use. Already in the middle of the 19th century, after A.M. Sjogren, Iosif Chepigovsky took up the Ossetian language - compiling practical grammar, Russian-Ossetian dictionary and primer. The first representatives of the Ossetian creative intelligentsia helped him.
Ossetian folklore. First publications. In the first half of the XIX century. oral folk art continued to develop. Its rich tradition did not dry up with the spread of Ossetian writing and the emergence of literary creativity. The Ossetian written culture did not create monuments similar to Russian chronicles or European chronographs. The lack of historical narratives of this kind was fully made up for by oral "Tales", heroic songs, historical legends or stories.
The peculiarity of the Ossetian oral tradition was the narrator's desire to accurately convey the historical reality to which the folklore work was dedicated. The artistic treatment of historical plots produced by the narrator, as a rule, did not violate the reliability of the facts or events that took place.
In folklore works of the first half of the 19th century. real events are captured, the eyewitnesses of which were the storytellers. For example, the narrator reproduces the resettlement of Ossetians to the Russian border line and to Mozdok against the background of aggravated Ossetian-Kabardian relations. In these relations, he sees the main reason why the Ossetians moved to the Russian border. In the stories "Taurag", "Why Masukau and Dzaraste withdrew from Ket and settled in the vicinity of Mozdok" and others, the narrator refers to the desire of the Ossetians to obtain Russian patronage and to protect themselves from attacks from the Kabardian feudal lords.
First third of the 19th century - the time of frequent punitive expeditions sent to Ossetia by the Russian administration. Oral folk art sensitively responded to the dramatic events associated with the armed resistance of the Ossetians to the Russian troops. The most striking work, which reflected the struggle of the Ossetian people for freedom and independence, is the "Song of Khazbi". The protagonist of the work is Khazbi Alikov, who bravely fought against Russian punishers. Khazbi is a real person, he participates in specific historical events that took place in East Ossetia. The prominent Ossetian writer Seka Gadiev wrote down the earliest oral legends about Khazbi Alikov. According to them, Khazby died in 1812 in the town of Duadonyastau, fighting with the detachment of the Vladikavkaz commandant, General Delpozzo. Later recordings of "Song of Khazbi" link the participation of Khazbi Alikov with battles against General Abkhazov (1830). Such a displacement of the hero from some events and his inclusion in the plot of others had its own logic. The people's memory, as it were, brought together the most popular hero and the most dramatic events associated with the struggle against the establishment of an autocratic regime in Ossetia.
During the Caucasian War, small detachments from Chechnya and Dagestan often attacked settlements in Ossetia. The facts of armed clashes with these detachments are also reflected in the oral folk art of the Ossetians. The heroic song "Tsagdi Mar-dta", for example, reproduces the true events associated with the death of the Ossetian Cossacks near Mozdok in a battle with one of Shamil's detachments.
Folklore works also illuminated such a tragic page in the history of Ossetia as the epidemics of cholera and plague ("emyna") of the late 18th - first quarter of the 19th centuries. They recorded the disappearance of entire surnames, the death of individual people, a catastrophic decline in the population of Ossetia.
In general, on folklore works of the first half of the XIX century. lies the stamp of a rich creative tradition that has been developing among the Ossetian people for centuries. The genre diversity and originality of this tradition in the 50s. XIX century. drew the attention of teachers Vasily Tsoraev and Daniel Chonkadze. They were the first to record and preliminary systematize the works of oral folk art of the Ossetians. V. Tsoraev and D. Chonkadze presented their materials to Academician A. A. Shifner, who published these materials in several issues in the Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Another part of these materials was later published by V. Tsoraev and D. Chonkadze in the Ossetian and Russian languages in the "Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences". Two domestic enthusiasts, with their publications, have come close to such a scientific discovery as the extraction of Nart legends from the treasury of Ossetian oral folk art - the outstanding heroic epic of the people.
MM. Bliev, R.S. Bzarov "History of Ossetia"
Kosta Levanovich Khetagurov, an Ossetian poet, prose writer, publicist, playwright, painter and revolutionary of his time, was not just a man of many talents, he is also the founder of the literary Ossetian language. Everyone in Ossetia knows about Kosta Khetagurov, because he is the most significant figure in Ossetian literature, and his works are on the lips of all his compatriots. They conquer with simplicity and sincerity, Kosta Levanovich, like no one, understood the needs and troubles of his people and conveyed them through creativity.
The famous poet was born in the mountain village of Nar Alagirsky district of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania in 1859 in the family of warrant officer of the Russian army Levan Khetagurov. Soon after his birth, the poet's mother died, and his father married a second time to the daughter of a local priest, who, according to Kosta Levanovich, did not love him at all. These events had a huge impact on the poet's work in the future.
Kosta Khetagurov began writing quite early, his first works date back to the time of his studies at the Stavropol gymnasium. It is worth noting that largely thanks to the insistence of his father, he received a good education - after primary school In Nara, he studied at the progymnasium in Vladikavkaz, from where he fled, missing his father, who then, not without difficulty, managed to arrange him at the Kalandzhinsky school. After that, the poet studied at the Stavropol gymnasium, and in 1881 entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, where he wrote his first poems "The Attic" and "Late Dawn". But, unfortunately, having lost the scholarship, and with it almost all means of subsistence, he was forced to leave his studies and return to Ossetia. It was during this period in Vladikavkaz that most of his works were written in the Ossetian language.
Kosta Levanovich was a free-thinker and openly expressed his opinion in defense of his oppressed and disadvantaged people, expressing his feelings in creativity, for which he was expelled from Ossetia to Kherson. This link became fatal for the poet, it was there that he contracted a serious illness - tuberculosis of the bones, from which he later died.
In exile, the poet was very homesick, during this period a collection of his poems "Ossetian lyre" was published, some of the poems from which were banned by the censors. After the exile, Kosta Khetagurov worked for some time in the newspaper “ North Caucasus”In Stavropol, and a year later he returned to Vladikavkaz, where he ended his days. The disease knocked him down too early, not allowing his old dreams to come true - to start a family and open a children's painting school. The famous poet died in the Georgievsko-Ossetian village, founded by his father, which now bears the name of Kosta Levanovich Khetagurov.
Kosta Levanovich loved his native land without a trace, because of his love for it, he could not remain silent about the hardships and injustice towards the common people, for which he was unjustly condemned to exile, which became fatal for him. In Ossetia, Costa loved everything - people, culture, nature of the mountainous area, customs and cuisine. In Ossetia, even today they remember the culinary preferences of the poet, who was very fond of the traditional Ossetian dish of fresh cheese and flour (Ossetian dzykka) and Ossetian pies.
In the network of Moscow bakeries "Assa" you can order the poet's favorite dish - traditional Ossetian pies, prepared from natural ingredients supplied from Ossetia and in compliance with the national recipe.
The 19th century was the period of the formation of Ossetian literature, one of the first representatives of which was Ivan Yalguzidze (1775-1830). In his work, the main idea was the national revival of the Ossetian people, the path to which he saw in enlightenment and friendship with Russia.
Yalguzidze wrote in Georgian. There was a lot in common in life destiny and the works of Temirbolat Mamsurov and Inal Kanukov. Both of them belonged to the privileged class, were educated in Russia, served in the Russian army.
The writers survived the tragedy of the mountaineers' resettlement to Turkey, left Ossetia against their will and lived almost their entire adult life away from it. Both Mamsurov and Kanukov spoke with pain about the life and suffering of their people. However, there were many things that distinguished them from each other.
Mamsurov expressed the feelings of that part of the Ossetian people who, having left their homeland against their will, found themselves in the mid-60s of the last century in “co-religion” Turkey. Migrants in a foreign land suffered a bitter fate. Eleven poems of the poet, dated 1867-1898, have come down to us.
They reflect one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the Ossetian people. The poet tells about immigrants who, on their way to the “promised land”, drowned in the sea, died in thousands in the sands of Anatolia, and abandoned hungry children to the mercy of fate (“Two Comrades”). Love for his homeland, fear of losing his national dignity - the main motive of his work ("Lullaby", "Dumas").
From the standpoint of the old patriarchal freemen, Mamsurov also considered the problem of liberating Ossetia from tsarism. The poet, cut off from his homeland, did not know about the socio-economic and cultural changes that were taking place in it as a result of the end of the Caucasian war and the abolition of serfdom.
These events were not a collapse and death, as it seemed to him from a foreign land, but the beginning of a new era in the history of the Ossetian people. Mamsurov is dear to Ossetian culture as a humanist and patriot, as the first poet, whose work in his native language found a response among the people.
The exponent of the progressive social ideals of post-reform Ossetia was the poet, publicist, prominent educator Inal Kanukov. In his essays "In the Ossetian village" (1870), "Highlanders-migrants" (1875), "Notes of a highlander" (1873), in the stories "Two deaths" (1878), "Theft-revenge" (1876), in an excerpt from the story "From the Ossetian Life" (1876), realistic pictures of the difficult situation of the post-reform Ossetian village were created, the changes taking place in everyday life, the worldview and psychology of the Ossetians are shown.
For the first time, the writer shows the complexity and contradictory nature of the national character of the Ossetian mountaineer, tells about the hard life of the Ossetian woman, her disenfranchised position in the family and society, how he describes the resettlement of the highlanders to Turkey as a national disaster.
Essays on Siberia and the Far East occupy a prominent place in the work of Kanukov in the 1980s and 1990s. In them, he examines the problems that worried the progressive Russian social thought at that time. Kanukov, speaking about the progressive role of capitalism in the industrial development of Russia, at the same time clearly sees its predatory nature.
His judgments about the fate of the working people of Russia echo the thoughts and statements of G. Uspensky, Shelgunov, Chekhov, Korolenko, Serafimovich, Gorky. Strongly condemning the Russian autocracy, Kanukov, as a typical educator, believed that social evil could be corrected by enlightening and re-educating people.
In poems of the 90s, Kanukov speaks of the hard lot of the people ("Yellow Flag", "In a Passionate Time"). Exposes bourgeois society with its cult of Mammon, hypocrisy, inhumanity, moral deformity ("Is it possible to live?", "I went on the road ...", "Grieving Muse", "Blood and Tears", etc.). Criticism of the existing system and at the same time the absence of a social ideal, pain for a person and ignorance of the true ways of fighting social evil, deeply suffering feelings and traditional, sometimes stereotyped, poetics - these are the contradictory features of Kanukov's poetry.
The founder of Ossetian literature and the creator of the Ossetian literary language was Kosta Khetagurov (1859-1906), poet and prose writer, playwright and theatrical figure, artist and publicist, journalist and public figure.
Khetagurov also wrote poetry, poems, journalistic articles, short stories in Russian; he penned the comedy "Dunya", the historical and ethnographic essay "Person". He won the fame of the national poet after the publication of the collection of poems "Ossetian lyre" (1899).
The poems included in the collection became known long before their publication. They were distributed in lists, orally, they were sung, composing melodies for them. One of her contemporaries wrote to the poet about his immense popularity: "You are known in every Ossetian home ..."
Kosta Khetagurov was born and spent his early childhood in the small village of Nar, in the mountains of the Central Caucasus. He studied at the Vladikavkaz progymnasium, the Stavropol gymnasium, and then at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
The poet's worldview was formed under the influence of the revolutionary democratic traditions of Russian culture.
Returning to his homeland in the mid-80s, Khetagurov was shocked by the terrible poverty and powerlessness of his people, who were on the verge of extinction. His poem "Woe" sounds like a lament for a desecrated homeland: "They have bound our body with an iron chain, // The dead are not given rest in the earth. // Our land was desecrated, and the mountains were taken away, // All of us are dishonored and beaten with rods ”(translation by A. Guluev). The poet grieves for the hungry children who cry in the snow-covered saklyas ("Mother of the Orphans", "Song of the Poor Man", "The Heart of the Poor Man", "Shalun"), about the bitter lot of the Ossetian woman ("Who are you?", "Mother of the Orphans") ...
The hero of the poem "Who are you?" Tells about the laborer's childhood and the lonely, unsettled youth, the young recruit ("The Soldier") complains about the heavy yoke of the soldiery, the hero of the poem "Thought" speaks longingly of his slavish existence; the mother sings to her son that their life is worse than death and that when he grows up, he will face the fate of his father, exhausted under the weight of backbreaking labor ("Lullaby").
But it was not in the poet's character only to grieve, by his nature he was a fighter and was looking for a way out. And although in the poem "Look!" the poet in despair appeals to Uastirdzhi, the main deity of the Ossetians, his hopes are by no means turned to heaven.
In the "Ossetian lyre" there is a theme folk hero, a defender, which sounds either like a bitter regret that “we have so few worthy people” (“Look!”), then as a passionate desire to gather the whole people “into a single family” (“Without a shepherd”), then as a reproach and curse to those who are indifferent to the fate of the people. And there is a call full of tragedy: "Motherland is crying and groaning ... // Our leader, hurry to us - we are going to death!" ("Woe").
Khetagurov himself became the ideological leader of the people. In the struggle for freedom, he saw not only his civic and patriotic duty, but also the highest happiness ("Testament", "If only!"). Thinking about the future of his homeland, the poet turns to young people, awakening their social and national identity ("Anxiety", "Walking Song").
Talking about the feats of his ancestors, creating images of strong-willed working people, showing a ripening protest against the oppressors ("The Soldier"), the poet taught young people to fight social evil. In parables and fables, the artist satirically ridiculed greed and laziness, talkativeness and class arrogance, envy, stupidity and other vices.
His poems about love became a revelation for a stern, restrained Ossetian mountaineer in the manifestation of his emotions.
Costa Khetagurov
The photo
Khetagurov's poetry was truly folk, not only in content, but also in form. His work is organically connected with Ossetian folklore, which the poet knew and loved from early childhood. On title page the collection of his poems is inscribed by the author's hand: "Thoughts of the heart, songs, poems and fables."
The poet creates images of folk singers-storytellers ("Kubads"), processes motives and images of ritual poetry ("At the cemetery"), based on Ossetian legends and legends, writes the poem "Khetag", draws plots and images from folk songs, fairy tales, proverbs and etc. (" New year's night"," Lullaby "," Mother of Orphans "," In the Shepherds "," Deer and Hedgehog "," Mad Shepherd "," Rebuke "," Radish and Honey ", etc.).
The poet's work in Russian is organically linked with the ideological and thematic content of the "Ossetian lyre". His historical and ethnographic essay "Person" (1894) is one of best works on the ethnography of the Ossetians. The essay contains a wealth of factual material about the life of Ossetia, the economy, social relations and legal norms of the Ossetian patriarchal-feudal structure. The reader finds in him the same picture of the arduous, joyless life of a highlander toiler as in the Ossetian Lyre.
According to M. Shaginyan, Khetagurov the publicist was bright representative schools of Chernyshevsky. In poems written in Russian ("Into the Storm", "The Song of a Slave", "To the Death of a Mountain Woman", "You Can't Help I Burn With Tears", etc.), in the story "The Hunt for Tours", the poems "Before the Court" ( 1893), "Fatima" (1889), "Weeping Rock" (1894) the poet develops many themes characteristic of his poetry in the Ossetian language. First of all, this is the theme of the homeland.
The image of the spiritual leader of the "Ossetian lyre" merges with the Nekrasov image of the poet-accuser, poet-fighter, singer of freedom in the cycle of poems about the poet ("The Last Meeting", "Muse", "Do not reproach me", etc.) and especially in his programmatic the poem "I am not a prophet", where the poet openly declares: "... I boldly speak to everyone about the truth."
Selfless service to the motherland and people, love of freedom and humanism most of all appreciated by Kosta in Russian writers, great figures of Russian culture ("Before the monument", "In memory of M. Yu. Lermontov", "In memory of A. N. Pleshcheev," "In memory of A. S. Griboyedov "," In memory of A. N. Ostrovsky "). He recognizes them as his ideological leaders, learns from them "to be ready to fight for a great, honest cause" against the same "world of slavery, lies, violence and persecution" against which the best people of Russia rebelled.
His poems about love are imbued with light Pushkin's humanism. They reflect the personality of the poet - deeply feeling, suffering, ready for self-sacrifice and forgiveness, but at the same time loyal to his lofty ideals, unable, even in the name of love, to compromise with his convictions (“Yes, I love her ...” , "I understood you ...", "I did everything ...", "Premonition", "I'm sorry", "No fiery prayers ...").
Kosta Khetagurov deeply and comprehensively reflected in his work the historical fate and life of the Ossetian people, their psychological makeup, moral and cultural appearance, their dreams and aspirations. He raised his public and artistic consciousness to a new level and made his contribution to world culture.
History of World Literature: in 9 volumes / Edited by I.S. Braginsky and others - M., 1983-1984.
