The concept of the Silver Age of Russian literature. "Silver Age" of Russian culture
The beginning of the XX century entered the history of literature under the beautiful name of the “Silver Age”. This period saw the great rise of Russian culture, which enriched poetry with new names. The beginning of the "Silver Age" fell on the 90s years XIX centuries, it is associated with the emergence of such remarkable poets as V. Bryusov, I. Annensky, K. Balmont. The heyday of this period in Russian culture is considered 1915 - the time of its highest rise.
We are aware of the disturbing historical events of this time. Poets, like politicians, tried to discover something new for themselves. Politicians sought social change, poets sought new forms of artistic representation of the world. The classics of the 19th century are being replaced by new literary movements: symbolism, acmeism, futurism.
One of the first alternative literary movements was symbolism, which united such poets as K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, A. Bely and others. The Symbolists believed that the new art should convey the moods, feelings and thoughts of the poet with the help of symbolic images. At the same time, the artist learns the world not as a result of thought, but in the process of literary creation - at the moment of creative ecstasy sent down to him from above.
Shadow of Uncreated Creatures
Sways in a dream
Like blades of patching
On the enamel wall ...
Sounds half asleep
In a resounding silence ...
This is how he described the feeling of the birth of a creative idea of the most bright representative symbolism V. Bryusov. He formulated in his work the ideas of this literary movement. In the poem "To the Young Poet" we find the following lines:
A pale youth with a burning gaze,
Now I give you three covenants.
Take the first: don't live in the present
Only the future is the domain of the poet.
Remember the second: do not sympathize with anyone,
Love yourself infinitely.
Third keep: worship art,
Only to him, thoughtlessly, aimlessly.
But these covenants do not mean that the poet should not see life, create art for the sake of art. This is proved by the multifaceted poetry of Bryusov himself, reflecting life in all its diversity. The poet finds a successful combination of form and content. He's writing:
And I want all my dreams,
Reached to the word and to the light,
Found yourself the traits you want.
The Symbolists are characterized by their focus on the inner world of the poet. For K. Balmont, for example, the external world existed only so that the poet could express his own experiences in it:
I hate humanity
I'm running from him, hurrying.
My one fatherland -
My desolate soul.
This can be seen in the example of the following lines, where Balmont's appeal to the inner world is reflected not only by the content, but also by the form (frequent use of the pronoun “I”):
I was dreaming of catching shadows that leave,
Fading shadows of an extinguished day
I climbed the tower, and the steps trembled,
And the steps trembled under my foot.
In the poetry of K. Balmont, one can find a reflection of all his emotional experiences. It was they, in the opinion of the Symbolists, that deserved special attention. Balmont tried to capture in the image, in words, any, even fleeting, sensation. The poet writes:
I do not know the wisdom fit for others,
I put only fleetingness into verse.
I see worlds in every fleetingness,
Full of choppy rainbow play.
In a dispute with Symbolism, a new literary movement of the “Silver Age” was born - Acmeism. The poets of this trend - N. Gumilev, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam - rejected the craving of symbolism for the unknown, the poet's excessive concentration on the inner world. They preached the idea of display real life, the poet's appeal to what can be learned. And through the display of reality, the acmeist artist becomes involved in it.
Indeed, in the work of Nikolai Gumilyov we find, first of all, a reflection of the surrounding world in all its colors. In his poetry we find the exotic landscapes and customs of Africa. The poet penetrates deeply into the world of legends and traditions of Abyssinia, Rome, Egypt. This is indicated by the following lines:
I know funny tales of mysterious countries
About the black maiden, about the passion of the young leader,
But you breathed a heavy fog like a sligak for a long time,
You don't want to believe in anything but rain.
And how can I tell you about the tropical garden,
About slender palms, about the smell of incredible herbs.
You are crying? Listen ... far away on the lake
Chad the Gourmet roaming giraffe
.
Each poem by Gumilyov opens a new facet of the poet's views, his moods, vision of the world. For example, in the poem "Captains" he appears before us as a singer of courage, risk, courage. The poet sings a hymn to people who challenge fate and the elements:
The swift-winged captains lead -
Discoverers of new lands
For whom hurricanes are not afraid,
Who has tasted malstroms and stranded.
Whose is not the dust of lost charters -
The salt of the sea is soaked in the chest,
Who's a needle on a torn card
Celebrates his daring path.
The content and refined style of Gumilyov's poems help us to feel the fullness of life. They are confirmation that a person himself can create a bright, colorful world, leaving the gray everyday life.
The poetry of Anna Akhmatova also introduces us to the world of beauty. Her poems are amazing inner strength the senses. Akhmatova's poetry is both a confession of a woman's soul in love and the feelings of a person who lives with all the passions of the 20th century. According to O. Mandelstam, Akhmatova "brought into Russian lyric poetry all the enormous complexity and psychological richness of the Russian novel of the 19th century." Indeed, Akhmatova's love lyrics are perceived as a huge novel in which many human destinies are intertwined. But most often we meet the image of a woman thirsting for love, happiness:
Real tenderness cannot be confused
With nothing, and she's quiet.
You wrap up carefully in vain
My shoulders and chest are in fur.
And in vain are obedient words
You talk about first love.
How do I know these stubborn
Your unfulfilled glances!
The new literary movement of the “Silver Age” that replaced Acmeism - Futurism - was distinguished by its aggressive opposition to the traditional poems of classical poets. The first collection of futurists was called "A Slap in the Face to Public Taste." It was associated with futurism early work Vladimir Mayakovsky. In the early poems of the poet, one feels the desire to amaze the reader with the unusualness of his vision of the world. For example, in the poem "Night", Mayakovsky uses an unexpected comparison. The poet associates the illuminated windows of the night city with a fan of cards. The image of a player-city arises in the reader's mind:
Crimson and white thrown back and crumpled
Handfuls of ducats were thrown into the green one,
And to the black palms of the running windows
Burning yellow cards were dealt.
Poets-futurists V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov, V. Kamensky opposed themselves to classical poetry, they tried to find new poetic rhythms and images, to create the poetry of the future.
The poetry of the "Silver Age" reveals to us a unique and wonderful world beauty and harmony. She teaches us to see the beautiful in the ordinary, to understand deeper inner world person. And the search by the poets of the “Silver Age” for new poetic forms, their rethinking of the role of creativity give us a deeper understanding of poetry.
VSEVOLOD SAKHAROV
The Silver Age of Russian Literature ... This is what is usually called the period in the history of Russian poetry, which falls on the beginning of the twentieth century.
A specific chronological framework has not yet been established. Many historians and writers from all over the world argue over this. The Silver Age of Russian literature begins in the 1890s and ends in the first decade of the 20th century. It is the end of this period that causes controversy. Some researchers believe that it should be attributed to 1917, others insist on 1921. How is this justified? Since 1917 began Civil War, and silver Age Russian literature as such ceased to exist. But at the same time, in the 1920s, those writers who created this phenomenon continued their creativity. There is also a third category of researchers who argues that the end of the Silver Age falls on the period from 1920 to 1930. It was then that Vladimir Mayakovsky took his own life and the government did everything to strengthen ideological control over literature. Therefore, the time constraints are quite extensive and amount to approximately 30 years.
As in any period in the development of Russian literature, the Silver Age is characterized by the presence of different literary movements. They are often identified with artistic methods. Each trend is characterized by the presence of common fundamental spiritual and aesthetic principles. Writers are united in groups and schools, each of which has its own programmatic and aesthetic setting. The literary process develops following a clear pattern.
DECADENCE
At the end of the 19th century, people begin to abandon civic ideals, finding them unacceptable for themselves and society as a whole. They refuse to believe in reason. The authors feel this and fill their works with the individualistic experiences of the heroes. More and more literary images appear that express the socialist position. The artistic intelligentsia tried to disguise the difficulties of real life in a fictional world. Many works are filled with features of mysticism and unreality.
MODERNISM
A wide variety of literary trends are hidden under this trend. But for the Russian literature of the Silver Age, the manifestation of absolutely new artistic and aesthetic qualities is characteristic. Writers are trying to expand the framework of a realistic vision of life. Many of them want to find a way to express themselves. As before, Russian literature of the Silver Age occupied an important place in the cultural life of the entire state. Many authors began to unite in modernist communities. They differed in their ideological and artistic appearance. But they are united by one thing - they all see literature as free. The authors want her to resist the influence of moral, ethical and social rules.
At the end of the 1870s, Russian literature of the Silver Age was characterized by such a direction as symbolism. The authors tried to focus on artistic expression and used intuitive symbols and ideas for this. The most sophisticated feelings were used. They wanted to know all the secrets of the subconscious and see what is hidden from the eyes of ordinary people. In their works, they emphasize candle beauty. The Silver Age symbolists expressed their rejection of the bourgeoisie. Their works are saturated with a longing for spiritual freedom. It was her that the authors missed so much! Different writers perceived symbolism in their own way. Some - as an artistic direction. Others - as a theoretical basis for philosophy. Still others - as a Christian teaching. The Silver Age of Russian literature is represented by a multitude of Symbolist works.
At the beginning of 1910, the authors began to move away from striving for the ideal. Their works were endowed with material features. They created a cult of reality, their characters were distinguished by a clear view of what was happening. But at the same time, writers avoided describing social problems... The authors fought to change lives. Acmeism in Russian literature of the Silver Age was expressed by a certain doom and sadness. It is characterized by such features as the intimacy of the theme, the emotionlessness of intonations and psychological accents on the main characters. Lyrics, emotionality, faith in spirituality ... All this is characteristic of the Soviet period of the development of literature. the main objective Acmeists boiled down to returning the image to its former concreteness and taking the shackles of invented encryption.
FUTURISM
Following acmeism, such a direction as futurism began to develop in Russian literature of the Silver Age. It can be called avant-garde, the art of the future ... Authors began to deny traditional culture and endow their works with features of urbanism and machine industry. They tried to combine the incongruous: documentary materials and fiction, to experiment with linguistic heritage. And I must admit that they succeeded. The main feature of this period of the Silver Age of Russian literature is contradiction. Poets, as before, united in various groups. The revolution of form was proclaimed. The authors tried to free her from the content.
Imagism
In Russian literature of the Silver Age, there was also such a direction as Imagism. It manifested itself in the creation of a new image. The main emphasis was on metaphor. The authors tried to create real metaphorical chains. They compared the most diverse elements of opposite images, endowed words with direct and figurative meanings. The Silver Age of Russian literature in this period was characterized by outrageous and anarchic features. The authors began to move away from rudeness.
The Silver Age is characterized by heterogeneity and diversity. The peasant theme is especially traced. It can be seen in the works of such writers as Koltsov, Surikov, Nikitin. But it was Nekrasov who caused a special surge of interest. He created real sketches of rural landscapes. The theme of the peasant people in Russian literature of the Silver Age is played up from all sides. The authors talk about the difficult fate of ordinary people, about how hard they have to work and how bleak their life looks in the future. Nikolay Klyuev, Sergey Klychkov and other authors, who themselves come from the countryside, deserve special attention. They did not confine themselves to the theme of the village, but tried to poeticize village life, crafts and environment... Their works also reveal the theme of centuries-old national culture.
The revolution also had a significant impact on the development of Russian literature of the Silver Age. The peasant poets took it with great enthusiasm and completely surrendered themselves to her within the framework of creativity. But during this period, creativity was not in the first place, it was perceived in the second place. The first positions were taken by proletarian poetry. She was declared the forefront. After the end of the revolution, power passed to the Bolshevik party. They tried to control the development of literature. Driven by this idea, the poets of the Silver Age spiritualize the revolutionary struggle. They glorify the might of the country, criticize everything old and call ahead for the leaders of the party. This period is characterized by the glorification of the cult of steel and iron. Such poets as Klyuev, Klychkov and Oreshin experienced a turning point in the traditional peasant foundations.
The Silver Age of Russian literature has always been identified with such authors as K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, F. Sologub, D. Merezhkovsky, I. Bunin, N. Gumilev, A. Blok, A. Bely. To this list can be added M. Kuzmin, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam. The names of I. Severyanin and V. Khlebnikov are no less significant for Russian literature.
Conclusion
Russian literature of the Silver Age is endowed with the following features. This is love for a small homeland, following the old folk customs and the traditions of morality, the widespread use of religious symbols, etc. Christian motives and pagan beliefs were traced in them. Many authors tried to turn to folk subjects and images. The urban culture, which was boring for everyone, acquired features of denial. It was compared to the cult of devices and iron. The Silver Age left a rich heritage to Russian literature and replenished the fund of Russian literature with bright and memorable works.
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the name of the period of Russian artistic culture, which reflected the mindset of the new socio-historical era at the beginning of the 20th century. He received the most complete embodiment in literature and poetry. The creativity of the Silver Age masters is characterized by the blurring of thematic boundaries, a wide range of approaches and creative solutions. It existed as an independent phenomenon until the mid-1920s.
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
"SILVER AGE"
period in the history of Russian culture from the 1890s. to the beginning. 1920s Traditionally, it was believed that the first to use the expression "Silver Age" was the poet and literary critic of the Russian emigration N. A. Otsup in the 1930s. But this expression gained wide popularity thanks to the memoirs of the art critic and poet S. K. Makovsky "On Parnassus of the Silver Age" (1962), who attributed the creation of this concept to the philosopher N. A. Berdyaev. However, neither Otsup nor Berdyaev were the first: this expression does not occur in Berdyaev, and before Otsup it was first used by the writer R. V. Ivanov-Razumnik in mid. 1920s, and then poet and memoirist V.A.Pyast in 1929
The legality of naming con. 19 - early. 20th century The Silver Age raises certain doubts among researchers. This expression is formed by analogy with the "golden age" of Russian poetry, which the literary critic, friend of A. Pushkin, P. A. Pletnev called the first decades of the 19th century. Literary critics, negatively referring to the expression "Silver Age", pointed to the lack of clarity, which works and on what basis should be attributed to the literature of the "Silver Age". In addition, the name "Silver Age" suggests that in artistic terms the literature of this time is inferior to the literature of the Pushkin era ("Golden Age"). Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
C) A. Blok
d) Vladimir Soloviev
2. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, three main modernist currents of "new literature" were formed in literature. By characteristic features identify these directions in the literature:
1. The avant-garde movement, formed on the principles of rebellion, archaic worldview, expressing the mass mood of the crowd, rejecting cultural traditions, making an attempt to create art directed to the future.
2.Modernist movement, affirming individualism, subjectivism, interest in the problem of personality. The basic principle of aesthetics is "art for art", "secret writing of the ineffable", understatement, replacement of the image.
3. The modernist movement, formed on the principles of rejection of the mystical nebula; the creation of a visible, concrete image, the refinement of details, a roll call with past literary eras.
a) symbolism
b) acmeism
c) futurism
3. What important historical events took place in Russia at the turn of the XIX - XX centuries:
a) three revolutions
b) the uprising of the Decembrists
c) the abolition of serfdom
G) Crimean War
4. Which of the poets does not belong to the Silver Age?
a) K. Balmont
b) N. Gumilev
d) V. Brusov
5. Poets of what literary trend was inspired by the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov:
a) futurists
b) acmeists
c) Symbolists
6.What is the rhythm of the poem called:
a) The method of organizing artistic speech, when the prose text is divided into rhythmic segments that create the effect of internal melody.
b) Measured repetition of similar elements of poetic speech: syllables, words, lines, intonational melodies and pauses.
c) Sound coincidence of the last syllables found at the end of the poem.
7. To what poetic direction does the work of N.S. Gumilyov belong:
a) futurism
b) acmeism
c) imagism
d) symbolism
8. Which of the poets did not belong to Acmeism:
a). A.Akhmatova
b). K. D. Balmont
v). O. Mandelstam
G). G. Ivanov
9. Which direction does the early work of A. Blok belong to:
a). Futurism
b). Acmeism
v). Symbolism
10. Symbol - a trope, a poetic image that expresses the essence of a phenomenon, always in a symbol there is a hidden comparison (find the unnecessary one):
a) allegorical
b) understatement
c) inexhaustibility
d) calculating on the receptivity of the reader
11. To what literary direction did the poets belong: D. Burliuk, V. Kamensky, V. Khlebnikov:
a) acmeism
b) symbolism
c) futurism
d) imagism
12. Which of the poets belonged to the "ego-futurists":
a) I. Severyanin
b) V. Khlebnikov
c) Z. Gippius
13. What literary direction does V. Mayakovsky's work belong to?
a) imagism
b) futurism
c) symbolism
d) acmeism
14. What group belonged to the poets A. Bely, V. Ivanov?
a) "Senior Symbolists"
b) "Young Symbols"
15. Name a three-syllable poetic meter with an emphasis on the first syllable:
B) anapest
C) dactyl
D) amphibrach
INTRODUCTION
The Silver Age is one of the manifestations of the spiritual and artistic revival in Russian culture of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. Around 1892, Russian modernism was born. (Modernism is the general name for the totality of trends and trends in art of the twentieth century, in which attempts were made to reflect new social and psychological phenomena with new artistic means, since the means of traditional poetics could not reflect this absurd life.)
The period of the late 19th - early 20th centuries was marked by a deep crisis that engulfed the entire European culture, which was the result of disillusionment with previous ideals and a feeling of approaching death of the existing socio-political system. But the same crisis gave rise to great era- the era of the Russian cultural renaissance at the beginning of the century (or the Silver Age, as it is also called). It was a time of creative upsurge in various areas of culture after a period of decline, and at the same time an era of the emergence of new souls, new sensitivity. Souls opened up for all kinds of mystical trends, both positive and negative.
In my work, I want to reflect the influence of political and social events on art. The concept of the "Silver Age" is most applicable to literature, so I decided to dwell on this form of art in more detail, touching only a little on painting, architecture and philosophy, because the volume of my term paper does not allow me to do this in more detail. It is customary to call modernist acmeism, futurism and symbolism, which I will consider in this work.
The goal I set defines the structure of my coursework. It consists of four chapters, which sequentially examine the culture of the turn of the century in general terms, literature in general terms, symbolism and post-symbolism. The fourth chapter includes two paragraphs, which characterize such literary movements as Acmeism and Futurism.
When writing my term paper, I mainly used textbooks on cultural studies, as well as collections of poems.
1. OVERVIEW OF THE CULTURE OF THE BOUNDARY OF THE CENTURIES
The beginning of the twentieth century turned out to be a turning point for many areas of creativity.
In painting, this, for example, manifested itself in the fact that, with lightning speed, not only catching up with, but in many respects and ahead of the main European art schools, it made the transition from the old principles of analytical realism to the latest systems artistic thinking. The intentionally objective, practical painting of the Wanderers, where every gesture, step, turn is specially sharpened, directed against something and in defense of something, is being replaced by the non-objective painting of the world of art, focused on solving internal pictorial, and not external social problems. The most prominent artists of this time are A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, A.Ya. Golovin, L.S. Bakst, B.M. Kustodiev, Z.E. Serebryakova and others.
It is worth noting that painting was not a separate art form; prominent poets of the early twentieth century - A. Bely, A.A. Blok, M.A. Kuzmin, F. Sologub, V.Ya.Bryusov , K. D. Balmont. Also, contacts were maintained with the theater and music figures Stravinsky, Stanislavsky, Fokin, Nezhinsky.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Russian art, which until then had been a student, merged into the general channel of Western European artistic pursuits. Exhibition halls in Russia opened their doors to new creations of European art: impressionism, symbolism, fauvism, cubism.
In architecture, Art Nouveau clearly manifested itself in Moscow architecture: the construction of an architectural structure "from the inside out", the flow of space from one interior to another, a pictorial composition that denies symmetry. F.O.Shekhtel (1859-1926) became the architect, whose work largely determined the development of Russian, especially Moscow, Art Nouveau. During the construction of Z. Morozova's mansion on Spiridonovka (1893), he collaborated with Vrubel, who made panels, put a sculptural group on the stairs, and made drawings of stained glass windows. The highest point of Shekhtel's creativity and the development of mansion construction in Russian architecture was the house of A. Ryabushinsky on Malaya Nikitinskaya in Moscow.
Also, this period is marked by creative achievements in the field of social thought. Russian thinkers got involved in an active discussion of the development of the individual and society, the Russian land community and capitalism, social inequality and poverty. The unique national development of science, which had no analogue in the West, were such areas as the Russian Public School, social theories anarchism (M.A. Bakunin) and populism (P. Struve). This should also include the so-called subjective sociology (N. Mikhailovsky, N. Kareev, S. Yuzhakov, V. Vorontsov).
In the field of philosophy, two original trends that did not exist in the West were formed in the country, namely Russian religious philosophy (V.S. Soloviev, S.N. Bulgakov, S.L. Frank, P.A. Florensky, N.A. Berdyaev , L. Shestov, V. V. Rozanov) and the philosophy of Russian cosmism (N. F. Fedorov, K. E. Tsiolkovsky, V. I. Vernadsky).
The famous Vekhi, a collection of articles on the Russian intelligentsia (1909), published by a group of Russian religious philosophers and publicists (N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, P.B. Struve, S.L. Frank, M.O. Gergienzon, A.S. Izgoev, B.A. Kistyakovsky).
2. LITERATURE OF THE SILVER AGE
The definition "Silver Age" was first used to characterize the peak manifestations of culture at the beginning of the twentieth century (Bely, Blok, Annensky, Akhmatova and others). Gradually, the whole culture of the turn of the century began to be called this term. The Silver Age and the culture of the turn of the century are intersecting phenomena, but they do not coincide either in the composition of the representatives of culture (Gorky, Mayakovsky), or in the time frame (the traditions of the Silver Age were not interrupted by 1917, they were continued by Akhmatova, B.L. Pasternak, M. Voloshin, M. Tsvetaeva).
Not all writers, artists and thinkers who lived and worked at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries are representatives of the culture of the Silver Age. Among the poets of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, there were also those whose work did not fit into the currents and groups that existed at that time. Such are, for example, I. Annensky, somewhat close to the Symbolists and at the same time far from them, looking for his way in the vast poetic sea; Sasha Cherny, Marina Tsvetaeva.
The contribution of V.S. Solovyov to the philosophy, aesthetics and poetry of the Silver Age, to the formation of Russian Symbolism and its artistic system is generally recognized, while the philosopher himself sharply criticized the activities of the first Russian Symbolists and "World of Artists", dissociated himself from modernist philosophy and poetry. The predecessors, and sometimes representatives of the poetry of the Silver Age, felt such symbolic figures of Russian "art for art" as A. Maikov, A. Fet, A. K. Tolstoy, despite their pronounced in many cases artistic and aesthetic traditionalism, archaism of philosophical and political views and poetic predilections.
Fyodor Tyutchev and Konstantin Leontiev, tendentious to the limit, often appeared to be their own in the Silver Age, who did not even live to see the period that received this name, but became famous for their conservatism, opposition to revolutionary democracy and socialist ideals.
In 1917, V.V. Rozanov accused Russian literature of ruining Russia, becoming perhaps its most important "decomposer". But it only recorded the disappearance of the unified frame of reference, within which the self-identification of Russian life had been taking place so far.
The powerful direction of critical realism continued to dominate in literature, but modernism was also widespread. Modernist currents acquired their significance to the extent of their ability to respond in one way or another to calls for ruthless criticism of the outdated autocracy, started by the imperialists of the world war, to accept the February and then the October Revolution of 1917. The process of "decomposition" in the lyrics began with the loosening of the poetic word and the release of a multitude of equal meanings in it. But as for the modernist breakdown of Russian classical versification, the renewal of rhyme, experimentation in the field of stylistics and vocabulary, these formalistic hobbies characterize all currents of poetry at the beginning of the twentieth century and their value was measured by the ability to move away from deliberate cleverness in these searches, to come to that intelligibility that helped find a reader, meet on his part mutual attraction and support.
In the 1890s, new literary trends from Western Europe began to penetrate into Russia, and poetry began to claim the role of expressing the feelings, aspirations and moods of the younger generation, while squeezing prose.
Poets began to call themselves "new", emphasizing their new ideology to the traditions of Russian literature of the 19th century. During these years, the course of modernism has not yet been determined and has not yet taken shape to the end.
After a whole era of Russian realism of the 19th century, which exposed the burning problems of being and, further, with the cruelty of a positivist-naturalist who observed and analyzed social ulcers and diseases, unclouded aestheticism, poetic contemplation and moral integrity, the perception of life as a "difficult harmony" of the Pushkin era did not seem so too naive and simple. In any case, they appeared to be much deeper and more enduring cultural phenomena than social denunciations and descriptions of everyday life, the theory of "environment", democratic and radical ideas of restructuring society that shook the second half of the 19th century.
In the phenomenon of "pure art" from Pushkin to Fet, the figures of the Silver Age were especially attracted by their artistic polysemy and broad associativity, which made it possible to symbolically interpret images and plots, ideas and pictures of the world; their timeless sound, which made it possible to interpret them as the embodiment of eternity or periodic recurrence of history.
The Russian Silver Age turned to samples of the classical era of Russian literature, and at the same time other cultural eras, interpreting and evaluating the work of Pushkin and Tyutchev, Gogol and Lermontov, Nekrasov and Fet and other classics in their own way, not in order to repeat them in new historical context. The writers of the Silver Age strove to achieve the same universality, perfection, harmony in their system of values and meanings in order to revive the aesthetic, religious, philosophical and intellectual ideals and values that fell out of the cultural life of the Russian intelligentsia in the second half of the 19th century, especially the intelligentsia with a radical attitude.
The combination of creative orientation to the heights of the spiritual culture of the 19th century as unconditionally reference values and norms of national culture with the desire to radically revise, modernize the values of the past, push off from previous norms, develop a new, fundamentally neoclassical, approach to culture brought to life the beginning of sharp contradictions that created internal tension of the era of the Russian cultural renaissance. On the one hand, it was literature that claimed to be classic and ascended to the unshakable tradition of Russian classics, on the other, it was a “new classic” designed to replace the “old classics”. Before the literature of the Silver Age there were two ways - either, while continuing to develop the classics, along the way to rethink it and transform it in the spirit of modernity (as did the Symbolists and their immediate successors, the Acmeists), or defiantly topple it from the once unshakable pedestal, thereby to assert oneself, the deniers of the classics , as poets of the future (futurists).
However, both in the first case (Symbolists) and in the second (Acmeists) “neoclassicism” was so new, so rejected the classics, that it could no longer be considered a classic (even if it was new) and related to the real classics rather as a non-classic. Indirectly, this duality (modern is both classic and non-classic) was reflected in the name of the culture of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries "The Silver Age": it is as classic as the age of "Golden", but classic in a different way, creatively demonstrative loss in price. However, for the Russian avant-garde, either declaring the overthrow of the classics in principle (V. Khlebnikov, D. Burliuk), or ironically stylizing it, and this was not enough, and the Silver Age did not exist for him - neither in relation to the Golden Age, nor in itself ...
As in the time of the "golden", Pushkin, century, literature claimed the role of the spiritual and moral shepherd of Russian society. At the beginning of the twentieth century, outstanding works were created by the classics of Russian literature: L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, V.G. Korolenko, A.I. Kuprin, A.M. Gorky, M.M. Prishvin. Dozens of stars of the first magnitude also lit up in the firmament of poetry: KD Balmont, A.A. Blok, N.S. Gumilev, very young M.I. Tsvetaeva, S.A. Esenin, A.A. Akhmatova.
The writers and poets of the Silver Age, unlike their predecessors, paid close attention to the literature of the West. They chose new literary directions as their guideline: O. Wilde's aestheticism, A. Schopenhauer's pessimism, Baudelaire's symbolism. At the same time, the figures of the Silver Age took a fresh look at the artistic heritage of Russian culture. Another hobby of this time, reflected in literature, painting, and poetry, is a sincere and deep interest in Slavic mythology, to Russian folklore.
In the creative environment of the Silver Age, neo-romantic moods and concepts were widespread, emphasizing the uniqueness of events, actions and ideas; the rupture of the sublime poetic dream with the mundane and vulgar reality; contradictions between appearance and internal content. A striking example of neo-romanticism in the culture of the Silver Age is the work of M. Gorky, L. Andreev, N. Gumilyov, S. Gorodetsky, M. Tsvetaeva ... .Mandelstam, from Z. Gippius to B. Pasternak.
The tasks of the creative self-awareness of artists and thinkers of that time began to come to the forefront of culture, and at the same time - the creative rethinking and renewal of previously established cultural traditions.
Thus, the soil arose for a new cultural synthesis associated with the symbolic interpretation of everything - art, philosophy, religion, politics, behavior itself, activity, reality.
art culture literature architecture
3. SYMBOLISM
"Symbolism" is a trend in European and Russian art that arose at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, focused mainly on artistic expression through the symbol of "things in themselves" and ideas that are beyond the limits of sensory perception. Striving to break through the visible reality to the "hidden realities" of the supertemporal ideal essence of the world, its "incorruptible" beauty, the Symbolists expressed longing for spiritual freedom, a tragic premonition of world socio-historical shifts, trust in the age-old cultural values that were discovered and formulated in the 19th century , but now they were no longer satisfied. A new concept was required that would correspond to the new time.
Russian symbolism should be viewed as a kind of romanticism, closely related to modernism, but not identical to it. In this complex phenomenon, it is important to highlight the protest against the bourgeoisie, lack of spirituality, musty existence, characteristic of bourgeois society.
Symbolism was a form of denial of the autocratic system, philistinism, the search for new forms of life, humane human relations, poetic self-expression, which explains the gradual transition of the symbolists Bryusov and Blok to revolution.
The basis of artistic thinking was not real correspondences of phenomena, but associative ones, and the objective significance of associations was by no means considered obligatory. Thus, poetic allegory has come to the fore as the main method of creativity, when a word, without losing its usual meaning, acquires additional potential, multi-meaning, revealing its true "essence" of the meaning.
The way out of the deep crisis and decline experienced by the Russian cultural community was associated with the urgent need to reassess values. In poetry, DS Merezhkovsky believed, “what is not said and shimmers through the beauty of the symbol, has a stronger effect on the heart than what is expressed in words. Symbolism makes the style itself, the most artistic substance of poetry, spiritualized, transparent, transparent through and through, like the thin walls of an alabaster amphora in which a flame is lit. He connected the future of Russian symbolism not only with the new aesthetics, but, above all, with a deep spiritual revolution that will fall on the lot of the "modern" generation - "questions about the infinite, about death, about God."
The poets who chose the new direction were called differently: symbolists, modernists and decadents. Some critics perceived decadence as a by-product of symbolism, linking this phenomenon with the costs of the proclaimed freedom of creativity: amoralism, permissiveness artistic means and techniques that turn a poetic text into a meaningless set of words. Of course, Symbolism was based on the experience of decadent art of the 80s, but it was a qualitatively different phenomenon and did not coincide with it in every way. However, the majority of reviewers used this name indiscriminately, in their mouths the word "decadent" soon began to bear an evaluative and even abusive connotation.
The Symbolists united around the magazines Severny Vestnik and World of Art. " New way"," Libra "," Golden Fleece ". The older generation of Symbolists includes D.S. Merezhkovsky, Z.N. Gippius, V.Ya.Bryusov, K.D. Balmont, F.K. Sologub, the younger generation - A.A. Blok, A. Bely, V. Ivanov, S.M. Soloviev. Moreover, each of them created its own individual art style and contributed to the development of a theoretical question, what is Russian symbolism.
Intending to acquaint readers with the new poetic movement, V.Ya.Bryusov started the release of three collective collections "Russian Symbolists" (1894 - 1895). He set out to present in them samples of all forms and methods of new poetry, with which he himself managed to get acquainted. In the prefaces to the release, he raised the issue of purpose, essence and arsenal expressive means symbolist poetry. But the concept of the symbol that gave the name new school, the author of the prefaces passed over in silence. “The goal of symbolism,” he notes in the first issue, “with a number of juxtaposed images, is to hypnotize the reader, to evoke a certain mood in him,” and in the next he clarifies that “symbolism is the poetry of allusions”.
Representatives of the populist critics saw in the speech of the "Russian Symbolists" the symptoms of a society's illness.
Russian Symbolists were united not only and not so much by stylistic searches as by the similarity of worldviews (mainly extreme individualism). But the declaration of “individualistic” symbolism was inherent in this movement only at its earliest stage and had the character of shocking, later it was supplanted by the search for “an independent mystical abyss” (A.L. Volynsky), which received a different refraction in the creative method of the poets.
In the early 1900s, a generation of "younger" Symbolists announced themselves: Vyacheslav Ivanov ("Pilot Stars"), Andrey Bely ("Gold in Azure"), A.A. Blok ("Poems about To the lovely lady»), Etc. Their literary orientation turned out to be somewhat different from that of their predecessors. Vl. Solovyov was unanimously recognized as the spiritual father; for them, more important than Western orientation was the establishment of continuity with national literature: in the lyrics of Fet, Tyutchev, Polonsky they found aspirations kindred to themselves, as well as in the religious philosophy of Dostoevsky.
Following Vl. Solovyov, they strove “under the coarse crust of matter” to see the “incorruptible” beauty. "Modern poetry," Blok reflected in one of the sketches for an unfinished article, "has generally gone into mysticism, and one of the brightest mystical constellations rolled out into the blue depths of the sky of poetry - Eternal Femininity." All the early lyrics of this poet are listening to "Her" "distant steps" and listening to "Her" "a mysterious voice." The cult of mystical love is also served by the lyric hero Vyach Ivanov. Likewise, the lyric poetry of M.A. Voloshin, who stood apart in the history of Russian symbolism and did not share either the views of the “older” or the thoughts of the “younger” generations, has intersection points with the mythopoetic system of the “young symbols” (in his work, one can also find an analogue of this image-symbol).
The new generation of Symbolists is united by the understanding of art as life creation and peacemaking, “action, not knowledge”. In the pan-aesthetics proclaimed by their predecessors, they saw the deflation of beauty.
After the first revolution, the doctrine of “mystical anarchism”, which Vyach. Ivanov defined as “philosophizing about the ways of freedom”, began to form at first, which inspired many St. Petersburg “artists of the word-symbol”.
The controversy that erupted in 1906-1907 around this direction, led to a confrontation between the "Moscow" and "Petersburg" Symbolists. The organizer of the polemic with the "Petersburg mystics" was V.Ya.Bryusov, who launched a campaign against this doctrine on the pages of "Libra" and attracted Andrei Bely, Ellis (pseudonym L.L. Kobylinsky) and Z.N. Gippius to his side. In Ivanov's concept of the religious "combined" art, Bryusov saw a threat to the cornerstone of the worldview of the "senior" Symbolists - individualism. The question of individualism became a point of disagreement among members of the formerly united school.
By the late 1900s, the Symbolist camp had grown markedly. Symbolist literature has already ceased to be reading for a few, it began to spread among wide layers of the reading public and became a fashionable trend.
In 1900, criticism was already openly talking about the crisis of symbolism. Some representatives of the "new poetry" were also inclined to believe that the trend has exhausted itself. From this year on, the Symbolists had to engage in polemics not only with adherents of other views in their camp, but also with opponents of Symbolism: Acmeists and Futurists. The time has come to take stock and comprehend the path traversed by Russian symbolism.
By the mid-1910s, disputes about symbolism began to gradually subside on the pages of newspapers and magazines and disappear from the agenda of various circles and societies. Despite the fact that most of the poetic masters remained committed to this method, in his work, as a literary direction, he left the stage.
One of the last outbursts of public activity of the adepts of Symbolism was the dispute about modern literature in January 1914 in St. Petersburg, which attracted the attention of the public. Among others, Vyach.Ivanov, F.Sologub, G.I. Chulkov took part in it. Their position coincided in one thing: none of them advocated symbolism as a literary school anymore, but saw in it only an eternal attribute of art.
The culture of Russian symbolism, as well as the style of thinking of the poets and writers who shaped this trend, arose and took shape at the intersection and complementarity of outwardly opposing lines of philosophical and aesthetic attitude to reality that are firmly connected and explaining one another. It was a feeling of an unprecedented novelty of everything that the turn of the century brought with it, accompanied by a feeling of disadvantage and instability.
At first, symbolist poetry was formed as romantic and individualistic poetry, separating itself from the polyphony of the "street", closed in the world of personal experiences and impressions.
It should be noted, however, that the Russian Symbolists made a significant contribution to the development of Russian culture. The most talented of them, in their own way, reflected the tragedy of the situation of a person who could not find his place in a world shaken by grandiose social conflicts, tried to find new ways for artistic understanding of the world. They made serious discoveries in the field of poetics, the rhythmic reorganization of verse, the strengthening of the musical principle in it.
4. POST SYMBOLISM
All the later modernist currents of Russian poetry of the early twentieth century considered it their duty to fight symbolism, to overcome it as too aristocratic, snobbish, abstract, taking credit for being closer to everyday reality, everyday consciousness. But in essence, these movements largely repeated the Symbolists, were often an expression of spontaneous rebellion with a very abstract idea of real world and the impending revolutionary changes in it.
Paragraph 1. Acmeism
Acmeism is one of the varieties of Russian neo-romanticism, a special, short-lived, rather narrow literary movement, which appeared as a result of a kind of reaction to symbolism that has outlived itself.
Consciousness, shared by a part of highly talented poetic youth of the turn of the century, the need to creatively overcome the ossified canons of symbolism, the renewal of Russian lyricism on the path of clarity and accuracy of words, the poetic consistency of the composition of the work led Nikolai Gumilyov to the creation in October 1911 of the literary circle "Workshop of Poets", and a little later than Acmeism. The Acmeists, headed by N. Gumilev, published the magazines Apollo (1909-1917) and Hyperborey (1912-1913), which became the tribune of this literary movement. This poetic school, small in number of participants, became a remarkable phenomenon of Russian literature in the twentieth century.
Gumilyov headed for a break with symbolism and the creation of a new poetic school. In his article "The Heritage of Symbolism and Acmeism" (1913, Apollo magazine), he declared Acmeism the legitimate heir of the best that Symbolism gave, but having its own spiritual and aesthetic foundations - loyalty to the pictorially visible world, its plastic objectivity, increased attention to poetic technique, strict taste, blossoming festivity of life.
The name of this second major current comes from the Greek akme - highest degree something, a blossoming power, a peak and was invented in 1912 at a meeting of the "workshop of poets". Its representatives (S.M. Gorodetsky, M.A.Kuzmin, early N.S. Gumilyov, A.A. Akhmatova, O.E. Mandelstam) proclaimed the liberation of poetry from symbolist impulses to the "ideal", from polysemy and fluidity of images , complicated metaphor, a return to the material world, an object, the exact meaning of the word.
The main thesis of Gumilyov, who became the leader of the "workshop of poets", was the approval of poetry as a result of conscious work on the word (hence the appeal to the medieval understanding of the workshop as a professional corporation of artisans). In the center of poetry was a man who builds his "I" with all the measure of responsibility and risk. This soon developed into the theory of acmeism.
Acmeism expressed the sentiments of the petty-bourgeois and noble intelligentsia, frightened by the 1905 revolution, inclined to reconcile with the tsarist reality, with what is. Acmeists rejected social resistance, democratic ideals, preached "pure art" (including free from politics).
Among the demands, the acmeists especially singled out “... not to make any amendments to being and not to go into criticism of the latter”. "After all rejection, the world is irrevocably accepted by Acmeism in the totality of beauties and ugliness" (Gorodetsky).
The cognitive essence of the works of Acmeists turned out to be insignificant, there were few analytical elements in them, idealization of everyday life was often observed. Akhmatova's poeticization of the personal, chamber world of feelings.
The poetics of the Acmeists were aesthetic in nature. The viewing angle shifted, narrowed, the whole object was not shown, but only its details, trifles, colorful patterns. Especially high matters collided with low ones, biblical matters with everyday ones.
Not all acmeists strictly adhered to the program of direction proclaimed in poems and manifestos, like Gumilyov or Gorodetsky. Pretty soon Mandelstam and Akhmatova went their own way and rushed to the knowledge of objective reality. And Gumilyov himself, in his mature lyrics, essentially ceased to be an acmeist.
Acmeism as a trend came to naught at the beginning of 1914. In the spring of 1914, the Poets' Workshop was also suspended. Gumilyov will try to restore it in 1916 and 1920, but he will not succeed in reviving the acmeistic line of Russian poetry.
It can be said that the Acmeists stood out from the Symbolists. Acmeism neutralized some of the extremes of symbolism. Acmeists tried to rediscover value human life on Earth, preaching the struggle for this world, for the aesthetics of reason, harmony in this world, and not flirting with the unknowable, with mysterious worlds. They criticized the vagueness and fragility of the Symbolist language, preaching a clear, fresh and simple poetic language. Acmeism was a reaction to the penetration of ideas of European decadence into Russia, on the one hand, and to the emergence of "proletarian" literature, on the other.
The merit of Acmeism is not in theories, not in mystical-irrational "insights", but in the most essential - the work of the greatest Russian poets is connected with it.
Paragraph 2. Futurism
Futurism is a literary trend of modernism that arose in Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century. The founder of this trend is F. Marinetti. In Russia, the futurists made themselves known in 1912 by releasing in Moscow the first collection "A Slap in the Face to Public Taste", which published the poems of Vladimir Mayakovsky and their manifesto, which proclaimed the overthrow of all authorities. Russian futurism pretended to be the voice of the street and the crowd, to be a true representative of art, not only of the present, but also of the future. Only their position was considered true art by the futurists.
Futurism united different groups, among which the most famous were: cubo-futurists (V. Mayakovsky, V. Kamensky, D. Burlyuk, V. Khlebnikov), ego-futurists (I, Severyanin), the "Centrifuga" group (N. Aseev, B. Pasternak) ...
Futurism has often been associated with avant-garde groupings of artists. In some cases, futurists combined literary activity and painting. They put forward as an artistic program the utopian dream of the birth of a super-art capable of transforming the world, moreover, relying on fundamental sciences.
Representatives of Russian futurism, like their comrades-in-arms abroad, called for a revolt against the bourgeois everyday life and a radical change in the poetic language. This art had an anarchist-bourgeois character. In Russia, futurism was an opposition movement directed against bourgeois tastes, philistinism, stagnation. The Futurists declared themselves opponents of the modern bourgeois society, disfiguring the individual, and defenders of "natural" man, his right to free, individual development. But these statements often boiled down to an abstract declaration of individualism, freedom from inequality and cultural traditions.
It is worth noting that, unlike the Symbolists, the Futurists did not preach a departure into the romantic world, they were interested in purely earthly affairs.
The Futurists supported the coming revolution, because they perceived it as a massive artistic action, involving the whole world in the game, because they had an exorbitant craving for mass theatrical actions, for them shocking of the layman was important (it was important to amaze him with scandalous antics).
Futurists were looking for new means to portray the chaos and fluidity of the urban society of the new era. They sought to materialize the word, to connect its sound directly with the subject that it denotes. This, in their opinion, should have led to the reconstruction of the natural and the creation of a new, widely available language, capable of destroying the verbal barriers that separate people. Inappropriate, vulgar words and technical terms were introduced into their works. Created new language"Zaum" - the use of sounds as independent units of speech. Each sound, according to their concepts, has its own semantics. Words were re-spread, fragmented, neologisms were created, even attempts were made to introduce a telegraphic language, experiments were made on the figurative arrangement of words and syllables, multi-colored and multi-scale fonts, lines were arranged in "ladders", new rhymes and rhythms appeared. All this is an expression of the aesthetic rebellion of the futurists against the fact that the world is devoid of a solid support. Denying traditional culture, they cultivated the aesthetics of urbanism and the machine industry. Literary works of this genre are characterized by the interweaving of the documentary genre and fiction in poetry and linguistic experimentation.
However, in the conditions of the revolutionary upsurge and crisis of autocracy, futurism turned out to be unviable and by the end of the 1910s ceased to exist.
CONCLUSION
The significance of the culture of the Silver Age for the history of our country can hardly be overestimated: finally, after many decades and even centuries of lagging behind, Russia on the eve of the October Revolution caught up with, and in some areas even surpassed Europe. For the first time, it was Russia that began to define world fashion not only in painting, but also in literature and music. Much of the creative upsurge of the Russian Renaissance period entered the further development of Russian culture and is now the property of all Russian cultural people.
In conclusion, in the words of N. Berdyaev, I would like to describe all the horror and tragedy of the situation in which the creators of spiritual culture, the best minds of not only Russia, but also the world found themselves: a small circle and cut off from the broad social currents of that time. This had fatal consequences in the character that the Russian revolution took. The cultural renaissance did not have any broad social emanation. Many supporters and spokesmen of the cultural renaissance remained leftists who sympathized with the revolution, but there was a cooling towards social issues, there was an absorption in new problems of a philosophical, aesthetic, religious, mystical nature, which remained alien to people who actively participated in the social movement. The intelligentsia committed an act of suicide. In Russia, before the revolution, there were two races, as it were. And the fault was on both sides, i.e. and on the figures of the Renaissance, on their social and moral indifference ...
The schism characteristic of Russian history, the schism that was growing throughout the entire 19th century, the abyss that unfolded between the refined cultural layer and wide circles, folk and intellectuals, led to the fact that the Russian cultural renaissance fell into this open abyss. The revolution began to destroy this cultural renaissance and persecute the creators of the culture. Figures of Russian spiritual culture for the most part were forced to move abroad. In part, it was a payback for the social indifference of the creators of spiritual culture. " Russian literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries felt acutely that Russian life was ready to move in any direction. And, swinging in the direction of the first, Russia eventually carried out the second. From that moment on, the history of Russian Soviet literature began. The revolution gave birth to a mass reader who was very unlike the intelligent reader of the 19th century. But soon the new government acted as a kind of reader and "customer". Literature found itself not only under the pressure of mass taste, but also under the pressure of ideology, which sought to impose its tasks on the artist. And this crossed out many of the achievements of the Russian cultural renaissance.
1. Kondakov I.V. Culturology: the history of Russian culture: a course of lectures. - M .: IKF Omega-L, Higher school, 2003. - 616 p., P. 290
2. Kravchenko A.I. Culturology: Textbook for universities.- 3rd ed ..- M .: Academic Project, 2002.- 496 p., P. 447-452.
3. Kuleshov V.I. History of Russian literature of the 10th - 20th centuries. Textbook. - M.: Russian language, 1983.-639 p., P. 574
4. Russian poets of the "Silver Age": Sat. poems: In 2 volumes. Vol. 1. / Comp., ed. Entry. Articles and comments Kuznetsova O.A. - L .: Publishing house Leningrad. University, 1991.-464 p., p. 9.
5. Russian poets of the "Silver Age": Sat. poems: In 2 volumes. Vol. 1. / Comp., ed. Entry. Articles and comments Kuznetsova O.A. - L .: Publishing house Leningrad. University, 1991.-464 p., p. 13.
6. Russian poets of the "Silver Age": Sat. poems: In 2 volumes. Vol. 1. / Comp., ed. Entry. Articles and comments Kuznetsova O.A. - L .: Publishing house Leningrad. University, 1991.-464 p., p. 19
8. Kuleshov V.I. History of Russian literature of the 10th - 20th centuries. Textbook.- M.: Russian language, 1983.-639 p., P.591.
9. Musatov V.V. History of Russian literature of the first half of the twentieth century (Soviet period) .- M .: Higher school; Ed. Center Academy, 2001.-310 p., P. 49
LIST OF USED LITERATURE
1.Musatov V.V. History of Russian literature of the first half of the twentieth century (Soviet period) .- M .: Higher school; Ed. Center Academy, 2001.-310 p. 2001
Russian poets of the "Silver Age": Sat. poems: In 2 volumes. Vol. 1. / Comp., ed. Entry. Articles and comments Kuznetsova O.A. - L .: Publishing house Leningrad. University, 1991.-464 p.
V.I. Kuleshov History of Russian literature of the 10th - 20th centuries. Textbook.- M.: Russian language, 1983.-639 p.
Kravchenko A.I. Culturology: Textbook for universities.- 3rd ed ..- M .: Academic Project, 2002.- 496 p.
I. V. Kondakov Culturology: the history of Russian culture: a course of lectures.- M .: IKF Omega-L, Higher school, 2003.- 616 p.
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