The concept of the silver age of Russian literature. "silver age" of Russian culture
The beginning of the 20th century went down in the history of literature under the beautiful name of the “Silver Age”. This period saw the great rise of Russian culture, enriching poetry with new names. The beginning of the “silver age” occurred in the 90s of the XIX century, it is associated with the appearance 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. Politicians sought social change, poets were looking for new forms of artistic reflection 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, uniting such poets as K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, A. Bely and others. Symbolists believed that the new art should convey the poet’s moods, feelings and thoughts with the help of images-symbols. At the same time, the artist learns the world around him not as a result of thought, but in the process of literary creation - at the time of creative ecstasy sent to him above.
Shadow of Uncreated Creatures
Swaying in a dream
Like blades of patches
On the enamel wall ...
Drowsy sounds drowsy
In the sonorous sound of silence ...
This is how the most vivid representative of symbolism V. Bryusov described the feeling of the birth of a creative idea. He formulated in his work the ideas of this literary direction. In the poem “The Young Poet” we find the following lines:
The youth is pale with a burning eye,
Now I give you three covenants.
First accept: do not live in the present,
Only the future is the poet's field.
Remember the second: do not sympathize with anyone,
Love yourself infinitely.
Third keep: worship art,
Only him, recklessly, 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
Reaching the word and the light
Found yourself the coveted traits.
Symbolists are characterized by a focus on the poet’s inner world. In C. Balmont, for example, the outside world existed only so that the poet could express his own feelings in him:
I hate humanity
I’m running from him in a hurry.
My united fatherland -
My desert soul.
This is also illustrated by the following lines, where Balmont’s appeal to the inner world is reflected not only in content but also in form (frequent use of the pronoun “I”):
I dreamed of catching shadows
The departing shadows of a fading day
I went up to the tower, and the steps trembled,
And the steps under my foot trembled.
In the poetry of K. Balmont, one can find a reflection of all his emotional experiences. They, according to the Symbolists, deserved special attention. Balmont tried to capture in the image, in words any, even fleeting, sensation. The poet writes:
I do not know wisdom suitable for others,
Only fleetingness I drag into a verse.
In every fleetingness I see worlds
Full of choppy rainbow games.
In a dispute with symbolism, a new literary movement of the “Silver Age” was born - Acmeism. Poets of this direction - N. Gumilyov, 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 \u200b\u200breflecting real life, the poet’s appeal to what can be known. And by displaying reality, an acmeist artist becomes involved in it.
Indeed, in the work of Nikolai Gumilyov, we find, first of all, a reflection of the world around us in all its colors. In his poetry we find exotic landscapes and customs of Africa. The poet penetrates deep 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 inhaled the heavy fog for a long time,
You do not want to believe in anything other than rain.
And as I tell you about the tropical garden,
About slender palm trees, about the smell of inconceivable herbs.
You are crying? Listen ... far away on the lake
Chad Gourmet Roaming Giraffe
.
Each poem by Gumilyov opens a new facet of the poet's views, his moods, and visions 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 challenging fate and the elements:
Captains are leading the Raptor -
Discoverers of new lands,
For those who are not afraid of hurricanes
Who knew the Malstroms and stranded.
Whose not the dust of the lost charters -
The salt of the sea is saturated with breasts
Who's the needle on the torn map
Marks his bold path.
The content and sophisticated style of Gumilyov’s poems help us to feel the fullness of life. They are a confirmation that a person himself can create a bright, colorful world, avoiding the gray routine.
The poetry of Anna Akhmatova also introduces us to the world of beauty. Her poems amaze the inner strength of the senses. Akhmatova’s poetry is a confession of a woman’s soul in love, and the feelings of a man living all the passions of the 20th century. According to O. Mandelstam, Akhmatova “brought into Russian lyrics 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 intertwine. But more often than not, we find the image of a woman longing for love, happiness:
You cannot confuse real tenderness
With nothing, and she is quiet.
You vainly carefully confuse
My shoulders and chest are in fur.
And in vain the words obedient
Talking about first love.
How do I know these stubborn
Your unsatisfied glances!
The new literary movement of the “Silver Age” - futurism, which replaced acmeism, was distinguished by its aggressive opposition to the traditional poems of classical poets. The first collection of futurists was called “Slap in the face of public taste”. Futurism was associated with the early work of Vladimir Mayakovsky. In the poet's early poems, one feels a desire to impress the reader with the unusual nature of his vision of the world. For example, in the poem “Night” Mayakovsky uses an unexpected comparison. The poet's illuminated windows of the night city evoke an association with a fan of cards. In the reader’s view, the image of a player city arises:
Crimson and white thrown back and crumpled,
Ducats threw handfuls in green,
And the black palms of the runaway windows
They gave out burning yellow cards.
Futurist poets V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov, V. Kamensky contrasted themselves with classical poetry, they tried to find new poetic rhythms and images, create poetry of the future.
The poetry of the “Silver Age” reveals to us the unique and amazing world of beauty and harmony. She teaches us to see beauty in the ordinary, to better understand the inner world of man. And the poets' search for the “Silver Age” of 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 the name given to the period in the history of Russian poetry, which falls at the beginning of the 20th 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 twentieth century. It is the end of this period that causes controversy. Some researchers believe that it should be attributed to 1917, while others insist on 1921. How is this justified? The Civil War began in 1917, and the silver age of Russian literature as such ceased to exist. But at the same time, in the 1920s, those writers who created this phenomenon continued their work. There is a third category of researchers, which argues that the end of the Silver Age falls on the period from 1920 to 1930. It was then that Vladimir Mayakovsky brought the scores to life and the government did everything to strengthen ideological control over literature. Therefore, time constraints are very 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 various literary movements. They are often identified with artistic methods. Each course is characterized by the presence of common fundamental spiritual and aesthetic principles. Writers unite in groups and schools, each of which has its own program-aesthetic setting. The literary process is developing, following a clear pattern.
DECADE
At the end of the 19th century, people began to abandon civic ideals, finding them unacceptable to 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 a socialist position. Artistic intelligentsia tried to disguise the difficulties of real life in a fantasy world. Many works are filled with traits of mysticism and unreality.
MODERNISM
Under this trend lie the most diverse literary trends. But for the Russian literature of the Silver Age, the manifestation of completely new artistic and aesthetic qualities is characteristic. Writers are trying to expand the scope 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 free. The authors want her to resist the influence of moral and social rules.
At the end of the 1870s, Russian literature of the Silver Age was characterized by such a trend as symbolism. The authors tried to focus on artistic expression and used intuitively comprehending symbols and ideas. 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 focus on candle beauty. Symbolists of the Silver Age expressed opposition to the bourgeoisie. Their works are saturated with longing for spiritual freedom. That was what the authors lacked! Different writers perceived symbolism in their own way. Some are like an art movement. Others - as the theoretical basis of philosophy. Still others are like Christian doctrine. The silver age of Russian literature is represented by many symbolist works.
In the early 1910s, authors began to move away from the pursuit of the ideal. Their works were endowed with material features. They created a cult of reality, their heroes had a clear view of what was happening. But at the same time, writers avoided describing social problems. The authors fought for a change in life. Acmeism in Russian literature of the Silver Age was expressed by a certain doom and sadness. He is characterized by such features as chamber themes, emotionless intonations and psychological accents on the main characters. Lyrics, emotionality, faith in spirituality ... All this is characteristic of the Soviet period of development of literature. The main goal of the Acmeists was to restore the image to its former concreteness and take the shackles of invented encryption.
FUTURISM
Following acmeism in Russian literature of the silver age, such a trend as futurism began to develop. It can be called avant-garde, the art of the future ... The authors began to deny the traditional culture and endow their works with features of urbanism and the machine industry. They tried to combine the incongruous: documentary and science fiction, experimenting with linguistic heritage. And, I must admit that they succeeded. The main feature of this period of the silver age of Russian literature is the contradiction. Poets, as before, were united in various groups. A revolution of form was proclaimed. The authors tried to free her from the content.
Imagism
In the 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 opposing images, endowed the words with direct and figurative meaning. The silver age of Russian literature in this period was characterized by shocking and anarchist 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 observed in the works of such writers as Koltsov, Surikov, Nikitin. But it was Nekrasov who caused a particular surge of interest. He created real sketches of rural landscapes. The theme of the peasant people in Russian literature of the Silver Age is beaten from all sides. The authors talk about the difficult fate of the common people, about how hard they have to work and how bleak their life looks in the future. Of particular note is Nikolai Klyuyev, Sergey Klychkov and other authors, who themselves come from the village. They did not confine themselves to the theme of the village, but tried to poetize rural life, crafts and the environment. In their works, the theme of centuries-old national culture is also revealed.
The revolution also had a significant influence on the development of Russian literature of the Silver Age. Peasant poets took her with great enthusiasm and completely surrendered to her as part of her work. But during this period, creativity was not in the first place, it was perceived in the second place. The first positions were occupied by proletarian poetry. She was declared advanced. After the revolution, power passed to the Bolshevik party. They tried to control the development of literature. Motivated by this idea, the poets of the Silver Age spiritualize the revolutionary struggle. They glorify the power of the country, criticize everything old and call forward for the party leaders. This period is characterized by the chanting of the cult of steel and iron. The poets such as Klyuev, Klychkov and Oreshin survived the fracture of traditional peasant foundations.
The silver age of Russian literature is always identified with such authors as K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, F. Sologub, D. Merezhkovsky, I. Bunin, N. Gumilev, A. Blok, A. Bely. You can add M. Kuzmina, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam to this list. No less significant for Russian literature are the names of I. Severyanin and V. Khlebnikov.
Conclusion
Silver Age Russian literature is endowed with the following features. This is love for a small Motherland, following the old-time folk customs and traditions of morality, the widespread use of religious symbols, etc. Christian motives and pagan beliefs were traced in them. Many authors tried to appeal to folk plots and images. Bored by all urban culture has acquired the features of denial. It was compared to the cult of devices and iron. The Silver Age left Russian literature a rich legacy and replenished the collection of Russian literature with vivid and memorable works.
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the name of the period of Russian art culture, which reflected the minds of the new socio-historical era of the beginning of the XX century. The most complete embodiment was received in literature, poetry. The creativity of the masters of the Silver Age is characterized by a blur of thematic borders, a wide range of approaches and creative solutions. As an independent phenomenon, it existed until the mid-20s.
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
"SILVER AGE"
period in the history of Russian culture since the 1890s. by the beginning 1920s It was traditionally 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 fame thanks to the memoirs of 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: Berdyaev did not find this expression, and before Otsup it was first used by the writer R.V. Ivanov-Razumnik in ser. 1920s, and then the poet and memoirist V.A. Piast in 1929
The validity of naming con. 19 - beg. 20 century "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. S. Pushkin, P. A. Pletnev called the first decades of the 19th century. Literary scholars negatively referring to the expression “silver age” pointed out the vagueness of which particular works and on what principle should be attributed to the literature of the “silver age”. In addition, the name “Silver Age” suggests that, literally, the literature of this time is inferior to the literature of the Pushkin era (“Golden Age”). Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
B) A. Block
d) Vl.Soloviev
2. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, three main modernist trends of "new literature" formed in literature. According to characteristic features, identify these areas in the literature:
1. The avant-garde movement, formed on the principles of rebellion, archaic worldview, expressing the mass mood of the crowd, denying cultural traditions, making an attempt to create art, looking to the future.
2. A modernist trend, affirming individualism, subjectivity, interest in the problem of personality. The basic principle of aesthetics is “art for art”, “secret codification of the indescribable”, understatement, replacement of the image.
3. The modernist trend, 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 bygone 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
d) Crimean war
4. Which of the poets does not belong to the Silver Age?
a) C. Balmont
b) N. Gumilev
d) V. Bryusov
5. The poets of what literary direction was inspired by the philosophy of Vl. Soloviev:
a) futurists
b) acmeists
c) symbolists
6. What is called the rhythm of the poem:
a) A way of organizing artistic speech, when a 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 melody and pauses.
c) The sound coincidence of the last syllables at the end of the poem.
7. To what poetic direction does N.S. Gumilyov's work belong:
a) futurism
b) acmeism
c) imagism
d) symbolism
8. Which of the poets did not belong to acmeism:
but). A. Akhmatova
b) K.D. Balmont
at). O. Mandelstam
d). G. Ivanov
9. What direction does A. Blok's early work relate to:
but). Futurism
b) Acmeism
at). Symbolism
10. A symbol - a trope, a poetic image that expresses the essence of a phenomenon, in a symbol always there is a hidden comparison (find the superfluous):
a) allegorical
b) understatement
c) inexhaustibility
d) the calculation of 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. To which literary direction does the work of V. Mayakovsky belong:
a) imagism
b) futurism
c) symbolism
d) acmeism
14. What group belonged to the poets A. White, V. Ivanov?
a) "Senior Symbolists"
b) "Young symbols"
15. What is the three-syllable poetic size with emphasis on the first syllable:
B) anapaest
C) dactyl
D) amphibrachium
INTRODUCTION
The “Silver Age” is one of the manifestations of spiritual and artistic revival in Russian culture of the late Х1Х - early XX century. Somewhere around 1892, the birth of Russian modernism took place. (Modernism is the general name for the combination of directions and trends of twentieth-century art, 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 end of the Х1Х - the beginning of the ХХ century was marked by a deep crisis that engulfed the whole of European culture, which was the result of disappointment in previous ideals and a feeling of approaching the death of the existing socio-political system. But this same crisis gave rise to a great era - the era of the Russian cultural renaissance of the beginning of the century (or the Silver Age, as it is also called). It was a time of creative growth in various fields of culture after a period of decline and, at the same time, the era of the emergence of new souls, new sensitivity. Souls were revealed for all sorts 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 “Silver Age” is most applicable to literature, so I decided to dwell on this type of art in more detail, only touching on painting, architecture and philosophy a little, because the volume of my term paper does not allow me to do this in more detail. Acmeism, futurism and symbolism are commonly called modernist, which I will discuss in this work.
My goal determines the structure of my term paper. It consists of four chapters, which consistently examined 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 give characteristics of such literary trends 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 CULTURE OF THE FOREIGN CENTURY
The beginning of the twentieth century was a turning point for many areas of creativity.
In painting, for example, this was manifested in the fact that it, with lightning speed, not only catching up, but in many ways ahead of the main European art schools, made the transition from the old principles of analytical realism to the latest systems of artistic thinking. In place of the intentionally objective, practical painting of the Wanderers, where every gesture, step, turn is specially pointed, directed against something and in defense of something, comes the pointless painting of the artists, focused on solving internal pictorial, rather than 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, were connected with friendship and business relations with the world artists , C.D. Balmont. Contacts were also maintained with theater and music figures Stravinsky, Stanislavsky, Fokin, Nezhinsky.
At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Russian art, which until then was a student, merged into the general channel of Western European art searches. The exhibition halls of Russia have opened their doors to new creations of European art: impressionism, symbolism, Fauvism, cubism.
In architecture, Art Nouveau has clearly shown itself in Moscow architecture: the construction of an architectural structure “from inside to outside”, the flow of space from one interior to another, a picturesque composition that denies symmetry. F.O.Shekhtel (1859-1926) became an 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, placed 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 was marked by creative achievements in the field of social thought. Russian thinkers entered into an active discussion of issues 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, was in such areas as the Russian state school, the social theories of anarchism (M.A. Bakunin) and populism (P. Struve). The so-called subjective sociology (N. Mikhailovsky, N. Kareev, S. Yuzhakov, V. Vorontsov) should also be included here.
In the field of philosophy in the country two original trends were formed that did not exist in the West, 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 significant “Milestones”, a collection of articles on Russian intelligentsia (1909), published by a group of Russian religious philosophers and publicists (N.A. Berdyaev, S.N. Bulgakov, P.B., played a significant role in the formation of self-consciousness of the Russian intelligentsia and the expression of its theoretical aspirations). . Struve, S.L. Frank, M.O.Gergienzon, A.S. Izgoev, B.A. Kistyakovsky).
2. LITERATURE SILVER CENTURY
The definition of “Silver Age” was first used to characterize the top manifestations of the culture of the early twentieth century (Bely, Blok, Annensky, Akhmatova and others). Gradually, this term began to be called the entire culture of the turn of the century. The Silver Age and the culture of the turn of the century are overlapping phenomena, but they do not coincide either with the composition of cultural representatives (Gorky, Mayakovsky) or with the time frame (the traditions of the Silver Age were not cut short by 1917, they were continued by Akhmatova, B.L. Pasternak, M. Voloshin, M. Tsvetaeva).
Not all writers, artists and thinkers who lived and worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are representatives of the culture of the Silver Age. Among the poets of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there were those whose work did not fit into the then existing movements and groups. Such, 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.Soloviev to the philosophy, aesthetics and poetry of the Silver Age, to the formation of Russian symbolism and its artistic system, while the philosopher himself sharply criticized the activities of the first Russian Symbolists and “Miruskusniks," dissociated himself from modernist philosophy and poetry, is universally recognized. The predecessors, and sometimes representatives of the Silver Age poetry, felt such symbolic figures of the Russian “art for art” as A. Maykov, A. Fet, A. Tolstoy, despite their clearly expressed in many cases artistic and aesthetic traditionalism, archaism of philosophical and political views and poetic addictions.
F. Tyutchev and K. Leontyev, who were tendentious to the limit, often 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 destroying Russia, becoming perhaps its most important “decomposer”. But it only recorded the disappearance of a single frame of reference, within the framework of which self-identification of Russian life was still taking place.
In literature, the powerful direction of critical realism continued to dominate, but modernism also became very widespread. The modernist currents gained their importance to the extent of their ability to respond in one way or another to calls for merciless criticism of the outgoing autocracy, launched by the imperialists of the World War, to accept the February and then the October Revolutions of 1917. The process of “decay” began in the lyrics with the shattering of the poetic word and the release of many equal meanings in it. But as for the modernist breaking of Russian classical versification, updating rhyme, experimentation in the field of stylistics and vocabulary, these formalistic hobbies characterize all currents of poetry at the beginning of the 20th century and their value was measured by the ability to move away from deliberate stupidity in these searches, to come to that clarity that helped find the 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 spokeswoman for the feelings, aspirations and mindsets of the young generation, while cramping prose.
Poets began to call themselves "new", emphasizing their new ideology to the traditions of Russian literature of the 19th century. In these years, the course of modernism has not yet been determined and has not taken shape until the end.
After a whole epoch of Russian realism of the 19th century, exposing the burning problems of being and, further, with the cruelty of the positivist-naturalist, who observed and analyzed social ulcers and illnesses, unclouded aesthetics, poetic contemplation and moral integrity, perceiving life as a “difficult harmony” of the Pushkin era seemed not so so naive and simple. In any case, they represented much deeper and enduring cultural phenomena than social denunciations and genesis, the theory of the “environment”, democratic and radical ideas of rebuilding society that shook the second half of the 19th century.
In the phenomenon of “pure art” from Pushkin to Fet, the Silver Age figures were especially attracted by their artistic ambiguity and wide 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 the periodic repeatability of history.
The Russian Silver Age turned to the samples of the classical era of Russian literature, and at the same time other cultural eras, interpreting and evaluating the works of Pushkin and Tyutchev, Gogol and Lermontov, Nekrasov and Fet and other classics in their own way, not to repeat them in new historical context. The writers of the Silver Age sought to achieve the same universality, perfection, harmony in their system of values \u200b\u200band meanings in order to revive the aesthetic, religious, philosophical and intellectual ideals and values \u200b\u200bthat fell out of the cultural routine of the Russian intelligentsia of the second half of the 19th century, especially the intelligentsia, which was radically tuned.
The combination of creative orientation to the heights of the spiritual culture of the 19th century as unconditionally reference values \u200b\u200band norms of national culture with the desire to radically revise, modernize the values \u200b\u200bof the past, push away from previous norms, develop a new, fundamentally neoclassical, approach to culture brought to life the beginning of sharp contradictions that created an internal tension of the era of Russian cultural renaissance. On the one hand, it was literature pretending to be classical and going back to the unshakable tradition of Russian classics, on the other hand, it was a “new classic” designed to replace the “old classic”. Before the literature of the Silver Age there were two ways - either, continuing to develop the classics, simultaneously rethinking and transforming them in the spirit of modernity (as the Symbolists and their immediate successors Acmeists did), or defiantly overthrowing it from the unshakable once pedestal, thereby affirming itself, the deniers of the classics , as poets of the future (futurists).
However, in both the first case (symbolists) and the second (acmeists), “neoclassicism” was so new, it rejected the classics so much that it could no longer be considered a classics (even a new one), and treated the real classics more like non-classics. Indirectly, this duality (Art Nouveau is both a classic and a non-classic) was reflected in the name of the culture of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries “Silver Age”: as classic as the “Golden Age”, but classic in a different way, creatively, albeit with 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 styling 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 at the time of the “golden”, Pushkin’s, century, literature claimed the role of spiritual and moral shepherd of Russian society. At the beginning of the 20th 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 caught fire in the sky of poetry: K.D. Balmont, A.A. Blok, N.S. Gumilyov, very young M.I. Tsvetaeva, S.A. Yesenin, A.A. Akhmatova.
Silver Age writers and poets, unlike their predecessors, paid close attention to Western literature. They chose new literary trends as their reference point: the aesthetics of O. Wilde, the pessimism of A. Schopenhauer, the symbolism of Baudelaire. At the same time, figures of the Silver Age took a fresh look at the artistic heritage of Russian culture. Another hobby of this time, reflected in literature, and in painting, and in poetry is a sincere and deep interest in Slavic mythology, in Russian folklore.
In the creative environment of the Silver Age, neo-romantic moods and concepts were widely spread, emphasizing the exclusivity of events, actions, and ideas; the gap of a sublime poetic dream with a mundane and vulgar reality; contradictions between appearance and content. A striking example of neo-romanticism in the culture of the Silver Age is the work of M. Gorky, L. Andreev, N. Gumilev, S. Gorodetsky, M. Tsvetaeva ... However, we see certain neo-romantic features in the activities and life of almost all representatives of the Silver Age from I. Annensky to O Mandelstam, from Z. Gippius to B. Pasternak.
The tasks of creative self-awareness of artists and thinkers of that time, and at the same time, creative rethinking and updating of previously established cultural traditions began to come to the forefront of culture.
Thus, the soil arose for a new cultural synthesis related to 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 and 20th centuries, focusing mainly on artistic expression through the symbol of “things in oneself” and ideas that are beyond sensory perception. In an effort to break through the visible reality to the “hidden realities” of the supertemporal ideal essence of the world, its “imperishable” beauty, the Symbolists expressed longing for spiritual freedom, a tragic foreboding of world social and historical shifts, trust in centuries-old cultural values \u200b\u200bthat were discovered and formulated in the ХХХ century but now no longer satisfied. A new concept was needed that would correspond to the new time.
Russian symbolism should be seen as a kind of romanticism that is closely related to modernism, but it is not identical. In this complex phenomenon, it is important to highlight the protest against philistinism, lack of spirituality, a 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 of Bryusov, Blok to revolution.
The basis of artistic thinking was based not on real correspondences of phenomena, but on associative ones, and the objective significance of associations was by no means considered mandatory. Thus, the poetic allegory came to the fore as the main device of creativity, when a word, without losing its usual meaning, acquires additional potential, polysemantic, revealing its true “essence” meanings.
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, D.S. Merezhkovsky believed, “that which is not said and flickers through the beauty of the symbol acts more strongly on the heart than what is expressed in words. Symbolism makes the style itself, the most artistic substance of poetry, inspired, transparent, transparent 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 a new aesthetics, but, first of all, with a deep spiritual revolution that will fall to the lot of the “modern” generation - “questions about the infinite, about death, about God”.
Poets who have chosen a new direction were called differently: symbolists, modernists and decadents. Some critics perceived decadence as a by-product of symbolism, linking this phenomenon to the costs of the proclaimed freedom of creativity: immorality, permissiveness of 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 far from completely coincided with it. However, most reviewers used this name indiscriminately; in their mouth the word "decadent" soon began to have an evaluative and even swearish tone.
Symbolists united around the magazines "Northern Herald", "World of Art". “New Way”, “Libra”, “Golden Fleece”. The older generation of symbolists are D.S. Merezhkovsky, Z.N. Gippius, V.Ya. Brusov, K.D. Balmont, F.K.Sologub, the younger - A.A. Blok, A. White, V. I. Ivanov, S. M. Soloviev. Moreover, each of them created his own individual artistic style in the framework of this direction and contributed to the development of the theoretical question of what Russian symbolism is.
Intending to acquaint readers with the new poetic movement, V. Ya. Bryusov started the publication of three collective collections “Russian Symbolists” (1894 - 1895). He set out to present in them samples of all forms and techniques of new poetry, with which he himself had time to meet. In the preface to the issue, he raised the question of the purpose, essence and arsenal of the expressive means of symbolist poetry. But the concept of the symbol, which gave the name to the new school, the author of the preface passed in silence. “The purpose of symbolism,” he notes in the first issue, “by a series of juxtaposed images seems to mesmerize the reader, evoke a certain mood in him,” and in the next he clarifies that “symbolism is the poetry of allusions.”
Representatives of populist criticism saw in the speech of the "Russian Symbolists" symptoms of the disease of society.
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 various refractions in the creative method of poets.
In the early 1900s, a generation of “younger” symbolists declared itself: Vyacheslav Ivanov (“Helmsman”), Andrei Bely (“Gold in Azure”), A.A. Blok (“Poems about the Beautiful Lady”) and others. Their literary orientation turned out to be slightly different than that of their predecessors. Vl. Soloviev unanimously admitted as the spiritual father; more important for them than the Western orientation was the establishment of continuity with national literature: in the lyrics of Fet, Tyutchev, Polonsky they found their own kindred aspirations, as well as in the religious philosophy of Dostoevsky.
Following Vl. Solovyov, they sought “under the rough crust of matter” to see the “imperishable” beauty. “Modern poetry,” Block thought in one of the sketches for an unfinished article, “went into mysticism altogether, and one of the most striking mystical constellations rolled out to the blue depths of the sky of poetry - Eternal Femininity.” All the early poetry of this poet is listening to “distant steps” in “Her” and listening to “Her” mysterious voice. The hero of the lyrics, Vyach.Ivanova, also serves the cult of mystical love. The lyrics of M.A. Voloshin, who stood apart in the history of Russian symbolism and did not share the views of the “older” or the thoughts of the “younger” generations, have points of intersection with the mythopoetic system of the “young symbols” (in his work, you can also find an analogue to this symbol image).
The new generation of Symbolists is united by an understanding of art as life-creating and peacemaking, "action, not knowledge." In the panesthetics proclaimed by their predecessors, they saw the stifling of beauty.
After the first revolution, the doctrine of “mystical anarchism”, which Vyach.Ivanov defined as “philosophizing about the ways of freedom”, began to take shape at first, which animated many Petersburg “word-symbol artists”.
Disputes that erupted in 1906-1907 around this direction, led to the confrontation of the "Moscow" and "St. Petersburg" symbolists. The organizer of the polemic with the “St. Petersburg mystics” was V.Ya. Brusov, who launched a campaign against the doctrine on the pages of Libra and attracted Andrei Bely, Ellis (pseudonym L.L. Kobylinsky) and Z.N. Gippius. In the Ivanovo concept of religious "prefabricated" art, Bryusov saw a threat to the cornerstone of the worldview of the "senior" symbolists - individualism. The issue of individualism has become a point of divergence between members of the formerly unified school.
By the end of the 1900s, the camp of the Symbolists had noticeably increased. Symbolist literature has already ceased to be reading for a few; it has begun to spread among the general public of the reading public and has become a fashionable trend.
In 1900, criticism already openly spoke of a crisis of symbolism. Some representatives of the "new poetry" were also inclined to believe that the direction has exhausted itself. Since this year, the Symbolists have already had to debate not only with adherents of other views in their camp, but also with opponents of Symbolism: Acmeists and Futurists. It is time to summarize 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 leave the agenda of various circles and societies. Despite the fact that most poetic masters remained committed to this method, in his work, as a literary direction, he left the stage.
One of the last outbursts of the social activity of the adherents of symbolism was the public debate about contemporary literature in January 1914 in St. Petersburg. Among others, Vyach.Ivanov, F. Sologub, G.I. Chulkov took part in it. Their position coincided in one thing: none of them any longer advocated symbolism as a literary school, but saw in it only an eternal attribute of art.
The culture of Russian symbolism, as well as the style of thinking of poets and writers who shaped this trend, arose and developed at the intersection and mutual complement of outwardly opposing, but in fact firmly connected and explaining one another lines of philosophical and aesthetic attitude to reality. It was a feeling of an unprecedented novelty of all that brought with it the turn of the century, accompanied by a feeling of dysfunction and instability.
Initially, symbolic poetry was formed as romantic and individualistic poetry, separating itself from the polyphony of the "street", becoming 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 an artistic understanding of the world. They belonged to serious discoveries in the field of poetics, the rhythmic reorganization of the verse, the strengthening of the musical element in it.
4. POST-SYMBOLISM
All the modernist trends of Russian poetry that appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century considered it their duty to fight against symbolism, to overcome it as too aristocratic, snobbish, distracted, taking credit for rapprochement with everyday life, ordinary consciousness. But in essence, these movements largely repeated the symbolists, often were an expression of spontaneous rebellion with a very abstract idea of \u200b\u200bthe real world and the revolutionary changes that were coming in it.
Paragraph 1. Acmeism
Acmeism is one of the varieties of Russian neo-romanticism, a special, short-lived, rather narrow literary movement that appeared as a result of a peculiar reaction to symbolism that has become obsolete.
The consciousness shared by part of the 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 along the lines of clarity and accuracy of the word, the poetic sequence of the composition led Nikolai Gumilyov to create in October 1911 the literary circle "Workshop of poets", and a little later acmeism. Acmeists led by N. Gumilyov published the magazines Apollo (1909-1917) and Hyperborea (1912-1913), which became the tribune of this literary movement. This small in number of participants poetry school has become a remarkable phenomenon of Russian literature of the twentieth century.
Gumilev headed for a break with symbolism and the creation of a new poetry school. In his article “The Legacy of Symbolism and Acmeism” (1913, Apollo magazine), he declared acmeism to be the legitimate heir of the best that gave symbolism, but having its own spiritual and aesthetic foundations - fidelity to the picturesque and visible world, its plastic objectivity, increased attention to poetic technique, strict taste, blooming festivity of life.
The name of this second major movement comes from the Greek akme - the highest degree of anything, a blossoming force, 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 the ambiguity and fluidity of images , complicated metaphor, return to the material world, subject, 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 the result of conscious work on the word (hence the appeal to the medieval understanding of the workshop as a professional corporation of artisans). At the center of poetry was a man building his “I” with all the measure of responsibility and risk. Soon it grew into the theory of acmeism.
Acmeism expressed the mood of the petty-bourgeois and noble intelligentsia, frightened by the 1905 revolution, inclined towards reconciliation with tsarist reality, with what it is. Acmeists refused social resistance, democratic ideals, preached "pure art" (including free and from politics).
Among the demands, acmeists especially emphasized "... do not make any amendments to being and do not go into criticism of the latter." “After all aversion, the world is irrevocably accepted by Acmeism in the totality of beauties and outrages” (Gorodetsky).
The cognitive essence of the works of acmeists turned out to be insignificant, there were few analytical elements in them, idealization of life was often observed. Akhmatova has a poetry of the personal, chamber world of feelings.
The poetics of acmeists were aesthetic. The viewing angle shifted, narrowed, the whole object was not shown, but only its details, trifles, colorful patterns. Especially high materials were encountered with low, biblical with everyday ones.
Not all Acmeists strictly adhered to the direction program 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 current came to naught at the beginning of 1914. In the spring of 1914, the Poets Shop was also suspended. Gumilev 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 Acmeists stood out from the Symbolists. Acmeism neutralized some extremes of symbolism. Acmeists tried to rediscover the value of human life on Earth, preaching the struggle for this world, for the aesthetics of the mind, harmony in this world, and not flirting with the unknowable, with the mysterious worlds. They criticized the nebula and shakiness of the symbolist language, preaching a clear, fresh and simple poetic language. Acmeism was a reaction to the penetration into Russia of the ideas of European decadence on the one hand and 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.
Section 2. Futurism
Futurism is the literary trend of modernism that arose in Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century. The founder of this direction is F. Marinetti. In Russia, the futurists made themselves known in 1912 by releasing the first collection, “Slap in the face of public taste” in Moscow, in which the poems of V.V. Mayakovsky and their manifesto, which proclaimed the overthrow of all authorities, were published. Russian futurism was with claims to be the voice of the street and the crowd, to be a true representative of the art of not only the present, but also the future. Only the futurists considered their position to be true art.
Futurism united different groups, among which the most famous were: cubo-futurists (V. Mayakovsky, V. Kamensky, D. Burliuk, V. Khlebnikov), ego-futurists (I, Severyanin), the Centrifuge group (N. Aseev, B. Pasternak) .
Futurism was often associated with vanguard groups of artists. In some cases, futurists combined literary activity and painting. They, as an art program, put forward the utopian dream of the birth of super-art, capable of transforming the world, and with reliance on fundamental sciences.
Representatives of Russian futurism, as well as their comrades-in-arms abroad, called for a revolt against the philistine ordinaryness 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, and stagnation. Futurists declared themselves to be opponents of the modern bourgeois society, mutilating the individual, and defenders of the "natural" man, his right to free, individual development. But these statements often boiled down to the abstract declaration of individualism, freedom from inequality and cultural traditions.
It is worth noting that, unlike the Symbolists, the Futurists did not preach going into the romantic world, they were interested in purely earthly affairs.
Futurists supported the upcoming revolution, because They perceived it as a mass artistic action involving the whole world in the game, because they had an unreasonable craving for mass theatrical actions, the shocking of the average man was important to them (it was important to impress him with scandalous antics).
Futurists were looking for new means to portray the chaos and volatility of the urban society of modern times. They sought to embody the word, to connect its sound directly with the subject that it denotes. This, in their opinion, was supposed to lead to the reconstruction of the natural and the creation of a new, widely accessible language that could destroy the verbal barriers that divide people. Inappropriate, vulgar words, technical terms were introduced into their works. A new language “Zaum” was created - the use of sounds as independent units of speech. Each sound, according to their concepts, has its own semantics. Words were re-divided, fragmented, neologisms were created, even attempts were made to introduce a telegraphic language, experiments were made on the figured arrangement of words and syllables, multi-colored and different-sized fonts, “ladders” of the line were arranged, new rhymes and rhythms appeared. All this is an expression of the aesthetic rebellion of the futurists against the fact that the world is deprived of strong support. Denying traditional culture, they cultivated the aesthetics of urbanism and the machine industry. The literary works of representatives of this genre are characterized by the interweaving of the documentary genre and science fiction into poetry and language experimentation.
However, in the conditions of a revolutionary upsurge and a crisis of autocracy, futurism was not viable and ceased to exist by the end of the 1910s.
CONCLUSION
The significance of the Silver Age culture for the history of our country can hardly be overestimated: finally, after many decades and even centuries of lag, Russia on the eve of the October Revolution caught up, and in some areas even surpassed Europe. For the first time, it was Russia that began to determine world fashion, not only in painting, but also in literature and music. Much of the creative upsurge of the period of the Russian Renaissance went into 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 the horror and tragedy of the situation in which the creators of spiritual culture found themselves, the best minds of not only Russia but also the world: “The misfortune of the cultural renaissance of the early twentieth century was that the cultural elite was isolated in it a small circle and divorced from the wide social movements of the time. This had fatal consequences in the character that the Russian revolution took. The cultural renaissance did not have any widespread social radiation. Many supporters and exponents of the cultural renaissance remained left, sympathizing with the revolution, but there was a cooling to social issues, there was a preoccupation with new philosophical, aesthetic, religious, mystical problems that remained alien to people who actively participated in the social movement. The intelligentsia committed an act of suicide. In Russia, before the revolution, two races were formed. And the fault was on both sides, i.e. and on the leaders of the Renaissance, on their social and moral indifference ...
The schism characteristic of Russian history, the schism growing throughout the nineteenth century, the abyss that developed between the sophisticated cultural stratum and broad circles, popular and intellectual, led to the fact that the Russian cultural renaissance fell into this open abyss. The revolution began to destroy this cultural renaissance and pursue the creators of culture. For a large part, figures of Russian spiritual culture were forced to move abroad. In part, it was a retribution for the social indifference of the creators of spiritual culture. ” Russian literature of the late Х1Х - the beginning of the ХХ century acutely felt that Russian life was ready to move in any direction. And, swaying toward the first, Russia ultimately implemented the second. From this moment began the history of Russian Soviet literature. The revolution gave birth to a mass reader who was very unlike the intelligent reader of the nineteenth century. But soon a new government came forward as a kind of reader and “customer”. Literature was 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.
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LIST OF USED LITERATURE
1.Musatov V.V. The 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 vol. T. 1 / Comp., ed. Entry Articles and comments Kuznetsova O.A. - L .: Publishing house Leningr. University, 1991.-464 p.
Kuleshov V.I. The history of Russian literature of the X - XX centuries. Textbook.- M.: Russian language, 1983.-639 p.
Kravchenko A.I. Cultural Studies: Textbook for universities. - 3rd ed ..- M.: Academic Project, 2002.- 496 p.
Kondakov I.V. Culturology: the history of Russian culture: a course of lectures.- M.: IKF Omega-L, Vyssh.shk., 2003.- 616 p.
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