I don’t know how things stand now, but before this poem was invariably included in the lists of works recommended and even required for study in high school. Here it is quoted from Lermontov’s two-volume 1988 edition. And here's what it sounds like according to volume 2 Full meeting works edited by B. M. Eikhenbaum (edition 1936):
The seasoned Soviet reader hardly asked himself the question: why, in fact, are the people “obedient” in the 1936 edition, and “loyal” in the 1988 edition? And why in 1936 did the poet propose to “hide behind a ridge from the tsars”, and in 1988 - “to hide behind a wall from the pashas”? this verse,” and in the comments to the 1988 edition this confidence is completely shared, but only in relation not to this, but to “their” text?..)
If similar questions and the Soviet reader had any questions, he easily found an answer to them: apparently, the great Russian poet M. Yu. Lermontov wrote his poems in several versions, worked on them a lot, improved them, each time finding new colors to describe his feelings.
Let's see how the famous poems were improved. Their appearance was first recorded 32 years after Lermontov’s death. In the spring of 1873, P. I. Bartenev, a Pushkin scholar, founder, publisher and editor of the Russian Archive magazine, wrote to P. A. Efremov, a well-known and authoritative publisher of Lermontov’s works, a letter in which, among other things, he wrote the following lines:
It was this version that was published in the 1936 edition (and even as "the most authoritative") - with one significant exception: in appearance minor changes in the last two lines they give them a meaning exactly opposite to that to which we are accustomed:
So, in the first version of the poem known to us - instead of the theme familiar to us from school total control and surveillance by the “pashas” of the ruling regime - despair is expressed that our “kings” are blind and deaf (obviously to the suffering of the people).
P. I. Bartenev prefaced the poem cited in the letter with a brief remark: "Lermontov's poems copied from the original". From what other “original” and who exactly “copied it” - it will forever remain a mystery...
We also owe the next appearance of a poem about unwashed Russia to P.I. Bartenev. In his letter to N.V. Putyata (no later than 1877), on a separate sheet, it is given with the “correct” last lines:
"Copied from the original", noted P.I. Bartenev in a letter of 1873. , he clarifies in a letter to N.V. Putyata (where, by the way, the meaning of the last two lines is turned, compared to the 1873 version, exactly 180 degrees).
If it weren’t for Lermontov’s death three decades earlier, we might well have thought about the extraordinary exactingness with which the poet finalizes his work...
Despite the fact that poems about unwashed Russia were discovered by P. I. Bartenev in 1873, publishing them - at least in his own magazine! - He was in no hurry. Their first publication, 14 years later, was carried out by the famous biographer of Lermontov P. A. Viskovatov. In one of the issues of the magazine “Russian Antiquity” for 1887, at the end of his article devoted to the analysis of a completely different poem by Lermontov, he quite unexpectedly quoted poems about unwashed Russia:
End of the article by P. A. Viskovatov in the magazine “Russian Antiquity” (1887)
As we can see, P. A. Viskovatov’s version is somewhat different from the two given in P. I. Bartenev’s letters. Considering that in those letters P. I. Bartenev always referred to certain “originals”, one should probably conclude that P. A. Viskovatov in his publication also relied on some “original” unknown to us - however , he generally avoids the question of the origin of the text he published.
Only in 1890, 17 years after that very first letter with poems, P. I. Bartenev considered it possible to publish them in his magazine “Russian Archive”, successfully filling them free place at the end of the page and prefaced them with a headline that completely ignored the publications of P. A. Viskovatov (and by that time there were already two of them):
“Lermontov’s unpublished octopus” in the magazine “Russian Archive” (1890)
It turns out that this is already the third version of the poem known to P. I. Bartenev. The first two, according to him, were (it is not clear by whom) copied from the “originals,” and one of those “originals” was even “by Lermontov.” As for the third version, published by him in the Russian Archive, here P.I. Bartenev does not even mention any “hand of Lermontov”, making a careful postscript: .
Like this. It’s not that there’s a manuscript—P.I. Bartenev doesn’t even have a copy of the manuscript in 1890 (and where, excuse me, did his previous “lists from the originals” go?). Someone once wrote down something... Which “contemporary”? Whose contemporary? Under what circumstances and when did he write down these poems? What's his name at least?..
There are no answers to these questions to this day. And it is this text, the third version of P. I. Bartenev, that we all now know as a poem by M. Yu. Lermontov!..
I'll see you off thought experiment: we need to establish the authorship of some text. True, there is no manuscript, but there are several documentary evidence. I lay them out in front of me and begin to read:
| ) | And you, obedient people |
| “From the original by Lermontov”) | And you, people submissive to them |
| And you, their devoted people | |
| “Recorded from the words of the poet by a contemporary”) | And you, their devoted people |
I don’t understand anything... 1873 is obedient. Around the same time, but no later than 1877 - obedient. 1887 - Devotee. Lord, the text is being finalized right before our eyes! But how can this be if the alleged author died in 1841?..
| P. I. Bartenev, in a letter of 1873 ( “Here are more poems by Lermontov, copied from the original”) | |
| P.I. Bartenev, in a letter of 1877 ( “From the original by Lermontov”) | Perhaps, behind the ridge of the Caucasus I will hide from your kings |
| P. A. Viskovatov, in an article from 1887 (there is no indication of the source) | Perhaps, behind the ridge of the Caucasus I will hide from your leaders |
| P. I. Bartenev, magazine of 1890 ( “Recorded from the words of the poet by a contemporary”) | Perhaps behind the wall of the Caucasus I will hide from your pashas |
The “ridge” lasted the longest - from 1873 to 1890, until it was finally replaced by a more euphonious in this case"wall". But the most painful thing was the finalization of the rhyme for the word “ears”. Kings?.. No. Leaders?.. Not very good either. Pasha?.. Yes! Ideal: “Pasha - ears” (and in general, the word “pasha” is still on everyone’s lips: quite recently, just ten years ago, a great victory ended in complete victory Russian-Turkish war- and there are Osman Pasha, and Nadir Pasha, and Mukhtar Pasha, and many other pashas).
But the final two lines underwent the most thorough - because semantic - reworking:
| P. I. Bartenev, in a letter of 1873 ( “Here are more poems by Lermontov, copied from the original”) | From their unseeing eyes, From their unhearing ears |
| P.I. Bartenev, in a letter of 1877 ( “From the original by Lermontov”) | |
| P. A. Viskovatov, in an article from 1887 (there is no indication of the source) | From their all-seeing eyes, from their all-hearing ears |
| P. I. Bartenev, magazine of 1890 ( “Recorded from the words of the poet by a contemporary”) | From their all-seeing eyes, from their all-hearing ears |
The transformation is thorough and deep: from eyes that see nothing to eyes that see and notice absolutely everything. From ears that cannot hear the groans of the people, to ears with which literally all the walls in unwashed Russia are stuffed - there is nowhere to escape from these all-hearing ears!..
As a curiosity. A signal copy of that journal publication 1890. There is no reference to the unknown “contemporary”, but the revision of the last two lines is visible there in all its glory:
From their unseeing eyes, From their all-hearing ears.
Needless to say: blindness unusually develops hearing...
Rule of the 13th strike: if the clock strikes 13 times, this not only means that the 13th strike was incorrect, but also raises doubts about the correctness of the first 12...
Hand on heart: can you be sure that any of the given options is “more correct” and that at least some of them were written by Lermontov? Which of the many?.. No manuscripts, no “originals”, no “lists”, not even the names of some incomprehensible “contemporaries” who heard something there - there is none of that in this case. Publishers masterfully get out of the situation without discussing the authorship itself at all. So, in the comments to the above-mentioned two-volume book of 1988 we read the following:
The published edition is the most probable in meaning and form.
An interesting idea: assign authorship to the one we like the most general sense text. And the meaning we like, meanwhile, is quite transparent: the “people”, obedient to the top, despite all the efforts of the enlightened “elite”, stubbornly does not want to take the path of civilization. The “people” are subjugated and betrayed to the dogs of autocracy, and if so, then the desperate “elite” washes its hands: a plague on both your houses, live as you want in your unwashed Russia, but enough is enough for me...
No, how difficult it is to escape the thought that the text, published in 1890, is ideal as an illustration of Lenin’s work “What are “friends of the people” and how do they fight against the Social Democrats?” that this is precisely why he was in prison for decades school textbooks, consecrated in the name of Lermontov, whose very authorship was approved by the very high level and therefore there was simply no need for any serious justification!
Meanwhile, this verse could hardly have been written in 1841 or, say, earlier (they named both 1840 and 1837, and each time literary scholars gave compelling reasons in favor of each of the dates). The “advanced people” of that time were, in Lenin’s words (and in this case his analysis can be trusted), “terribly far from the people.” They could not possibly be disappointed in him and, in some cases, even be offended by him, because they did not consider the “people” at all as an active transformative force. In the article "In Memory of Herzen" the same Lenin also cited a very specific date:
Herzen belonged to the landowner, lordly environment. He left Russia in 1847, he did not see revolutionary people and could not believe in him. Hence his liberal appeal to the “tops”...
It turns out that Herzen did not see and could not believe in 1847, but Lermontov both saw and believed in the “people”, and even managed to lose faith in them - already in 1841?..
Of course not. That immense disappointment in the “people”, which literally permeates the poems about unwashed Russia, came to our enlightened “elite” only a quarter of a century later. It was then, after the difficult reforms of Alexander II, which ended serfdom, among advanced people A powerful “populism” movement arose in Russia. In the 60s many educated people, at the same time trustingly and assertively, they undertook to rouse the “people” (that is, the multimillion-dollar peasant masses) to fight - they believed then that it was enough for them to dress up in “folk” clothes and explain to them in a language understandable to the “people” what they were living uncivilized, swinish, and all because he is oppressed by the autocracy, coupled with its faithful gendarmes. It is enough to open the eyes of the “people”, and they will immediately understand everything, and everything will happen by itself: “the yoke of despotism, fenced by soldiers’ bayonets, will crumble to dust”(quote 1877).
So, the “people” did not understand and did not accept the “populists” liberals at that time: either their ideas seemed to them somewhat premature, or there was something wrong in their pseudo-peasant clothes... In short, the “people” en masse and somewhere he even took pleasure in tying up beautiful-hearted “populists” and handing them over to the police. As we remember, poems about unwashed Russia first appeared in 1873 in a letter from P. I. Bartenev (who, by the way, had previously met Herzen abroad). Then, in the 70s, not only P.I. Bartenev, but also the entire advanced Russian intelligentsia actively sympathized with the “populists”. We see the inspired face of the “populist” captured by the peasants, for example, in the famous painting by I. E. Repin “The Arrest of the Propagandist” (its fragment is shown in the title of this article). However, I. E. Repin repeatedly addressed the topic of the unenviable ending of “going to the people” earlier, before painting his famous canvas. Here, for example, is his drawing from 1879:
I. E. Repin. "Arrest of a propagandist." One of the 1879 variants
As we see, there are no police officials here at all: the unfortunate “friend of the people” was captured and tied up, even before the police arrived, by the peasants themselves. The same “people” are obedient, submissive, and devoted to the “blue uniforms”. There is something to despair about, isn’t there?.. A plague on both your houses:
Farewell, unwashed Russia, Country of slaves, country of masters, And you, blue uniforms, And you, the people devoted to them...
The liberal populists, whose despair is so vividly captured in these lines, were replaced by other people and other methods of inducing unwashed Russia to revolution. But that, as they say, is a completely different story.
Nowadays, the third version of P. I. Bartenev, so loved at first by Russian liberals, and after them by the Russian Bolsheviks, is the same version for which there is literally nothing except P. I. Bartenev’s careful note that, with his own ears, heard from Lermontov one of the “contemporaries”, and who, as Soviet literary scholars irrefutably established in 1953 (completely forgetting their own considerations, which were equally irrefutable in 1936), is most sympathetic to them "in meaning and form", - it is this option that has become a real find these days for everyone who comes to mind in Once again kick the “Rashka” - with an elegant reference to the authority of the great Russian poet...
It is difficult to say who actually wrote the poem about unwashed Russia attributed to Lermontov. It is interesting that P. A. Efremov, the famous publisher of the works of the great poet, having received a letter from P. I. Bartenev in 1873 with the very first version of the poem known to us, reacted to the text he received in a very original way, scribbling in pencil on the back of the letter the lines, Certainly belonging to Lermontov:
I love your paradoxes, And ha-ha-ha, and hee-hee-hee, Smirnova’s little thing, Sasha’s farce and Ishka Myatlev’s poems...
It is also interesting that neither in the same 1873, when P. A. Efremov was just preparing a new edition of Lermontov’s works for printing, nor in all subsequent years, when he published four more editions (and the last of them was published in 1889 , after the publication of P. A. Viskovatov), the poem that he received from P. I. Bartenev, despite the seductive postscript "copied from the original"- P. A. Efremov never decided to publish...
Valentin Antonov, January 2014
Lermontov is one of my favorite poets. Liberals, when scolding Russia, often refer to the poem “Farewell Unwashed Russia,” naming Lermontov as the author. This is what our literary critics, philologists, linguists, candidates of sciences and academicians say. IN Soviet years it was politics. The poet is a fighter against tsarism. Today it is fashionable to scold Russia, the intelligentsia is enthusiastically doing this, having taken Lermontov as an ally. I have been translating for a long time, trying to use the author’s dictionary, so when reading poetry, I pay attention to the style and vocabulary. I was surprised by the “blue uniforms” and “unwashed Russia”, which were not used anywhere else by Lermontov, by the appeal to the people to the “blue uniforms”, personifying the gendarmerie corps, by you. Realizing that the author of the poems “Borodino” and “Motherland” could not write like that, I began to collect evidence to confirm my doubts. There were such people.
1. No one has seen the handwritten original of the poem. But this has happened before; there were witnesses confirming the authenticity of the poems. The strange thing is that until 1873 nothing was known about these verses. Not only was the text not found, but even the very existence of such verses was not known.
2. Publisher Bartenev accompanied the poems with a note: “Recorded from the words of the poet by a contemporary.”
"Recorded from the words of the poet by a contemporary." What is the first and last name of a contemporary? Unknown. When did he record it? Immediately after Lermontov recited his poem to him, or decades later? Pyotr Ivanovich Bartenev remained silent about all this.
All evidence that this poem was written by Lermontov is based solely on this silence. There is no other evidence of Lermontov's authorship in relation to this poem. No one has ever seen Lermontov’s manuscript; this was admitted by Bartenev himself with the words: “Recorded from the words of the poet by a contemporary.” Here is the first version of the text:
Goodbye, unwashed Russia,
And you, blue uniforms,
And you, the people obedient to them.
Perhaps beyond the ridge of the Caucasus
I'll hide from yours<арей>
From their unseeing eyes,
From their unhearing ears.
Surprised? Text up genius poet clearly doesn't measure up. Why goodbye, Russia? The poet was not planning to go abroad in 1841. Goodbye sounds ridiculous.
In the academic 6-volume edition of Lermontov's Works of 1954-1957, the notes to this poem say:
"Farewell, unwashed Russia..." (pp. 191, 297)
Published from the publication of the Russian Archive (1890, book 3, no. 11, p. 375), which represents the most probable edition. The text is accompanied by a note: “Recorded from the words of the poet by a contemporary.” There is a copy of IRLI (op. 2, no. 52 in a letter from P.I. Bartenev to P.A. Efremov dated March 9, 1873), the text of which is given in a footnote. Sending the poem to Efremov, Bartenev wrote: “Here are more poems by Lermontov, copied from the original.” However, this message cannot be considered reliable, since the poem was published by the same Bartenev in the Russian Archive in a different edition (see text)."
There were actually two letters. Academic publishers, who published their first volume in 1954, did not have time to find out about the second letter (to Putyata), found in 1955. Can you imagine how they would have to try to explain Bartenev’s words from the second letter, in which he sets out another version of the poem “from the original by Lermontov”?
Apparently proud spirit Lermontov could not come to terms with the shortcomings of the text, so he decided to edit the verse. Here new option:
Goodbye, unwashed Russia,
Country of slaves, country of masters,
And you, blue uniforms,
And you, their devoted people.
I'll hide from your pashas,
From their unseeing eyes,
From their all-hearing ears."
Agree, the text has improved. The rhyme of the kings' ears no longer hurts the ears. The obedient people became devoted. Unhearing ears have become all-hearing. But this is not the end. A third option appears:
Goodbye, unwashed Russia,
Country of slaves, country of masters.
And you, blue uniforms,
And you, their devoted people.
Perhaps behind the wall of the Caucasus
I will hide among the pashas,
From their all-seeing eye,
From their all-hearing ears...
Agree, the changes are drastic. The people became devoted. Devotee is no longer just obedient. You can be obedient and submissive because of fear of punishment. But in this version the people are faithful. Faithfully faithful, infinitely.
Is “unwashed Russia” also striking? Lermontov knew very well that the Russian peasant washes in the bathhouse more often than the French count, who hides his stench with perfume. How could the poet who wrote:
With joy unknown to many,
I see a complete threshing floor.
A hut covered with straw
Window with carved shutters;
And on a holiday, on a dewy evening,
Ready to watch until midnight
To dance with stomping and whistling
Under the talk of drunken men.
so contemptuous to say about Russia?
The lines are permeated with warmth, love for the people and their life. I don’t believe that after something like this you can write something contemptuous: “unwashed Russia.” To do this you need to be a hardened cynic and hypocrite. Even his enemies didn’t say that about Lermontov. In the Caucasus, according to him, Baron L,V, Rossiglon:
"Gathered a bunch of dirty thugs.... He wore a red canvas shirt that never seemed to wash." He and his team ate from the same cauldron and slept on the bare ground. Going to such a life to say “unwashed Russia? It’s not logical, it doesn’t fit into any gates.
No one had heard of the poems, and suddenly in 1873 and later, not just one list appeared at once, but several options appeared in succession. These options undergo changes (“kings - leaders - pashas” - in search of a rhyme for “ears”). That is, new, more successful words appear, replacing “kings” with a more coherent rhyme. The meaning of the last two lines is polarized by replacing the words “unseeing - unhearing” with their opposite. Moreover, the new version gives the verses and new meaning, emotionally and logically much more successful.
It turns out that in the seventies the poems of “Farewell, Unwashed Russia” were not just modified. They change in the direction of obvious improvement. There are all the signs that these poems were not found at all in the seventies, but were created at that time.
The process of creating a poem takes place. A process that left evidence of the author’s search for a more successful form of his work. As different options this verse.
The people in those years were primarily the serf peasantry. Blue uniforms - corps of gendarmes. The assertion that the people are “obedient,” “subjugated,” or, even more so, “loyal” to a separate corps of gendarmes is absurd. Absurdity, due to the elementary absence common points contact between the people and the gendarmes.
Yes. The people could be obedient, could be subjugated. But to whom?
Of course, to his master - the master. This means that all contacts between the serf and peasant were closed only to its owner. outside world. But this is at the very top. Everyday these were people chosen by the master. Managers, mayors, elders. However, the peasant made these connections, I repeat, still with his master. “The master will come, the master will judge us...”
A serf peasant could not only never see a single “blue uniform” in his entire life. He might not even know about its existence.
No gendarme could punish or pardon him. Only his own master could punish or show mercy. Unlike any gendarme rank, which had no such rights. Any claims of the gendarmes against any peasant could be addressed only to its owner, since the serf was not a legally independent person. Its owner was responsible for its behavior. That is why he was given the rights and power to punish or pardon. With blue uniforms, in my opinion, it’s clear. The people not only were not loyal to them, but for the most part did not even know about them.
It is logical, finally, to pose the question: Prove that the author of the poem “Farewell, Unwashed Russia” is Lermontov. Provide at least one piece of evidence. Even the weakest one.
Summarize. Throughout the seventies, the poems "Farewell, Unwashed Russia" appear in several versions. The editing took place before the eyes of contemporaries.
The change also affected the clarification of the degree of servility of the peasants towards the gendarmes. Note:
In Bartenev’s letter to Efremov, “the people obedient to him” appear in the verses. In Bartenev’s letter to Putyata we already see “the people submissive to them.” This is the seventies. And then, suddenly, an option appears that sharply increases the degree of groveling - “the people are devoted to them.”
Why? Let's remember the story. In the spring of 1874, among progressive-minded youth, mass movement- "going to the people." This movement continued until 1877. The greatest scope occurs in the spring-autumn of 1874. Soon mass arrests of participants in this action began.
P.A. Kropotkin wrote in October 1874 to P.L. Lavrov: “Hearing the names of the cities and towns where they are being seized, I am simply amazed. Literally: you need to know the geography of Russia in order to understand how great the mass of arrests is.”
The reason is so efficient work The separate corps of gendarmes was simple. It was the peasants who played the main role in exposing the activities of revolutionary agitators in the countryside. The gendarmes got involved when the men brought in the propagandist they had tied up. This reaction of the village to attempts to educate it politically offended the progressive circles of Russian society. Then in the first publication of the mentioned poem in 1887, instead of “the people obedient (submissive) to them,” the line appears:
And you, their devoted people.
Here you can feel the indignation of some revolutionary who went to the people to educate and encourage. To his surprise and indignation, it was not blue uniforms that tied him up, but ungrateful peasants. Perhaps the edit was the reaction of one of the writers who sympathize with him.
The poem is about the desire to hide behind the “wall of the Caucasus” while Lermontov was going to serve in North Caucasus, that is, strictly speaking, without reaching its wall. Finally, the main thing is that this contradicts the entire system of views of Lermontov, who was increasingly strengthened in his Russophilia, who writes (the autograph has been preserved in Vl. F. Odoevsky’s album):
“Russia has no past: it is all in the present and the future. A fairy tale tells: Eruslan Lazarevich sat in bed for 20 years and slept soundly, but in the 21st year he woke up from a heavy sleep - he got up and went... and he met 37 kings and 70 heroes and beat them and sat down to reign over them... Such is Russia..." Now, I hope everyone agrees that the author of these poems is not Lermontov?
In 2005, an article by a candidate was published philosophical sciences from Nizhny Novgorod A. A. Kutyreva, who convincingly proved the real authorship. Kutyreva writes: “Literary scholars who value their reputation usually stipulate the absence of an autograph and never attribute a work to the author without at least lifetime lists. But not in this case! Both publications by P.A. Viskovatova, and then by P.I. Bartenev, although they were repeatedly convicted of dishonesty, were accepted without doubt and further disputes arose only over discrepancies. But here a controversy developed that has not subsided to this day. However, the arguments of opponents of Lermontov’s authorship in this dispute were not taken seriously into account. The poem became canonical and included in school textbooks as a masterpiece political lyrics great poet.
It was because of the first line that the poem became popular, and for some it is now extremely relevant.
Today, everyone who speaks and writes about Russia disdainfully, with mockery, complete rejection of its social system, both pre-revolutionary and revolutionary, will certainly quote the famous line, taking it as an ally and referring to the authority of the great national poet. This is symptomatic. More strong literary argument It’s hard to think of anything other than a reference to its national poetic genius to discredit Russia.”
“Before naming the author’s name, let us pay attention to several features of the mentioned poem. First of all, the adjective "unwashed". Let's turn to Lermontov's older brother. In his essay “A Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg” (the title was given in controversy with the essay by the liberal Alexander Radishchev “A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”), Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin cites the following dialogue between the author and an Englishman:
"I. What struck you most about the Russian peasant?
He. His neatness, intelligence and freedom.
Me: How is this?
He. Your peasant goes to the bathhouse every Saturday; He washes himself every morning, and in addition washes his hands several times a day. There is nothing to say about his intelligence. Travelers travel from region to region in Russia, not knowing a single word of your language, and everywhere they are understood, their demands are fulfilled, their terms are concluded; I have never encountered among them what our neighbors call un badoud, I have never noticed in them either rude surprise or ignorant contempt for the things of others. Their variability is known to everyone; agility and dexterity are amazing...
I. Fairly; but freedom? Do you really consider the Russian peasant to be free?
He. Look at him: what could be more free than his circulation! Is there a shadow of slavish humiliation in his behavior and speech? Have you been to England?" For Lermontov, Pushkin was an authority. In addition, he is the author of the poem “The Death of a Poet” and “Motherland”, a man of his time, a Russian nobleman and officer, so he could not express himself like that about Russia.
And who could? A man of a different historical time and origin. Kutyreva reports that this poem “rather parodies Pushkin’s lines “Farewell, free elements!”, and “blue uniforms”, not found anywhere else in Lermontov’s works, appear in satirical poem“The Demon,” written in 1874–1879 by a former official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who discovered the gift of a satirical poet, Dmitry Dmitrievich Minaev.
It was in the post-reform era that it became fashionable among the intelligentsia and the semi-educated to criticize not only the government, but also Russia. By the end of the reign of Nicholas I, it had reached the point of idiocy and savagery - educated people wanted us to be beaten in Sevastopol and Crimean War! And when this, unfortunately, happened, only the enemies of Russia were the winners. The children of priests and officials hated not only their class, their environment, their government, but also the entire Russian people. This bacillus infected the Bolsheviks, who also wanted defeat in the war with Japan and Germany. Their heirs introduced the disgusting poem, attributing it to Lermontov, into school anthologies so that the noxious odor would spread to subsequent generations. We hope that the truth will be restored not only in the works of literary scholars, but also in school textbooks. This is much more important." I completely agree with Kutyreva.
Commentary on the poem:First published (with censorship distortions) in 1887 in “Russian Antiquity” (No. 12, pp. 738-739). The autograph has not survived. Written, according to biographers, in April 1841, before leaving St. Petersburg for the Caucasus.
Several versions of the text of this poem have come down to us in lists made in different time P. I. Bartenev. In 1873, Bartenev, sending a poem to P. A. Efremov, wrote: “Here are more poems by Lermontov, copied from the original.” The following text was reported:
Goodbye, unwashed Russia,
Country of slaves, country of masters,
And you, blue uniforms,
And you, the people obedient to them.
Perhaps beyond the ridge of the Caucasus
I will hide from your kings,
From their all-seeing eye,
From their all-hearing ears.
In 1890, Bartenev published another edition of the text (based on which the poem is printed in this edition), accompanying it with the note: “Recorded from the words of the poet by a contemporary.”
In 1955, another version of the text was published - a list of the same Bartenev from the archives of N.V. Putyata. In this list, verse 4 reads, “And you, a people subject to them.” The rest of the text is as in the letter to Efremov.
The version where verse 6 reads “I will hide from your pashas” has reason to be considered the most probable in meaning and form. Lermontov's sharply accusatory poem, directed against the autocratic-bureaucratic regime of Russia, was distributed in lists and was subject to many distortions.
"Blue uniforms" - we're talking about about officers of the gendarme corps.
We are all from school curriculum we remember such lines of the Great Russian poet, true patriot Russia, M.Yu. Lermontov.
Goodbye, unwashed Russia,
Country of slaves, country of masters,
And you, blue uniforms,
And you, their devoted people...
And this raises the question, why Russia, both then in the 19th century and now in the 21st century, was and is associated among enlightened people as “a country of slaves and masters”? To understand this, you need to look deep into the centuries.
History of slavery
Slavery as a phenomenon dates back to ancient times. The first mentions of slaves can be seen in rock paintings that date back to stone age. Even then, captured people from another tribe were enslaved. This tendency to enslave captured enemies also existed in ancient civilizations.
For example, civilizations such as Ancient Greece and Rome, using, Slave work the peoples they conquered flourished for centuries. But the key to their prosperity, in the first place, of course, was not the labor of slaves, but science, culture and craft developed to heights unattainable at that time. Citizens took care of them ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, being freed from daily hard physical labor, where only slaves were used. It is thanks to this freedom of the Greeks and Romans that we are still amazed by the works of art, inventions and achievements in science made at that time. It turns out that for free citizens ancient Greece and Rome, the use of slave labor in that period of time benefited them and gave impetus to the development of these ancient civilizations. What did slave labor give in Rus'?
As can be seen from the history of ancient Rus', the Slavs for the most part were free, hardworking and kind towards even their few slaves. So where then did the hatred of “the powers that be” for the people they rule and the slavish essence of the people themselves come from in later Rus'? In fact, since late XVI centuries until the second half of the 20th century, slavery existed in Russia. It began with the enslavement of the peasants, and ended with Khrushchev’s issuance of passports to collective farmers. That is, for 400 years with a break, the peasants received a slight relief after the abolition of serfdom in 1861, and then until the beginning of the 20th century, in order for the peasant to leave the landowner, it was necessary to pay him redemption payment. And this relaxation ended with forced collectivization at the end of the twenties of the last century.
Collectivization differed from slavery only in its ideological background, the peasants were also attached to the collective farm, all their goods were taken away, and seven days a week - corvée. To get married, you need the permission of the chairman if the bride or groom is from another collective farm. And if you go to work - don’t even think about it, they’ll catch you and go to a camp.
Those who did not want to “collectivize” were sent to the great construction sites of communism, to camps, and into exile. True, the last entry into slavery was short-lived, thirty years. But more people were killed than in the previous three hundred...
Who is a serf?
As historians write, a serf in Russia was the same as a slave, the only difference was that the slave was not given to his owner for free, while the serfs were given to the landowner for nothing. Therefore, his treatment was worse than with “cattle.” Since the landowner always knew that even if the “two-legged beast” “dies” from excessive labor or beatings, the “Russian woman” will still give birth to new serfs, that is, “free slaves.”
Serfdom deprived a person of even the hope that he would someday become free. After all, every serf knew from birth that this was his “heavy burden” for the rest of his life, as well as the burden of his children, grandchildren, etc. You can imagine how the mentality of the people was formed. Born already unfree, peasant children did not even think about freedom, since they did not know any other life other than “living in eternal bondage” and therefore slowly, imperceptibly, the free people turned into slaves and landowners' property. When, by the second half of the 17th century, the construction of the building Russian slavery was completed.
Russian peasants, and this is the majority of the population of a huge country in eastern Europe, became (not was, but became!) slaves. This is unprecedented! Not blacks brought from Africa to work on US plantations, but their own compatriots, people of the same faith and language, who, together, shoulder to shoulder for centuries, created and defended this state, became slaves, “draft animals” in their homeland.
What is striking in this situation is that the serfs did not try to free themselves from the yoke. But back in Ancient Rus' citizens expelled a negligent prince, even such as the pride of the Russian land, the Holy and Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky, the Novgorodians expelled him when he became too impudent.
Yes and in medieval history In Russia, there were, of course, outbreaks of popular anger, in the form of peasant wars led by Bolotov, Razin and Pugachev. There was also the flight of some peasants to the free Don, from which, by the way, they began peasant wars. But these outbursts of popular anger were not aimed at winning individual freedom. This was some kind of protest against physical violence and the abuses that the serfs experienced daily. And the more violence and abuse the serf experienced, the more cruel he was in destroying the landowners' estates and reprisals against the landowners.
This is how he describes the humiliation and bullying of serfs in the first half of the 16th century I I century, one of the contemporaries of that era, a certain Major Danilov, who writes about the life of his relative, a Tula landowner:“...she did not learn to read and write, but every day...she read the akathist to the Mother of God by heart out loud to everyone; She really loved cabbage soup with lamb, and while she was eating it, the cook who cooked it was whipped in front of her, not because she cooked it poorly, but just for the sake of her appetite...”
The serfs at that time were so outcast that their masters, out of disgust, feeling like people of a completely different breed, began to switch from Russian to French. By the way, in the version published under Peter the Great,book for young nobles “An honest mirror of youth, or testimony to everyday manners», there are even recommendations on this occasion: “...do not speak Russian to each other, so that the servants do not understand and they can be distinguished from ignorant fools, do not communicate with the servants, treat them with distrust and contempt, humiliate and humiliate them in every possible way...”.And these excerpts from the memoirs of Prince P. Dolgoruky about one court officer are generally striking in their wild cruelty,“... he flogged people in his presence and ordered their torn backs to be sprinkled with gunpowder and set on fire. Moans and screams made him laugh with pleasure; he called it "burning fireworks on our backs"...
However, slaves were not only among the peasantry; representatives of the nobility were the same slaves as their peasants, only in relation to their superior nobles. There is such a thing as noble slaves. This phenomenon was very common in Russia. So in the book “History of Morals of Russia” the author very colorfully reflected this phenomenon:“... the nobleman in social and moral terms was, as it were, a “mirror” double of the serf-slave, i.e. serf and nobleman “twin slaves”.... Suffice it to cite the case of Field Marshal S.F. Apraksin, who played cards with Hetman Razumovsky and cheated. He stood up, slapped him in the face, then grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and beat him well with his hands and feet. S. Apraksin silently swallowed the insult... S. Apraksin is simply a pathetic and cowardly slave, only a noble slave, low, two-faced, with his inherent habits of slander, intrigue and theft. And he became so thanks to unlimited power over his serf slaves. It is worth noting that some of the nobles, by their origin, are serfs and slaves and therefore it was difficult for them to “squeeze a slave out of themselves” ... "
But here is how contemporaries of Empress Anna Ioanovna write about the morals of her court, “...The courtiers, accustomed to rude and inhuman treatment from the Empress Anna and her favorite Duke Biron (under him, espionage on famous families was developed, and the slightest displeasure with the all-powerful favorite led to terrible consequences), themselves became monsters.”
This way of life Russian society created a kind of vertical, consisting of slaves and masters, which grew stronger from century to century. This is where the statement of the ancient Roman philosopher Cicero is appropriate“Slaves do not dream of freedom, slaves dream of their slaves.”
Now for some simple arithmetic. In four hundred years, approximately twelve generations have changed. Formed national character, the so-called mentality. The majority of the population of our country are the descendants of those same serfs or noble slaves who were not destroyed by the Bolsheviks and who did not emigrate. And now let’s imagine how this character was formed. Unbearably huge spaces. No roads, no cities. Only villages with black, rickety five-walled walls and impassable mud for almost six months of the year (spring and autumn). From early spring before late autumn The serf worked day and night. And then almost everything was taken away by the landowner and the tsar. And then in winter the “poor peasant” sat on the stove and “howled from hunger.” And so from year to year, from century to century. Nothing happens. Complete and utter hopelessness. Nothing can change. Never. All. Literally everything is against you. Both the landowner and the state. Don't expect anything good from them. If you work poorly, they beat you with whips. You work well, they still beat you, but what you earned is taken away. Therefore, in order not to be killed and the family not to starve, the peasant, just in case, always had to lie and “bend in”, “bend in” and lie. And not only the peasant...
The beautiful life of nobles and landowners also consisted of fears. And the main fear was to fall out of favor with the “main master” and be excommunicated from the court, and this, as a rule, was followed by the confiscation of estates, titles and exile. Therefore, noble slaves lived in even greater fear than commoners. And therefore, every day they were forced not only to “bend”, but also to intrigue in order to maintain their “ warm place"at the foot of the throne."
And now the descendants of those serfs and “noble serfs”, already being “free”, regardless of their positions and wealth, genetic level Feeling the fear ingrained in them, they continue to lie and “bend in”, just in case. And how many more generations of Russians must live “free” for this to let them go? genetic memory serfs and nobles (court) slaves...???
And is it possible for their descendants to ever get rid of this manifestation of human nature? After all, already in modern Russia There is a very popular and relevant saying: “You’re the boss, I’m a fool, I’m the boss, you’re a fool.” And the senseless cruelty of fellow citizens towards each other still lives in Russian army. About whose morals , To paraphrase Cicero, we can say the following: The “new guy” doesn’t dream of freedom, the “new guy” dreams of becoming a “grandfather” in order to have his own “new guys.” And what is natural is that the more the “grandfathers” mock this “grandfather”, the more cruel the “grandfather” he becomes.
And many areas are permeated with such relationships. state apparatus, and not only. I had an example when a citizen who was terrorizing her neighbors simply turned into an “innocent lamb” at the sight of a local police officer. Isn’t this a manifestation of a slave mentality?
But seeing from the outside this manifestation of the internal lack of freedom of the majority of our fellow citizens, it seems to me that they do not want once again strain to be “free”? N. Berdyaev said well about this:
“Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, but slavery is easy.” Moreover, it is precisely this feature of our mentality that is incomprehensible to many residents of Western countries.
How many more years does it take to free yourself from the fear of strongmen of the world this,” and eradicate in a person the desire to humiliate someone like you, but who depends on you for something. Will our fellow citizens be able to become internally free or do they simply not need it and everyone is happy with everything?
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