Creative path Mikhail Matveevich Kheraskov is one of the most difficult pages in the history of literature of the 18th century. The largest representative of the second generation of Russian classics, he was at the same time one of the founders of sentimentalism in Russia, a predecessor and then an ally of Karamzin. Kheraskov was born on October 25, 1733. His father, who came from a noble family of Wallachian boyars, went to Russia during the Prut campaign of Peter I, served in the army and under Anna Ioannovna was a major of the cavalry guards. He died in 1734, leaving a widow, née Princess Drutskaya-Sokolinskaya, with three sons. In 1735 she married General Kriegs-Commissar Prince. N. Yu. Trubetskoy, former orderly of Peter I, a major nobleman and statesman.
Kheraskov spent his early childhood in Ukraine. In 1740 the Trubetskoys moved to St. Petersburg. In 1743, a ten-year-old boy was sent to the best educational institution at that time - the “Knight Academy,” as the Land Noble Corps was then called. During the years of Kheraskov’s studies, cadet performances were staged in the corps and literary circles arose, the soul of which was Sumarokov. According to legend, already during this period Kheraskov wrote poetry.
The literary interests developed in the building were supported by the atmosphere of the Trubetskoy salon. No matter how unattractive Trubetskoy the businessman may be, he was one of the most educated people of his time. He was a friend of Cantemir, who dedicated a number of works to him. An amateur poet, Trubetskoy was interested in issues of poetry; at his request, the fruits of the poetic competition between Trediakovsky, Lomonosov and Sumarokov were published - their translations of the 143rd Psalm.
Aristocratic family ties opened up the possibility of a brilliant career for Kheraskov, but his choice was somewhat unusual. After three years of military service, he entered the newly opened Moscow University as an assessor. Kheraskov's duties included monitoring the printing house, library, and theater.
In 1758, already in the form of a kind of “prize,” he was entrusted with the management of the synodal printing house. Judging by the materials preserved in the archives of Moscow University, Kheraskov took an active part in its life and soon became one of the prominent figures in it. From 1761 he carried out directorial duties, and in 1763 he was officially appointed director of the university and remained in this position until 1770.
Moscow University, opened in 1755 on the initiative of Lomonosov and Shuvalov, from the first years began to play a prominent role in the cultural life of the country. One of the first tangible results of his activities was the revival of the periodical press. In 1756, “Moskovskie Vedomosti” began to be published; from 1760 to 1764, four magazines were published at the university: “Useful Amusement” (1760-1762) and “Free Hours” (1763), headed by Kheraskov, “Innocent Exercise” (1763 ) - magazine of Bogdanovich and Dashkova, “Good Intention” by V. Sankovsky. In addition to them, in 1762, a “Collection of the best works for the dissemination of knowledge and for the production of pleasure, or a mixed library about various physical, economic, also pre-manufactured and pre-commerce things” was published. The “Collection” was published by Professor Johann Gottfried Reichel; the material consisted of translations carried out by students, including D. I. Fonvizin.
Kheraskov was associated with Moskovskie Vedomosti first as an editor, then as an official, the head of a printing house; subsequent publications came to his attention as the director of a university, but his real brainchild was “Useful Amusement” and the subsequent “Free Hours”.
In 1762-1763, together with F. G. Volkov and A. P. Sumarokov, Kheraskov took an active part in organizing the grandiose masquerade “Triumphing Minerva,” which marked the coronation celebrations.
In 1767, when Catherine II, during a trip along the Volga, translated Marmontel’s Belisarius with her courtiers, Kheraskov led a group of writers who translated articles from the Encyclopedia. The translations testify to careful control “from above”, because the least acute, least combative, and least relevant articles were selected.
In 1770, Kheraskov moved to St. Petersburg to the position of vice-president of the Berg College and began working on the fundamental work of his life - the historical epic “Rossiyada”. In parallel with this, he writes the poem “Chesmessky Battle”, the tragedy “Borislav”, tearful dramas, comedies. Service distracted me from literary studies; He did not have enough wealth to live without her.
Kheraskov wants to become a professional writer; Literary studies are, in his opinion, a matter of national importance. In July 1774, he turned to Potemkin with a request for resignation, and asked to preserve the salary received at the Berg College, since “dismissal can be nothing more than a new type of service to Her Majesty.” A year passed before there was a response. In 1775, Kheraskot was dismissed, but, firstly, without pay, and, secondly, the resignation obviously had the character of disgrace. Literally a few days later, Kheraskov wrote a new petition, more humble in tone, but he was not assigned to serve. He left for Moscow, and then, as one of the prominent Reichel Masons, he again came to St. Petersburg on the matter of merging the Elagin lodges with the Reichel ones. This period dates back to his rapprochement with Novikov and the joint start of preparing the publication of Morning Light.
Kheraskov’s semi-disgraced position did not prevent literary youth from seeing him as a teacher, mentor, “commander of Russian poets.” The Kheraskov salon was a kind of cultural headquarters; Young poets, writers, and educators met there. Fonvizin,
Bogdanovich, Derzhavin, Muravyov, Karamzin and many others passed through it.
Probably, Rossiyada reconciled the government with Kheraskov. His disgrace was lifted, and on July 23, 1778, the poet was appointed the fourth curator of Moscow University. Circumstances developed in such a way that Kheraskov became the de facto owner of the university.
An event of great significance in the life of the university was Kheraskov’s invitation to Moscow of N.I. Novikov, into whose jurisdiction the Moskovskie Vedomosti, the university bookstore were given, and, most importantly, the decaying university printing house was leased for ten years.
In August 1779, through the efforts of Kheraskov, a new professor of German, I. G. Schwartz, a member of the Moscow Masonic Lodge, Prince, was appointed to the university. N. N. Trubetskoy (brother of Kheraskov). “It is not known what brought him to our fatherland,” N. S. Tikhonravov writes about Schwartz. Ya. L. Barskov in the preface to the “Correspondence of Moscow Freemasons” convincingly proves the unseemly goals of Schwartz, but in the eyes of Novikov and Kheraskov he was a disinterested figure in the field of Masonic education.
On the initiative of Schwartz and with the support of Kheraskov, the Masons opened the Pedagogical (1779) and Translation (1782) seminaries. The latter was organized with funds from members of the Friendly Scientific Society, which also included the most prominent Freemasons. The works of pupils of the “Friendly Society” and university students made up the majority of the essays and translations published in the magazines: “Moscow Monthly Edition” (1781), “Evening Dawn” (1782), “The Resting Hardworker” (1784).
The progressive idea of creating a cadre of educated translators, as well as Russian teachers who could replace ignorant foreigners, was combined with the fight against French influence, which was intensely instilled by Schwartz, which turned into open hostility towards the Enlightenment, a hostility that made new educational institutions a stronghold of pietism and mysticism.
The struggle of the Moscow Freemasons against French philosophy was based on the fact that they were aware of its revolutionary essence. Significant in this regard is Kheraskov’s anonymously published book “The Golden Rod; oriental story, translated from Arabic; in Moscow 1782"
The course of events in America and the completion of the American Revolution showed that the anxiety of Kheraskov and his friends and their struggle against the influence of revolutionary ideas was not groundless. On the other hand, in 1784, the first clash between Russian Freemasons occurred with Catherine II, who banned the publication of the “History of the Jesuit Order,” and with the Commission of Public Schools, also supported by the government.
The first stage of persecution of the Freemasons, which began in 1784, ended in 1788 with a decree prohibiting the university curator from renewing the contract with Novikov for the rental of the university printing house and the appointment in 1790 of the stupid, narrow-minded prince to the post of Commander-in-Chief of Moscow. A. A. Prozorovsky, whose best description is given in Potemkin’s letter to Catherine: “Your Majesty has put forward from your arsenal the oldest cannon, which will certainly shoot at your target, because it does not have its own. Just be careful that she does not stain your Majesty’s name with blood in posterity.” But Catherine, in whom the features of “Paul’s worthy mother” (Herzen) were increasingly visible, and who conceived the defeat of “Martinism,” saw in Prozorovsky the most suitable figure to achieve her goal.
In his first report (in March 1790), Prozorovsky notes the “suspicious” role of Moscow University and concludes: “So, most gracious empress, Kheraskov seems not worthy to be a curator at the university.” Further, the name of Kheraskov is mentioned again in connection with the story about secret meetings of the “sect” in Ochakovo, the estate of Trubetskoy and Kheraskov near Moscow. Apparently, in response to this report, Catherine sent a note that categorically stated: “Kheraskov should be dismissed.”
During this troubling time for the Freemasons, Kheraskov remained emphatically calm.
The Trubetskoys and Kheraskovs continued to live in Ochakovo, in a close circle of family and friends; Sometimes family holidays and performances were held at which Kheraskov's plays were staged.
In April 1792, Novikov was arrested and imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress. On August 1, a decree was signed in which Novikov and his “accomplices” were named state criminals. N.N. Trubetskoy and I.P. Turgenev were removed from Moscow, Lopukhin was forgiven, and Kheraskov was not mentioned. It is unlikely that Catherine believed Kheraskov’s deliberately naive statement that he had been slandered “by some kind of Martinism.”
Obviously, taking into account that Kheraskov himself did not pose any danger, Catherine was content with his almost public renunciation of Freemasonry, and, contrary to the order of 1790, Kheraskov was not dismissed, although even in 1792 Prozorovsky continued to follow him. For several years, Kheraskov was in unspoken disgrace, which forced him in 1795 to submit a petition in which he asks to hear “the prayer of an old man bowing his gray-haired head at the royal feet.” Catherine remained deaf this time too. Only the accession to the throne of Paul I brought Kheraskov the rank of Privy Councilor, 600 souls, and the Order of Anna, 1st degree.
A few months before Pavel's death, Kheraskov, as a result of some misunderstanding, resigned and resumed his former position as curator of Moscow University only after the accession to the throne of Alexander I, whom he greeted with verses:
Like a swan in the fields of Meander
Sings his farewell song,
So I am the monarch Alexander
In my old age I sing ...
Reforms in the field of education, which began in 1802, were alien to the entire mentality of Kheraskov, at that time already a seventy-five-year-old man, and he finally retired.
In recent years he lived in retirement, engaged in literature, still surrounded by fame, occasionally visited by young writers, but a stranger to them and acutely aware of his loneliness. When S. N. Glinka dedicated his tragedy “Sumbek” to him, Kheraskov replied: “You did it out of love for humanity. I have already lived out my life in the light and for the light.” In “Little things from the stock of my memory,” M. A. Dmitriev tells the following episode: despite Kheraskov’s fame, no one wanted to publish “Bahariana,” and Kheraskov published it at his own expense, hiding this fact even from his wife, who was very surprised when he had to pay off the debt.
In 1807 Kheraskov died. After his death, his last tragedy, “Zareida and Rostislav,” was published and received the Russian Academy Prize.
The variety of genres that distinguishes Sumarokov’s work is even more characteristic of Kheraskov.
The search for a variety of metrical forms marks the period of activity of Heraskoz in “Useful Amusement” and then the poet again turns to them in “Baharian”. Basically, he limits the abundance of metrical forms created by Sumarokov, canonizing the iambic “dominance” in Russian poetry, against which Radishchev fought.
Acting at first as a continuer of Sumarokov’s poetic principles, Kheraskov does not remain only a student, he seeks an independent path and finds it in the creation of a “philosophical” ode, in addressing problems of morality and morality, in thinking about the philosophical categories of eternity and the moment, good and evil, life and death.
The source of evil that reigns in the world is primarily money. Money rules in the city, so from there you need to escape to the countryside, but not to the fortress village of the 18th century, but to the bosom of nature, where it is quiet, calm, you can relax, fall asleep in order to forget about life, because
...
in the civil noise,
I don't think it's possible
And it’s nice to have sleep.
The poet's thought repeatedly returns to evil, and it manifests itself everywhere; even time itself, as an abstract category, only “destroys, spoils and destroys everything.”
Before the almighty power of time, a person turns out to be a helpless creature, a nonentity, “almost nothing,” dust, especially since the whole earth is just “a drop in the eternal ocean,” period, “a mortal leaf in dense forests.” Man is nothing; therefore, all his aspirations, thoughts, desires, the wealth of Croesus, the victories of Cyrus, fame, rank, beauty, pride, power and, finally, even science - all are nothing more than vanity.
The more the mind is enlightened,
Then he suffers and suffers more.
A dream is born from a dream
And everything in the world is vanity.
The result of these gloomy reflections, the recognition that man is but dust, is a pessimistic conclusion:
And it would be better if you were never born.
I prefer nothingness
When I equate with existence
This life has sorrows and labors.
Sorrows, sorrows and troubles.
The only justification for a person’s life can be his love for his neighbors, his love for virtue. Do and love goodness - “In it all good things are contained.”
This idea follows almost everywhere in Kheraskov’s thoughts on the futility, vanity and insignificance of life.
You must love good, do it, forgive evil in the name of God, you must love God, you must live here, always remembering that life is a moment, and eternity is ahead, in heaven; there is retribution for sins, there is a reward for virtue.
Softening the monotony of reasoning, Kheraskov often puts moral teaching in the form of a friendly conversation - a “letter”, or a light “fairy tale”. Even the Anacreontic odes under the pen of Kheraskov lose their specific features, and the glorification of enjoying the blessings of life is replaced in them by preaching the need for abstinence, moderation, and moral self-improvement. Anacreontic odes differ from moralizing odes only in form: they are written in blank verse and mostly in iambic trimeter.
Kheraskov's interest in ethical problems and creative searches are reflected in his first tragedy, “The Venetian Nun” (1758). It lays out the further path of Kheraskov, his dual literary “politics” - the leader of post-Sumarokov classicism and one of the founders of Russian sentimentalism. “The Venetian Nun” is called a tragedy, and formally it meets the requirements presented to this genre by Sumarokov in “Epistole on Poetry”; it expresses the unity of time, place, action. But the very choice of heroes - mere mortals, the gloomy coloring of the play, the romantic “midnight hour” in which the action takes place - were new. The reduction in the number of acts - three instead of the traditional five - also represented a departure, which Kheraskov considered it necessary to explain and justify in the preface. By transferring the scene of action to Venice, Kheraskov acquired the opportunity to speak out against laws that restrict human freedom: “The strict Venetian laws are known to the whole world; This republic, observing its freedom, has concluded itself in such bondage that the saddest adventures often occur from it.” One of them gave “the idea for composing this tragedy.” However, the content of the tragedy is broader than the condemnation of Venetian laws: it contains a protest against monasteries, against religious fanaticism, shackling a person.
Kheraskov puts forward an ethical problem, finding out what is higher: loyalty to duty - the monastic vow or a person’s right to happiness and love. The justification of a feeling that is vicious in all respects from the point of view of debate between church and feudal morality takes the tragedy out of the general mainstream of classical works and testifies to Kheraskov’s perception of one of the most significant ideas of the 18th century. The writer returns to the problem of combating fanaticism more than once, but in the tragedies “Flame” (1765) and “Idolaters, or Gorislava” (1782) he becomes more careful, with pagan priests playing the role of fanatics.
Anti-clericalism does not for one minute shake Kheraskov’s confidence in the existence of the creator of the universe. In the comedies “The Atheist” (1761) and “The Hater” (1770), he opposes the teachings of materialist philosophers, endowing their followers with sharply negative properties. The connection between the image of Rufinus (“The Atheist”) and materialism is clarified by the very name of the comedy. In “The Hater,” Zmeyad, wanting to get the hand of a rich bride, inspires her,
That children's love is lower than everything in the world,
Love for parents, love for her family,
That this is considered meanness in Paris;
That this is typical only for bourgeois women.
That the fathers then stole power over us,
When we were bound there were swaddling clothes.
That we were not born to serve them as slaves,
That mother is a helper, that our father is our friend;
That daughters should be preferred to fathers
Then, what often brings happiness to them;
So parents should worship them ...
The provisions of this monologue reveal that Kheraskov is drawing a parody of the Helvetian, and, unlike Fonvizin’s Ivanushka, who babbles something similar, Zmeyad is not stupid, but mean and vicious.
Directly political issues, characteristic of Sumarokov, are pushed aside by religious and moral problems in Kheraskov’s tragedies. In only one case does he approach Sumarokov, and then in the form of polemics. The tragedy "Borislav", written in 1772 (staged in 1774), shortly after the appearance of the sensational "Dmitry the Pretender", one of Sumarokov's most powerful tyrant-fighting works, develops the opposite concept; in it tyranny is condemned, but rebellion is condemned even more.
The dual position outlined in “The Venetian Nun” is finally determined in Kheraskov’s activities in the 70s. While working on "Rossiyada", a majestic monument of Russian classicism, reminiscent of the exploits of his ancestors, he at the same time wrote in 1774 the play "Friend of the Unfortunate", which he defiantly calls a "tearful drama".
Contrary to Sumarokov’s statements, Kheraskov considers the existence of this new genre legitimate and tries to adapt it to the ideological needs of the Russian noble intelligentsia.
In total, five dramas by Kheraskov are known: “The Friend of the Unfortunate” (1774), “The Persecuted” (1775), “Milana” - a drama with songs (1786), “The School of Virtue” (1796), “Apologetic Jealousy” (1796).
"Milana" and "Apologetic Jealousy" are sensitive dramas in the spirit of Kotzebue; “Friend of the Unfortunate” treats the need for humane treatment of the poor; “The Persecuted” and “The School of Virtue” preach a morality that teaches one to stoically endure the misfortunes and persecution of the powerful.
Touching on outwardly “social” issues, contrasting honest poverty with wealth, virtue in rags with vice, allowing himself to talk about social injustice, Kheraskov invariably emphasizes that it occurs either due to the ignorance of the sovereign or as a result of evil will individuals. The conflict presented in his plays is always resolved safely, due to the omnipotent, in the author’s opinion, power of an example of virtue.
By shifting the focus to questions of morality and presenting the resolution of the conflict to “God’s hand,” Kheraskov takes a step back in comparison with “The Nun of Venice” and removes one of the main provisions of advanced dramaturgy of the 18th century. - opposition of the individual to society. He leaves room for the disclosure of private interests, allows for the depiction of the suffering of an “ordinary” mortal, touches on issues of the purity of family relationships, but the normative thinking remains in force for him, and the sensitive heroes of his sentimental dramas are the same representatives of “reasonable” reality as the virtuous characters of the classical dramaturgy that fights against vicious passions. Significant in this regard is the preservation of the significance of the names: Milad, Krasida, Dobriyan, Dobrov, Milana, Prechest, Laz, etc.
Fundamental difference Kheraskov reduces genres mainly to purely external formal features (it is possible that in this too
dogmatic thinking affects), and in his dramas he uses all the techniques and individual typical motives of sentimental and partly early romantic drama. Here is an image of poverty in a hut, and a crime of a virtuous person committed out of love for children (in “The Friend of the Unfortunate.” It is characteristic that it is not a nobleman who commits it, but a “commoner”), and an escape from the corrupted world into the bosom of wildlife, and the seashore, and the forest, and the cave, and the night; the introduction of crowd scenes, the battle before the eyes of the viewer (in “The Persecuted”); desert and dense forest (in Milan); street and prison (with a jailer, but without prisoners - in the “School of Virtue”). Finally, no less important is the terminology itself, which gives a certain emotional coloring and reveals the tonality of the plays: “virtue in rags,” “the unfortunate,” “the persecuted,” “sad glances,” “tender love,” “wounds of the heart,” “innocence.” and similar expressions are repeatedly repeated in the speeches of the heroes, who abundantly “enjoy” the speech with diminutive and endearing suffixes: “children”, “brother”, “sister”, “letter”, “ribbon”, etc.
Kheraskov was not the only Russian writer who argued in the 70s years XVIII V. sentimental drama, but it is important that he, a recognized poetic leader who had a huge influence on his contemporaries, realized the power and significance of the new direction. No matter how limited or incomplete the resolution of the questions he posed, by the very fact of accepting a new genre, he opened the way for further research.
If in the 70s Kheraskov did not support Sumarokov in his fight against bourgeois drama and compromised, smoothing out the rough edges, pouring into new forms old morality, then in the 90s his attention was attracted by the already formed hero of the bourgeois drama, a representative of the third estate, proudly declaring his rights, and here Kheraskov collides with the writer whom Sumarokov attacked twenty years before - with Beaumarchais.
In one of Kheraskov’s later dramas, “The School of Virtue,” the central role is played by the servant Thorpe, uniquely interpreted by Figaro. Torpa, as the author insists, is a “clever, witty” servant, but this is far from an ordinary comedic character in the spirit of Zanni - the servant of the Italian comedy of masks. Kheraskov makes an attempt to create a character and justify his actions. Intelligent, resourceful, efficient and, most importantly, as the author emphasizes, impudent, Torpa leads an intrigue, gets out of a difficult situation, and ties new knots.
No matter how Kheraskov exaggerates the colors, in Torpa’s energy, in his dexterity, constantly noted wit, in his undoubted mental superiority over his owner, we recognize Figaro, but Figaro exposed, discredited, denied.
To complete the characterization of Kheraskov the playwright, it is necessary to note his attempt to act as a stage reformer. “Liberated Moscow” (1798) was the next stage after Knyazhnin’s “Rosslav” on the path to creating a patriotic tragedy. The play reproduced one of the most dramatic episodes of Russian history. The traditional love affair (the love of Sophia, Pozharsky’s sister, for the son of the Polish governor Zhelkovsky) is mechanically attached to the main theme of the defense of Moscow, and the classical unity of action in the sense of the word, as Sumarokov understood it, is violated; The unity of the place is not observed either.
A departure from the strict canons of classical tragedy, the transfer of action from ordinary palaces to a military camp located against the background
Moscow, the introduction of elements of sensitivity, the undoubted desire to show characters (Ruksalon and Prince Dimitri) prove that Kheraskov consciously created new type tragedy, later developed by Ozerov.
Of particular interest to the tragedy is the author’s attempt to show in the foreground not the passion, not the adventures of the hero, but a historical event; hence the unusual name itself - not “Pozharsky”, but “Liberated Moscow”. Indeed, Pozharsky is one of the main characters, but not the only one: Minin, Ruksalon, and Prince. Demetrius is no less important in the development of the action. Of course, Kheraskov assesses the event in his own way: in the foreground he has not the people, but the leaders, but the attempt to create a tragedy of a new type is remarkable.
The evolution of Kheraskov's political views can be most clearly seen in his novels: “Numa Pompilius” (1768), “Cadmus and Harmonies” (1787), “Polydor, son of Cadmus and Harmonies” (1792).
All of them are connected with the European tradition of the political and moral novel, which originates from Telemacus. Fenelon's moderate liberalism, his fight against “autocracy” and his penchant for theoretical resolution of political problems are akin to Kheraskov.
“Numa Pompilius” was written in 1768, during the activities of the Commission to draw up a new code, and reflects the demands of the author, captured by the temporary rise of the noble community. Kheraskov speaks of the need to eradicate extortion, sneaking, and oppression of the people, insists on the introduction of firm legislation, and demands widespread public education and education of subjects.
From pointing out the disorders of secular power, Kheraskov moves on to denouncing the clergy, using in this case lessons not from Fenelon, but from Voltaire and continuing the line outlined in “The Nun of Venice.” One of the central episodes of the novel is Numa’s meeting with a girl forcibly initiated into a vestal virgin. Sacrificed to “weakness and superstition,” she continues to love, and her feeling is “purer than the sacred fire kept.” She is severely punished for meeting her lover, but, according to the nymph Egera, the Vestal Virgin is innocent of anything, her villains are inhuman, and “the judges are superstitious and evil.”
A clearer resolution of problems than in “The Nun of Venice” is explained by the conditions of the time: under Catherine, in the era of secularization of monasteries, it was possible to speak more freely than under Elizabeth. Kheraskov pronounces a sharp verdict on the monasteries.
In Kheraskov’s ideal state, everyone works, “nobles share their labors with farmers,” at the same time, “common people, shining with many virtues,” can be nobles. Since it is not a noble breed, but only “reason, teaching and kind heart” make it possible to obtain the desired ranks and “strengthen the family,” then parents pay more attention to raising their children, and the young men themselves give up “games harmful to the state” and hunting.
At the head of this “prosperous society,” according to Kheraskov, there should be a monarch, for “woe to that people who, horrified by the autocratic power one person, to many rulers the common bliss entrusts, The power dissolved in parts is an example of a disordered body, in which one member cannot obey the other.” The ideal monarch
Kheraskov, - the chosen one of the people, an educator, a highly moral person, not only a legislator, but also a well-behaved citizen, and a “skillful villager”, leading the people by personal example; he, “putting aside the royal crown and scepter, sees off the first plow.” According to Kheraskov, the tsar’s advisers should play a huge role in the life of the country. Real political hints slip through the utopia, reminding that the tsar is the chosen one of the people - in State Council should only be the first among equals.
In general, in his first novel, Kheraskov acts as a continuer of the traditions of noble liberalism, developing the positions expressed by Sumarokov in the article “Dream” (“The Hardworking Bee,” 1759), but with Kheraskov’s characteristic emphasis on the need, first of all, for the moral improvement of people.
The novel “Cadmus and Harmony” (1787) is based on a myth developed by Kheraskov himself. Written during the period of Kheraskov’s close connection with Freemasonry, this work continues the traditions of the political and moralizing novel and is the embodiment in artistic form of the views of the Moscow Masonic circle on the nature of the state and the tasks of the monarch. The originality of Kheraskov’s views lies in his rejection of the theory of the “holy king,” who unites in his hands secular and ecclesiastical power, sharply separated in “Cadmus” and “Polydor,” and in his hatred of ritual and fanaticism, adopted in his youth from Voltaire. Kheraskov does not provide a complete outline of the state; it emerges from individual provisions and outlined features. The hero of the work, Cadmus, like the author, is not a republican; he is in equally protests both against oligarchy and democracy. Thus, “Cadmus and Harmony” is a lesson to the king. The latter circumstance made it possible, along with the promotion of positive ideals, to develop criticism of real government.
Kheraskov demands personal merit from the monarch, of which the main one is virtue in the broad sense of the word. He never tires of reminding that the king is a man, and he is characterized by vices, delusions, hobbies, arising from the “animal-like” properties of the soul, sometimes resulting from bad upbringing, sometimes stemming from excessive self-confidence and insufficient respect for the “supreme being.” Cadmus sees the tombs of wicked kings, tormenting kings, “alienated from sacred burial by all Egypt.” Here is King Nimrod, who “was the first to steal the freedom of man and put the yoke of slavery on him,” King Darkh is “covetous and unmerciful,” Sadr, “immersed in luxury and voluptuousness,” “wicked wives ruled Egypt under his name,” Miris “vain and merciful." Finally, the cause of all the misfortunes of the hero of the story, Cadmus, is “lust.”
Kheraskov often contrasts wise simple farmers with nobles corrupted by luxury. “True virtue is rarely visible in magnificent palaces and in the midst of proud lust: her favorite refuges are huts and caves, gold and luxury are poison to her eyes, from which she turns away with indignation; loud-voiced singing, insane gaiety and idle talk are disgusting to her ears; “She loves to be present in immaculate and wise conversations,” says Harmony to Cadmus, amazed by the nobility of the “villager.”
Luxury, which is harmful to every person, is all the more a vice of the king, since his example carries away his subjects, the state is exhausted, and the appearance of wealth covers up general poverty.
The fight against luxury was hot topic in literature. It was touched upon by Shcherbatov in “Journey to the Land of Ophir,” and it was developed in one of the favorite books of the Novikov circle, “The Truth of Religion.” In relation to this issue, another was raised: the unbearable taxes, taxes, increasingly increased by Catherine II in connection with the protracted Turkish war, which went both to maintain the splendor of the court of “Northern Semiramis” and to distribute abundant rewards to favorites, cause indirect condemnation of Kheraskov.
Neither Freemasonry as a whole nor Kheraskov could resolve the main issue of the era - the problem of serfdom. Only Gamaleya was a decisive opponent of slavery, who refused to accept 300 souls of peasants as a reward, declaring that he did not know how to deal with one of his own souls; other Masons got along calmly with serfdom. Theoretically, Kheraskov resolves the question in the spirit of Gamaleya: King Nimrod, who imposed the yoke of slavery on people, is worthy of eternal damnation; when slaves are offered to the true sage Cadmus, he accepts them so as not to offend the donors, but immediately frees them: “A slave should not belong to wise man, and rights do not allow us to deprive our neighbors of their freedom.” Kheraskov’s Christian democracy is also reflected in the selection of virtuous heroes. The portrait of the slave Eumore is painted in light colors, although in the past he was the son of “honest parents”, a tsar’s pupil.
For Kheraskov, politics is integrally connected with morality. Correcting morals is the main task to which all the problems raised by him are subordinated, but its resolution, according to Masonic views, should be a matter of love and harmony, and not “persecution and tears.”
The best remedy, in which the writer retained faith until old age, is the power of personal example, and therefore he subjects his erring hero and other rulers to such strict judgment. They, placed above society, should serve, in his opinion, as a model for their subjects. Called “by the will of the gods” to be an adviser to King Aphair, Cadmus recommends, as one of the means to correct the depraved morals of the Babylonians, the marriage of the king to a “immaculate virgin”, so that a chaste home would become an example for the Babylonians.
Kheraskov repeatedly attacks “unholy lust,” in which only passion speaks, not supported by reason, a passion that turns people into blindness, bringing incalculable harm when it takes possession of a person, and especially a king. It is enough to recall Shcherbatov’s book “On the Damage of Morals,” in which he reproaches Catherine for licentiousness, or the names of her countless favorites, to understand that in this case Kheraskov raised a pressing issue.
Many pages of the novel are devoted to praising the true and exposing the false sages. Among the former it is not difficult to recognize the Masons, or rather the Rosicrucians; these are virtuous, God-fearing, humane “Sir sages” who recognize a “supreme being”. The young men raised by them are happy, because they know how to find happiness not in the false temptations of the external world, but in knowing themselves, in their inner world.
The author’s attitude towards the “false sages” is different. As in The Golden Rod, this name is intended for materialist philosophers. To characterize them, Kheraskov selects the harshest definitions. They preach “freethinking,” a kind of “drunken state,” and often quarrel with each other: “some wanted to establish a republic, others an aristocracy, others anarchy, rejecting one monarchical rule.” These "thinkers"
the enlighteners" (the very term is characteristic) realize their mistake late, when "their teaching gave rise to self-will", the rude people are transformed into a fierce beast when they taste the poison of anarchy ... ».
No matter how Kheraskov struggled with French philosophy, its influence is reflected in his own views and, first of all, in matters of love and marriage. Kheraskov's morality is close to bourgeois morality. In the pure, immaculate rational love he recognizes, only a feeling that is not destroyed by any obstacles should play a role. In this respect, Kheraskov is more democratic than many authors of comic operas, who sometimes, not daring to legally marry a nobleman with a peasant woman, turned her into the daughter of noble parents. Kheraskov justifies the love of a nobleman’s daughter for “a venerable villager who lives by hunting alone” (the novel “Polydor”), and resolves the bewilderment and discontent of the people, ready to remove King Theogen from the throne for his love for the daughter of a poor old man, with the words of Harmony: “What I hear in Thessaly ... what do I hear? Immaculate love is delivered here by vice ... You want him to marry a porphyry-born daughter, but who can assure you that such a daughter will be more well-behaved than Artemisa?”
In an effort to establish universal, reasonable morality, suitable for almost all times and peoples, Kheraskov pays tribute to Montesquieu’s teaching on climate, interpreting it in his own way. Thus, Cadmus repeatedly refuses either the throne or the role of royal adviser on the grounds that he knows “neither the morals, nor the laws, nor the properties, nor the advantages, nor the shortcomings of the people.” And, finally, turning a blind eye to Voltaire’s connection with the philosophers he so condemned, while the overseers of the Masonic theoretical degree took up arms against the “false wisdom of Voltaire’s gang,” and ordinary Freemasons enrolled him, along with Diderot, Helvetius, Holbach, and Condorcet, as “members of the Academy of Corruptors.” “When Catherine sharply changed her attitude towards the former “teacher,” Kheraskov finds enough courage to put this name among the small group of truly great writers.
Kheraskov's third novel, “Polydor, son of Cadmus and Harmony” (1792), is a continuation of “Cadmus.” The author's thought revolves around the problems outlined above, but the French Revolution lay between the novels, and the center of gravity for Kheraskov moves somewhat. Now the accusatory pathos is directed not against bad kings, but against “disobedient” tsarist authorities, “rebels.” The third and fourth chapters of the novel are a pamphlet on the French revolution and its slogans. The real reason revolution, Kheraskov considers “daring freethinkers,” that is, the same philosophers. Kheraskov cannot find harsh enough words to describe the revolution; the thought of it haunts him. At the end of the book, depicting how Polydor examines the bones of the giants who rebelled against the gods, who for several millennia cannot find peace, the author betrays a terrible curse to all the rebels who have ever rebelled against the government.
The years when Kheraskov in “Cadmus” painted the image of an ideal monarch and a utopian state were a period of hopes for the accession to the throne of “his” sovereign, who could and should have been taught and educated. Kheraskov did this by outlining ways to transform the country, outlining a program of action, creating a utopian state out of individual features. The years of work on Polydor were a time of terrible collapse of Kheraskov’s foundations. Although he also predicted the revolution in The Golden Rod and in Cadmus, it could not help but shock him. No less terrible were the beginning of the persecution of true sages, “lovers of wisdom,” the persecution of Masons and complete destruction them, Paul’s decisive rejection of them, and the forced official renunciation of Kheraskov himself. All objective values collapsed, and a ghostly world of illusions and dreams took their place. And therefore, if Numa rules Rome, if Cadmus, although not returned to the kingdom according to the will of the gods, remains to live in an ideal shepherd state, then Polydorus, after a long search having found the true wisdom that unites him with his dead wife, remains in a ghostly mystical kingdom, the only place where one can find peace, due to its isolation from the real world.
The genre of the classic political and moral novel determined the predominance of the didactic element in Kheraskov’s prose. There are many descriptions in his novels, but they are usually so schematic and uniform that it is impossible to see anything when reading Kheraskov. Even where specificity is required by the subject of presentation itself, Kheraskov diligently avoids it. Significant in this regard is the complete absence of a portrait, replaced conventional signs valor, youth, old age, “fury,” wretchedness, beauty. If Kheraskov plans to individualize the portrait, then individualization turns into a standard. All the beautiful “maidens” of both novels have “white hair” that extends “in waves across their chests,” sky-blue eyes, a complexion like a lily, and a blush “like a blossoming rose.”
In literary terms, Kheraskov’s last prose work, “Polydor, son of Cadmus and Harmony,” seems more complex than his other novels. While maintaining the main line of Fenelon's novel, Kheraskov introduces in abundance a magical element, largely borrowed, as the author points out, from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Along with maintaining the allegorical nature typical of Kheraskov, features of sentimental prose are noticeable in the novel. Thus, unlike “Cadmus,” in “Polydor” the author seems to be separated from the narrative. This allows you to introduce openings at the beginning of the first and second books. The first reveals the image of an old poet, tired of life, a bard, a singer of days gone by: “The Muses who talked to me in my youth! talk to me now, when boring old age, stretching a cold hand over my head, cuts off the wings of my imagination; when my thoughts, tired of time, now only wander in immeasurable eternity.”
At the beginning of the second book, the poet establishes his place in literature. He gratefully recalls his predecessor poets - Lomonosov and Sumarokov: “They paved the way for me to Mount Parnassus,” and then, making a kind of review of literary forces, he greets and teaches his contemporaries. Among them, Derzhavin, “the bard of our time, the new Ossiyan, an excellent singer and a thorough describer of Nature,” “the favorite of the muses, the Russian traveler Karamzin,” “the sensitive Neledinsky,” “the pleasant singer Dmitriev,” Bogdanovich, “the poet of Dushenka,” and, finally, forgetting the ancient feuds, Kheraskov places in his Pantheon “the writer of loud odes filled with importance,” Petrov.
Throughout the novel, the narrative is interrupted by moralizing maxims, reasoning, and occasionally remarks, in which the epic singer is replaced by a writer akin to the “sensitive traveler” Karamzin: “Sensitive souls, do not read this deplorable story; it will touch your tender hearts,” etc. The influence of the established trend is heard in the dithyramb of friendship, and not so much in the topic itself (it was raised in the pages of “Healthy Amusement”), but in its stylistic shell: “Having a pure and gentle soul alone can enjoy this heavenly feeling, which inflicts on them the likes of angels.”
In the preface to “Cadmus and Harmony,” Kheraskov reduces the difference between prose and poetry to the absence of rhyme and feet, leaving to his novel all the other qualities of “high poetry”: “the importance and sweetness of invention, the naturalness of decoration, the attractiveness of style, convincing moral teaching and wit.” In his practice, he adheres to this theory: he does not speak, but glorifies his heroes in a measured melodious speech, richly decorated with epithets. When presenting particularly important subjects, the phrase lengthens and reaches one and a half hundred, two hundred or more words. The melodiousness is supported by the structure of the phrase, frequent inversions, and repetitions. Despite the fact that Kheraskov several times speaks of his work as non-stop-syllabic, sometimes, carried away by the general desire to rhythmize speech, he comes to the point of subordination small excerpts a certain size (sometimes with slight deviations), for example:
The cunning Moor soon learned that they were not Thessalians ...
There are merry marriages to the sound of pipes ...
Tomorrow I decided to leave Terzit Island ...
The lanterns and trumpets thundered in the crowd
There are people around the royal palaces.
The rapprochement of prose with poetry, vocabulary, and rhythm indicate the relationship between the prose of Kheraskov and Karamzin. Kheraskov paved the way for Karamzin in “Kadmus” and borrowed a lot from his student for “Polydor”, trying to enhance the pleasantness and sweetness of the presentation. It was against these qualities inherent in the prose of the 1790-1810s that Pushkin protested in the passage “D’Alembert Said Once,” demanding “thoughts and thoughts” from prose, accuracy and brevity.
Kheraskov’s use of the poem allowed him to take a unique place among the poets of the 18th century. How Lomonosov appeared first and foremost in the eyes of his contemporaries
“Russian Pindar”, Sumarokov - “northern Racine”, so Kheraskov was first of all the “Russian Homer”, the author of “Rossiyada” and “Vladimir”. After his death, I. I. Dmitriev wrote:
Let the hearts of the Zoils ache with envy,
They will not bring harm to Kheraskov -
“Vladimir”, “John” will cover him with a shield
And they will lead you to the temple of immortality.
The importance that Kheraskov himself attached to this particular aspect of his diverse literary activity is clarified from the following episode: at the most critical moment of his life, after Catherine’s order to resign Kheraskov from curatorship, due to his closeness to the Novikov circle, at the height of the persecution of Moscow Freemasons , he writes a letter to Derzhavin, in which he thanks him for “bringing him Maecenas, just as Horace once won Virgil the favor of Augustov’s favorite ... Although I am not Virgil, I follow his path from afar, just as you walk the path of Horace more quickly than me.” Since the letter was supposed to be
shown to Zubov, and through him become known to the empress, one might think that in this strictly considered document the self-comparison with Virgil goes beyond the limits of a literary phrase and is rather a reminder of poetic merits, primarily of the favorably received “Rossiyada”.
Indeed, the creation of a national poem was the merit of the poet, especially since this genre was considered the crown of the classical system of genres. Boileau in The Poetic Art, highly appreciating the tragedy, says:
But the majestic epic became higher than it.
The Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid were considered models for writers of modern times. Italy had Tasso's "Jerusalem Liberated", Portugal - Camoens' "Lusiads", England - Milton's "Paradise Lost", France - Voltaire's "Henriad". There was no completed poem in Russia. Kantemir did not finish “Petriad”, Lomonosov left only two songs of the poem about Peter the Great, Sumarokov wrote only one page of “Dmitriad”. The absence of a national poem was felt by contemporaries as a significant gap. Kheraskov made up for it and entered the history of literature mainly as the creator of the first Russian historical epic - “Rossiyady”. His other poems are also interesting, since each of them represents a step in the development of Kheraskov himself, and with him Russian poetry of the 18th century.
From 1761 to 1805, Kheraskov wrote 10 poems: “Fruits of Sciences” (1761), “Chesmes Battle” (1771), “Selim and Selim” (1773), “Rossiyada” (1778), “Vladimir Reborn” (1785) . “The Universe, the Spiritual World” (1790), “Pilgrims, or Seekers of Happiness” (1795), “The Tsar, or Liberated Novgorod” (1800), “Bahariana” (1803), “The Poet” (1805). Each of them is separated from the previous one by a significant period of time and is the result of sometimes many years of searching, characterizing the stage the poet has passed through; combined together, they provide a picture of the evolution of the poet’s worldview and creative method. We see in them both the young Kheraskov, speaking in defense of the sciences, and the Rosicrucian, abandoning reason in the name of faith and revelation, a politician of Panin's persuasion, and a man who, due to fear of the French Revolution, demands the firm power of an unlimited monarch, and the keeper of the classical tradition , creating a classical epic, and a poet taking more and more “liberties”, and finally, going into old age with the youth, extending his hand to the future generation, the creator of the “heroic” poem.
Kheraskov’s first experience - the didactic poem “The Fruits of the Sciences” (1761) represents one of the many objections to Rousseau’s dissertation “Discourse on the topic proposed by the Dijon Academy: did the revival of the sciences and arts contribute to the improvement of morals.” Although Kheraskov did not say a word about the bias of the topic and did not mention the name of Rousseau, polemicism sounds in every line of the poem and even in its construction.
At this stage, for Kheraskov there is no problem of the gap between science and religion, a problem that became the central theme of the poem “The Universe”, written thirty years later, and he glorifies the human mind, which can cognize “God’s greatness.”
We will have to meet the two main provisions of Kheraskov’s first poem later. He will refuse one of them - the recognition of the absolute value of sciences: in the poem “The Universe” (1791) he will renounce reason and speak out against the destructive power of “philosophizing.” Then, after the Pugachev uprising, after the French Revolution, after many years
stay in the Masonic organization, the main vice, in his opinion, will not be ignorance, but disobedience, caused by the inquisitiveness of the human mind that he once glorified.
An example of the first Russian heroic poem is Kheraskov’s poem “The Battle of Chesmes” (1771). Its theme is the brilliant victory of the Russian fleet, which defeated the Turkish fleet near Chesma in 1770. The work is permeated with a truly patriotic tendency. Along with the image of the Orlovs, Admiral Greig, Sviridov, Prince. Dolgoruky, Kozlovsky and others, Kheraskov sang heroic death an unknown gunner, the valor of a nameless Russian, who at the cost of his life removed the flag from Turkish ship, and all those to whom
...
Life is not that expensive
Like the honor of the fatherland and your own glory.
You, Russian state, give birth to such people!
The heroism of the Russian army is emphasized by the difficulties of fighting against numerically superior enemy forces and the recognition of the positive qualities of the Russian warrior:
I must honor both the hero and the villain;
We saw something like this in the battle of Hassan Bey;
Like lightning with a sword he flew everywhere;
It seemed like thunder was coming at us from its hands;
And we would be forced to give him the laurel,
If it weren't for the Rosses we were born into the world ...
Kheraskov concludes the poem with the development of thoughts about further victories of Russia over Turkey, which should lead to the capture of Constantinople, which, in the author’s opinion, is necessary for the establishment of eternal peace.
“The Battle of Chesmes” is interesting as an attempt to create an epic work based on the material of an event that just happened. The choice of a modern theme determined a number of features of the poem. In one of the notes, Kheraskov says: “I must say once for my entire work that everything written in it is living truth, excluding poetic decorations, which any prudent reader can easily distinguish. The entire remainder is located according to accurate news received from the most faithful hands, and according to the very words that the writer was fortunate to hear from the heroes he glorified.” Indeed, the events are conveyed with almost chronicle accuracy, the heroes are genuine participants in the battle. "Poetic embellishments" are limited. Kheraskov abandons the introduction of the “wonderful,” characteristic of an epic poem, and allegories, and the traditional mythological vocabulary is used only in comparisons and metaphors. The main spring of the heroes’ actions is “love for the fatherland, love for friends.” The additional theme of friendship and brotherly love between Alexei and Fyodor Orlov is organically woven into the main course of the action.
The desire to get closer to reality is reflected in the language of the poem. Almost naturalistically, with the emphasis on “terrible” moments characteristic of the late Kheraskov, the picture of the battle in the third song is presented; sometimes an almost everyday detail suddenly appears:
Theodore, in vain the decisive hours of war,
With hair disheveled across his face,
The flowing sweat from the face, the image of labor,
He strives as if for a feast, for a terrible battle.
The ennobling definition of “depiction works” does not diminish the courage of the poet, who was not afraid in the high genre, and even when describing
appearance of the hero, to use the base word “sweat”, against the introduction of which into a poetic work Karamzin protested even many years later.
As an extraordinary phenomenon in literature, the poem was received with great sympathy. In 1772 it was translated into French, and in 1773 into German. French translation Kheraskov introduced a preface in which he speaks with a sense of national dignity about Russian poetry, introducing it to the European reader.
Kheraskov’s central work, which cost him eight years of work, was the historical poem in twelve songs “Rossiyada”. Respectively classical theory, the theme of the poem was supposed to be an important event in Russian history. “Rossiyad” depicts the capture of Kazan by Ivan IV, an event that Kheraskov considered the moment of the final liberation of Russia from the Tatar yoke.
The poem pursued an educational goal, indicated by the author in the preface: it was supposed to teach people to love their homeland and be amazed at the exploits of their ancestors. Since “Rossiyada” was published shortly before the seizure of Crimea and in the interval between the first and second Turkish wars, the memory of the struggle of Russian soldiers with the Mohammedan power was timely, and readers saw in the poem not only Russia’s past, but also its present.
The projection on modernity is also felt in another, more veiled topic. It is no coincidence that Kheraskov, listing epic poems in the preface, especially singles out Voltaire’s “Henriad”; the point is not only that both poems are national-historical, but also that Kheraskov, following Voltaire, introduces a background into his work - political idea, - of course, different from Voltaire’s.
Discussing the tsar's duty to the fatherland and wanting to develop this idea, Kheraskov begins the poem by showing the moral fall of young John and the associated misfortunes of the country. The “Heavenly Ambassador” reproaches the king for inaction:
You are sleeping, careless king, delighted with peace,
Intoxicated with joy, born into the world for victories;
Crown, fatherland, laws forgotten,
He hated work, loved fun;
In the bosom of idleness lies thy crown;
The faithful servants are not visible, flattery rejoices at the throne.
.....................
You have the power to create everything - flattery speaks to you;
You are a slave of the fatherland - duty and honor say.
Kheraskov speaks about the need and suffering endured by ordinary soldiers and demands that the king and commanders share this suffering with them, insists on the need for the king to be attentive to his subjects and have close communication with them.
Look, O sovereign, at your subjects:
You may have considered them full of contentment;
The flatterers who surrounded your throne,
They were depicted to you in heavenly life.
When would you, having believed the words of strangers,
I did not look at the sorrows, at their sorrows myself,
You, if you became intoxicated with networks of harmful advice,
He would reward the flatterers, but he would despise the poor ...
The poet recognizes war as a means of defense general peace:
...
war
For a wise king it should not be a goal;
But if someone takes away the general peace,
Then the fatherland and its power do not sleep ...
Throughout the poem, John is presented as an ideal monarch. But Kheraskov’s ideal of the 70s is not an uncontrolled autocrat. “Nobles and kings are a fence for the fatherland,” says the poet, putting the nobles in first place, and the hero of “Rossiyada” is not only John, but also Kurbsky.
The choice of heroes reveals the ideological intent of the poem. Kheraskov puts Kurbsky in the position of prince. Ya. M. Dolgoruky under Peter I, defending the right of the nobility to opposition; praising Kurbsky, he thereby condemns the subsequent policy of John, who sought to strengthen the unlimited power of autocratic power. No matter how long the time that separates Kheraskov from the historical Kurbsky is, their views coincide in many ways, and above all in assessing the leading role and importance of the boyar council. Kheraskov’s sympathy for the “oppressed” boyar families is also reflected in the exaltation of the hermit Vassian, the victim of “the first famous boyar disgrace,” according to Karamzin, the person “reproaching John,” as Merzlyakov notes. Kheraskov's feudal and frontier sympathies are also reflected in the positive assessment of the elected noble tsar Vasily Shuisky.
“Rossiyada” is a “correct” classical epic with all its characteristic features, from the theme, the rationalistic-schematic depiction of images, cumbersomeness, to the traditional introduction, learned by heart for many years:
I sing Russia freed from the barbarians,
I will trample the power of the Tatars and overthrown their pride,
The movement of ancient forces, labors, bloody warfare,
Russia's triumph, Kazan destroyed.
From the circle of these times, calm years have begun.
Like a bright dawn, it shone in Russia.
Unlike the Battle of Chesmes, Kheraskov introduces intervention, which is obligatory for a heroic poem. higher powers into the fate of the characters and fantasy, and does not so much follow Boileau’s instructions as focus on examples of European poems, mixing together various motives and elements, supplementing them with his own invention. Direct participation in the development of the action is taken by saints, angels, God, Mohammed, pagan gods, shadows of the departed, visions, sorcerers and, finally, personifications: Atheism, Selfishness, Malice, Shame, etc.
In some cases, Kheraskov resorts to borrowing. Thus, the description of the Kazan forest is modeled after the enchanted forest in “Liberated Jerusalem”; the prophecy of Vassian, showing John in a vision the fate of Russia, is reminiscent of Aeneas’s descent into hell (“Aeneid”) and the dream of Henry IV in the “Henriad”; The hell in which the wicked Kazan khans are tormented is also traditional. In the image of the Kazan queen Sumbek, the features of Dido ("Aeneid") and partly the seductress Armida ("Liberated Jerusalem") are intertwined.
“Rossiada” is written in a high style, corresponding to the meaning of the genre, but, from the point of view of a classic writer, clear and simple. Kheraskov, like Sumarokov, is the enemy of “inflatedness”, “darkness”; he strives for precise use of words.
"Rossiyada" was enthusiastically received by contemporaries as major victory Russian classicism; success was supported by a patriotic-humanistic tendency; raising the Russian “crusaders” to the shield reconciled the government with the element of opposition contained in the poem. Unlike the “Battle of Chesmes,” “Rossiyada” contains a number of religious motives, but they are pushed aside by the desire to create a national and at the same time
a noble poem, far from slavish submission to government ideology.
Kheraskov’s next poem, “Vladimir,” reflects the author’s Masonic quest and is closely connected with Rosicrucianism, the goal of which was “knowledge of God through knowledge of nature and oneself in the footsteps of Christian moral teaching.” Taking up arms against “human reasoning,” the Rosicrucians sought to overthrow the authority of reason, highly raised by the Enlightenment, and then launched an attack on the Rousseauian cult of feeling, physical nature man, on passion - all that they called “human selfhood”, “the abdominal world”. Only through complete renunciation of worldly interests and “functories” does the sinful “external” disappear and the “internal” man appears, the “small world” (microcosm), in which, “like the sun in a small drop of water,” the life of the “big” world is reflected. The birth of the “inner” man is the theme of Kheraskov’s work. Its hero, Prince Vladimir, is presented at the beginning of the poem as an ideal “enlightened” monarch; the country ruled by him prospers:
His reign was like spring.
When the fields are in bloom and the groves are silent.
For the good of his subjects the throne steps,
Porphyry is a shield for them, a crown of cool shadows.
However, for a Rosicrucian, the inner world of a person is more important, and Kheraskov points out the moral imperfection of his hero:
But having surrounded the throne with glory and splendor,
Vladimir was crowned with the fallen Solomon:
Enslaved himself to a despised idol;
Not God on high, he worked for the decay of the world.
Further, over the course of fifteen songs in the first edition and eighteen in the third, Vladimir’s search for a perfect religion is told, about his path from paganism to Christianity, which, according to the author, should be far removed from the dogmas of the Orthodox Church and be devoid of any ritual.
In the preface to the third edition of the poem, Kheraskov says that “Vladimir” is not an ordinary epic work telling about battles and knightly deeds, but an image of “the wanderings of attentive person the path of truth, on which he encounters worldly temptations, is exposed to many temptations, falls into the darkness of doubt, and struggles with innate passions.” The main goal is to explain “the innermost feelings of the soul, struggling with itself.” Thus, according to the author’s plan, “Vladimir” is an experience of a psychological poem, a kind of Masonic “Odyssey” (in addition to the very theme of “wandering” of a person, in Kheraskov’s work there are a number of motifs inspired by the “Odyssey”); the external world is given only as a background, shading the inner life of the hero.
The denouement of the poem gives the impression of being mechanical: “enlightenment” comes as a result of revelation, all characters become Christians, not only Vladimir; it seems that the miracle destroys the role of the “old man of reason” and removes the need for the previous struggle. At the end of the poem, the artist gives way to the Rosicrucian, who believes that highest degree knowledge is revelation, and only in order to achieve it, it is necessary to educate the mind and feeling, leading the “I” through the crucible of self-knowledge.
In a letter to Lavater, young Karamzin calls Kheraskov the best of his contemporary Russian poets and adds: “He composed two poems: “Rossiyada” and “Vladimir”; last piece remains still misunderstood by my compatriots.” It is very likely that, in addition to the presence of a well-known compliment to the mentor, as V.V. Sipovsky points out, the poem attracted the young Freemason as an attempt in artistic form to pose the question that worried him “know yourself” and as a work that provokes further activity in the field of revealing the inner human world.
The attempt at psychological analysis in the poem “Vladimir”, Kheraskov’s appeal to sentimental dramas, signs of sensitivity that slip through even in “Rossiyad”, the nature of his prose indicate that Kheraskov’s rapprochement with “Moscow Journal” was not an accidental episode, but the result of all previous activities. The connection with the Karamzin movement is also emphasized in Kheraskov’s subsequent works.
Maintaining a pessimistic view of the world, not alien to Karamzin, in the poem “Pilgrims, or Seekers of Happiness” (1795) he talks about the frailty of earthly things, the futility of human searches for happiness, and in the field of form he submits to his students, developing an easy verse. Following Bogdanovich, he writes his half-joking, half-serious poem in iambic vari-foot; using his early experience in creating “fairy tales”, he approaches “Darling” in the grace and lightness of verse, experiments in the field of stanzas, etc.
The influence of new elements of poetics can also be traced in the poem “The Tsar, or Saved Novgorod” (1800). Its content, reactionary from beginning to end, is directed against the French Revolution, and according to the author’s intention it was supposed to represent “the horror of leaderless rule, the destruction of civil strife, the fury of imaginary freedom and the insane hunger for equality.” Kheraskov warns Russia against possible infatuation with a “disastrous” example and turns to history to confirm his thought. The theme of the poem is the uprising of Vadim of Novgorod (called Ratmir) and the “salvation” of Novgorod by Rurik.
The work is more interesting from the form side. Kheraskov creates a new example of a poem, combining classical poetry with elements of pre-romanticism. Noteworthy in this regard is the image of the maiden Plamira seduced by Ratmir. The poem destroys the “purity” of the classical landscape and introduces the features of Ossian poetry, refracted through the poetry of Derzhavin. Characteristic are such “sad” phrases as “languid old age”, “sad rivers are foggy”, “sad silence”, “gloomy forest”, “pale shadow”. Kheraskov introduces colored epithets, undoubtedly coming from Derzhavin; He also uses the folklore technique of negative comparison. All these techniques are still timid, but their very diversity suggests that the poem was conceived as a kind of experiment. Kheraskov experiments both in the field of stanza and, finally, rhyme (the second chapter of the poem is written without rhymes).
In the poem “Bahariana” (1803), according to the instructions of the author himself, one should see an allegory. The story of the Unknown, looking for his beloved, kidnapped by the sorceress Malicious, is a story about every person “floating on the mortal boat of existence” and striving to unite with purity, from which passions and “seductions” separate him.
Know that this is a strange story,
Maybe the story is yours.
The allegory in “Baharian” is subtler than in Kheraskov’s other works. It is overshadowed by the adventures of the Unknown Knight in “chain armor”, which determine the character of this magical knightly poem in the “Russian taste”.
In this case, the author of “Rossiyada” follows the representatives of pre-romantic poetry N.A. Lvov and N.M. Karamzin, who called for the creation of an anti-classical national “heroic” poem. Eight of the fourteen chapters are written in “Russian” size; the subtitle indicates that the reader is faced with “a magical story drawn from Russian fairy tales”; it includes “mothers and nannies”, “violent winds”, “pillars of dust”, honey rivers, horse Flyer, Tsar-Maiden. The focus on folk poetry is also evident in the archaic name, which comes from the ancient word “bahar” (storyteller). It should be noted that these touches almost exhaust the “nationality” of the poem, for, building his work on the basis of the principle of “poetic license,” Kheraskov turns not so much to Russian as to international fairy-tale material, right up to “Tales of the 1001 Nights.” He introduces motifs from magical chivalric novels, poems by Ariosto, Wieland, ancient myths, and repeats them in several episodes
Epigraph to the issue: “Having probably crushed the ancient to the ground, we will lose the sense of our own perspective and stop on one plane: not being able to look into the past, we will not learn to see the future.” I.S. Sokolov-Mikitov
INTRODUCTION TO THE ISSUE
June 26, 2005 marked 235 years (1770) since the brilliant victory of the Russian fleet in the Battle of Chesma. The main hero of this battle was Lieutenant Ilyin - our fellow countryman, who alone did what only he could do the whole squadron. About his feat, about his life, about the significance of the Chesme victory - materials in this issue.
Russia is endless, like an ocean. But God wanted (!) that the heroes of the two largest naval battles in Russian history, Chesma and Sinop, were born just 10 km from each other - Lieutenant Ilyin on Lake. Zastizhye (today - Lesnoy district, until 1929 - a single space of Vyshnevolotsk district), midshipman Kolokoltsov on lake. Kezadra (“US” No. 6, 34). These two naval battles are separated by 83 years! But they repeat each other almost in detail. In both cases, the Russians were opposed by the Turks, the battles took place in bays, in the Russian squadrons three ships bore the same names (!) - “Three Saints”, “Rostislav”, “Don’t touch me” (of course, in Battle of Sinop- new ships that received the names of their illustrious predecessors), in both of them the main feat of the battle was performed by the Tveryaks. It was the feat of the heroes of Chesma that inspired the heroes of Sinop to feat, just as the feat of Lieutenant Ilyin inspired midshipman Kolokoltsov to feat, because Nikolai Alexandrovich, undoubtedly, knew from childhood that he was a fellow countryman of the hero Chesma. How these exploits inspired and continue to inspire all those who defended the Russian State in all subsequent trials. LET'S NOT FORGET!
BATTLE OF CHESMA
Since ancient times, the Dnieper Slavs used the Black Sea for mutual relations with the outside world, the Byzantine Empire, the Danube and other lands, receiving impetus for the development of economy, trade, and culture. In a stubborn struggle with the steppe nomads, they defended the possibility of access to the sea. However, due to internecine feuds among appanage princes and the collapse of the state of Kievan Rus, the Black Sea steppes and seashores were occupied by the Golden Horde khans, and later by the mighty Ottoman Empire. Access to the sea was blocked for 500 years, trade ceased, and the development of the Russian state slowed down.
It cannot be said that government officials did not understand the importance of the Black Sea for the development of Russia. Moreover, repeated attempts were made to break through this blockade and gain access to the sea. Under Queen Sophia, troops were sent to suppress the Turkish vassal of the Crimean Khan. The Great Peter I tried to strengthen his position on the Sea of Azov by storm. However, these ground military operations did not bring success: the enemy was too strong, the European countries weaved too complex a network of intrigues to slow down Russia. This was followed by a decline in actions in the southern direction due to the concentration of state forces to consolidate on the shores of the Baltic Sea, to build the new capital of St. Petersburg, and to strengthen the western borders.
Only with the beginning of the reign of Catherine II did the eyes of statesmen again turn to the south. With the outbreak of hostilities in the next Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774. Russian troops in the summer and autumn of 1768 advanced towards the mouths of the Dnieper, Dniester, in Moldova and Wallachia (Romania), as well as towards the Sea of Azov. One of the queen’s favorites, Count Alexei Orlov, being in Livorno in Italy and knowing the fighting mood and dissatisfaction of the population of Greece occupied by the Turks, proposed to raise an uprising and organize military operations behind the lines of Turkish troops on Greek territory. It was not possible to use land routes to support the Greek rebels, so he asked Catherine II in letters to send a military squadron from the Gulf of Finland to the Aegean Sea, which would deliver troops, weapons and storm the coastal fortresses.
The boldness of the idea of striking from the south against the rear of the Ottoman Empire captivated the queen. This idea was supported by Grigory Orlov, the leaders of the maritime board S.I. Mordvinov and Ivan Chernyshev. There were also opponents. After discussions, Catherine II on December 16, 1768 signed the secret highest decree of the Admiralty Board on the preparation of ships for the squadron. The experienced admiral Grigory Andreevich Spiridov (1713-1790) was placed at its head as the flagship. Catherine II promised him full support and, saying goodbye, placed on the admiral a gilded image of the warrior John on a blue St. Andrew's ribbon in the form of gold of upcoming victories. Spiridov was promoted to full admiral. On March 20, 1769, a decree was issued by the Admiralty Board to provide the admiral of the Mediterranean squadron with full support to speed up preparations for going to sea. A large squadron had no experience of such long-distance voyages. The squadron included 7 battleships (“Saint Eustathius Plakida”, “Saint Ianuarius”, “Northern Eagle”, “Three Hierarchs”, “Three Hierarchs”, “Rostislav” and “Europe”), the frigate “Nadezhda Blagopoluchiya”, the bombardment ship “ Thunder", 4 transports and 2 light packet boats. It had more than 600 guns, 3,500 sailors, 2,000 landing troops and service personnel.
On July 18, 1769, Catherine II personally toured and inspected the ships ready to sail on a boat and blessed them. She put on Admiral Spiridov the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky and a moire ribbon over her left shoulder. Captains Greig and Barsh were promoted to the rank of brigadier. At Spiridov’s request, Catherine II ordered the squadron’s personnel to be given a four-month salary “not counted.” The squadron weighed anchor. Upon arrival in the Mediterranean Sea, the entire squadron gathered in Port Mahon, from where it sailed on January 20, 1770, heading for Malta, Sicily and the Greek peninsula of Morea. Greek rebels in Morea acted together with Russian paratroopers to siege and capture the fortresses of Vitullo, Navarin, Coron, Gostupa, Arta, Passavu, Sparta, etc. Alexei Orlov was appointed commander-in-chief of the ground and naval forces, who believed that the main blow would be dealt by the Greek rebels on land, and the fleet will provide and support their actions. Events, however, developed differently.
On October 9, 1769, the second Mediterranean squadron left Kronstadt, consisting of 3 battleships (“Saratov”, “Tver”, “Don’t touch me”), two frigates (“Nadezhda”, “Africa”) and three kicks (“ Chichagov", "Saint Paul", "Deprovidence"). The squadron was commanded by Rear Admiral John Elfinson. At the end of May 1770, the squadron reached the Greek shores and became part of the 1st squadron.
After minor clashes with Turkish ships near the fortresses, Spiridov looked for the main enemy forces in the Aegean Sea. In the depths of the Archipelago, in the Strait of Chios, a fleet was overtaken under the command of Kapudan Pasha Hasan Bey, consisting of 16 large ships, 6 frigates, 6 shebeks, 13 galleys and 32 galliots. Their total armament was more than 1,400 guns. At noon on June 24 they were attacked by 6 Russian ships. According to G.A.'s plan Spiridov's first line of attack was "Europe", "Eustathius" and "Three Saints", and in the second - "Ianuarius" and "Rostislav". The first ships with close range They hit Turkish ships at point-blank range, using double charges of gunpowder, which made it possible to pierce through wooden ships with cannonballs. The Russians were superior to the Turks in rate of fire. An impenetrable darkness hung over the battlefield. “The air was filled with smoke, hiding the ships from each other’s view so that the rays of the sun dimmed.” It came to a boarding battle. The intensity of the battle was so great that the two interlocking ships “Eustathius” and the Turkish flagship “Real Mustafa” caught fire and died together. 628 Russian sailors drowned. Unable to withstand the battle, after the death of Real Mustafa, the Turks retreated to the nearest Chesma Bay under the cover of coastal batteries. The Russian squadron was located ten cables away (about 4 km) from the entrance to the bay. By the evening of June 24, the ships were again ready for battle.
On the afternoon of June 25, Admiral Spiridov allocated the lead strike force for the attack, consisting of 4 battleships, 2 frigates and the Thunder bombardier. He put S.K. in command of this detachment. Greig. In the small Chesma Bay (750x800 m), Turkish ships stood close to each other, being on the defensive, relying on coastal artillery to repel the attack of the small forces of the Russian fleet. Spiridov, taking into account the strong defense and the large crowding of the Turkish fleet, decided to set fire to enemy ships locked in the bay by the Russian squadron with four fire ships.
At 23:00 on June 25, Spiridov gave the signal to begin the attack. “Europe” was the first to enter the battle, and all enemy ships opened fire on it. The first Turkish ships were set on fire with well-aimed shots and incendiary shells. By one o'clock in the morning, "Rostislav" entered the battle, the fire ships and the rest of the ships of the strike force ("Don't touch me", "Nadezhda", "Africa" and "Thunder") went into the bay. There was a continuous roar over the bay. At the beginning of 2 o'clock in the morning, the largest ship, the Kapudan Pasha, was set on fire, burning like a giant candle. It became as bright as day. Spiridov ordered the fire ships to be launched forward, stopping the artillery fire. The Turks also stopped firing, and when they saw the fireships, they opened fire again and tried to intercept them. The first two fire ships did not reach their target. The latter was also unsuccessful.
The third fireboat was led by Lieutenant Dmitry Ilyin. The light of the burning Turkish ships illuminated his path. He aimed at a huge 80-gun ship. Having grappled tightly with him, the Russian sailors lit the fuse and managed to move away from him on the boat. The fire-ship caught fire and exploded. It set fire to a Turkish ship, which also exploded. Scattering burning debris fell on other enemy ships. “The fire, like the mouth of a fire-breathing mountain, stood like a flame above the ships, as if hanging in the air, myriads of sparks of fiery rain fell in all directions and set fire to the remaining ships.” The entire Chesma Bay was on fire. The Turks were dumbfounded with horror, a general panic began, which nothing could stop. Their return fire stopped. On Russian ships, due to the blazing heat, it was impossible to even turn your face towards Chesma. People were suffocating, the sails could catch fire. On the advice of Spiridov, S. Greig gave the command to tow the ships back using rowing ships. The sea was boiling from the continuous explosions of warheads on ships, and huge waves roamed the bay, drowning boats and people. In the city of Smyrna, located several miles away, the earth shook as if during an earthquake. People jumped out of their houses into the street in horror.
At sunrise, the Russian sailors saw the whole grandiose picture of the night fire. Chesme Bay was littered with the charred bottoms of ships and thousands of charred corpses. The water was thickly mixed with ash and blood. The Turks lost over 10,000 people, the Russians - 11. At noon on June 26, the ships of the squadron united. Troops were landed in the city of Chesmu. The Turkish garrison left him without a fight. Russian sailors blew up the bastions and took copper guns with them. On June 28, the ships of the squadron headed for the Dardanelles to blockade the strait.
The news of the victory reached Catherine II only in September. Subsequently, many participants in this battle were awarded. Alexey Orlov was especially singled out, who was awarded the St. George Cross of the highest 1st class, a sword studded with diamonds, 60,000 rubles, the title of Count of Chesmensky, a column was built in his honor in Tsarskoe Selo and other privileges were given. Admiral Spiridov, on Orlov’s proposal, was awarded the highest Order of St. Andrew the First-Called and given villages with 1,600 peasants. Samuel Greig was promoted to rear admiral and awarded the St. George Cross, 2nd class. The most distinguished officers were awarded the Cross of St. George. All fireship commanders were awarded St. George Crosses, 4th class. But everyone especially noted the feat of Dmitry Ilyin. The Admiralty Board wrote: “And even more so to Mr. Ilyin, whose courage and fortitude are rightly worthy not only of praise, but also of surprise.” A silver medal was established for the team of the Mediterranean squadron: “For victory on the Aegean waters.” They wore it in a buttonhole on a blue St. Andrew's ribbon. The medal depicted a burning Turkish fleet and the inscription below: “Chesma 1770 June 24 days”, and on top in the clouds of smoke there was only one short word “BYL”.
The Russian people celebrated the greatness of their fleet. For three days there were festivities in the capital, fireworks roared, naval personnel were rocked in their arms until they dropped. A special imperial decree ordered that the Chesma victory be celebrated annually.
Chesma's thunder shook the whole world. The Russian fleet declared itself loudly. Now the fleet is under the command of G.A. Spiridova inflicted one defeat after another on the Turks. The dominance of the Russian fleet in the Aegean Sea throughout the war from 1770 was complete, cutting off Turkey's connection with Africa. On July 10, 1774, the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty was signed, according to which Turkey ceded Azov, Kerch, Yenikale and part of the coast between the Dnieper and the Bug with the Kinburn fortress to Russia. Crimea and Kuban were recognized as independent from Turkey. Freedom of merchant shipping for Russian ships was established on the Black Sea. Thus, access to the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula was obtained. In the future, this served as the basis for the successful annexation of Crimea, the entire Black Sea coast, the creation of the Black Sea Fleet and naval bases in Sevastopol, Odessa, Novorossiysk, etc. Russia's victory in the war of 1768-1774. had enormous international significance. Victories at sea and land, and especially at Chesma and Cahul, made a stunning impression on the countries of Europe. The ships of the Mediterranean squadron set off on their return journey in 1774. By the autumn of 1775, the last of them, under the command of Vice Admiral Andrei Elmanov, arrived in Revel and Kronstadt.
Admiral Grigory Andreevich Spiridov died on April 8, 1790 (old style). He was seen off on his last journey by the peasants of the surrounding villages and by his faithful friend in battle, comrade-in-arms in Chesma, captain of the ship “Three Saints” Stepan Khmetevsky. They buried him near the remote village of Nagorye, which was lost in the Yaroslavl province somewhere between Pereyaslavl-Zalessky and Kalyazin. His faithful friend Stepan Khmetevsky was buried in Pereyaslavl-Zalessky at the Nikitsky Gate. Once upon a time there was a granite tombstone on his grave, but now it is no longer possible to find traces of it (Shitin, 2003, p. 400). How the memory of the hero Ilyin is preserved was told by his fellow countryman and patriot from the village. Lesnogo Nikolai Petrovich Smirnov.
ETERNAL GLORY TO THE HEROES OF CHESMA!
LITERATURE
Published:
1. Battle chronicle of the Russian fleet. M., 1948.
2. Golovachev V.F. Chesma. Expedition of the Russian fleet to the Archipelago and the Battle of Chesma. M., 1944.
3. Kuzmin A. Sails, torn to shreds. M., 1958.
4. Pikul V. Forgotten Lieutenant Ilyin / In collection. From an old box. Lenizdat, 1975.
5. Ryzhov V.V. In the mirror of heroism: Lieutenant Ilyin. Tver, 2004.- 144 p.
6. Smirnov N.P. Lesnoye is my homeland. M., 2002.- 80 p.
7. Shitin V.V. Chesma. M., 2003.- 413 p.
Periodicals:
1. Burilov V. The hero of Chesma is remembered every hundred years // Kalininskaya Pravda. 07/01/1995.
2. Kyandskaya E.A. Lieutenant Ilyin // The Path of October. 03/15/1979, village. Udomlya.
3. Lodygin M.F. Lieutenant Dmitry Ilyin, hero of the Battle of Chesma 1770 / Magazine “Russian Antiquity”. January-March 1892 T.73. pp. 469-747.
4. Malev S. Forest // Kalininskaya Pravda. 09.14.1984.
B.K. Vinogradov
HERO OF CHESMA - LIEUTENANT ILYIN
As if he was carrying the head of the Gorgon to them in his hands:
Ilyin also brought fear into petrification;
He threw lightning at their floating houses,
Thunder struck from all sides from the Russians...
Whatever they grab, everything dies and burns...
M. Kheraskov “Chesme Battle”.
An amazing fate befell this man. As a young naval lieutenant, he and a handful of brave men destroyed the Turkish fleet with one fireship (torch ship). Poems and ballads were composed in his honor, the brilliant northern capital and the entire Russian people idolized his hero. But his finest hour did not last long. He died in his ruined estate in poverty and complete loneliness. They remembered him only almost a hundred years after his death. At the grave, which was found with great difficulty in an ancient village churchyard, a monument was erected, striking in its beauty and grandeur. It would seem that the well-deserved glory has returned to the hero. Alas, only two decades have passed, and the revolutionary-minded masses almost completely destroyed the splendor of the monument. And again complete oblivion. Only rare school excursions were made to this holy place, and publications in the local newspaper reminded that the Lesnoy region is the birthplace of the hero of the Battle of Chesma, Lieutenant Dmitry Sergeevich Ilyin.
Only in the early eighties of the last century did its former glory return again. Ilyin becomes a kind of symbol of this amazing Zamolozhsky region, and all the most significant events of a regional scale, primarily the District Day, are held, as a rule, in the vicinity of the beautiful Lake Zastizhskoe, from the water surface of which the now completely restored monument to the hero of Chesma looks magnificent.
Burned the Turkish fleet
In 1737, far from the sea, in the wilderness of Tver, in the impoverished noble family of retired warrant officer Sergei Vasilyevich Ilyin, a son was born, who received the name Dmitry at baptism. The name of the Ilyins’ family estate has been preserved – the village of Demidikha. It was located on a high slope, not far from the picturesque Lake Zastizhskoye. The lake, naturally, was not a sea, but, without a doubt, played a role in the fate of the future sailor.
Although the dashing times were a thing of the past, and with it the glorious naval victories, although the ships were deteriorating and did not go to sea, young people went to the fleet and remained to serve, devoted to the sea. And young nobles, like Dmitry Ilyin, went to the Naval Corps, dreaming of becoming officers of the Russian fleet. During his studies in the Naval Corps, Ilyin mastered the sciences of navigation well and graduated from the corps in 1764. Documents stored in the State Archive of the Tver Region indicate that he also studied artillery and fortification within the walls of the Naval Corps. The year 1762 was marked by the coming to power of Catherine II. The revival of the fleet began, the time for long campaigns and glorious battles came again. Having become a midshipman by that time, Ilyin receives command of the galliot “Kronverk”.
In 1768, under the command of his fellow countryman, Lieutenant Commander P.F. Bezhentsova made a difficult journey on a three-masted single-deck ship "Saturn" from Arkhangelsk to St. Petersburg around Scandinavia. Returning from the campaign, Ilyin learns about the beginning Russian-Turkish war and preparing an expedition to the Mediterranean to help Greece liberate itself from Ottoman enslavement. The main officer positions on the ships leaving for long voyages were already filled. Showing extraordinary persistence, midshipman Ilyin soon took over the mortar battery on the bombardment ship Grom, which was preparing for the cruise.
On June 26, 1768, having set sail, as part of the First Mediterranean Squadron “Thunder”, Ilyin set off on a journey to the distant southern seas. When the squadron entered the port of Copenhagen, commander G.A. Spiridov (1713-04/08/1790) was awaiting a decree on the promotion of a number of officers to the following ranks. By this decree, Dmitry Ilyin was awarded the rank of lieutenant. That rank with which he entered the history of the fleet, the history of Russia, although later he received the rank of captain of the 1st rank.
Off the coast of the Morea (in the 18th century this was the name of the Peloponnese), a united Russian squadron under the flag of Alexei Orlov began searching for the Turkish fleet off the Asian coast. The enemy was discovered in the Strait of Chios and attacked. Unable to withstand the fire of Russian cannons, the Turks retreated to Chesme Bay under the cover of coastal batteries. The neck of the bay was blocked by 4 battleships: “Don’t touch me”, “Rostislav”, “Europe” and “Saratov”, as well as the frigate “Africa”. The battleships “Svyatoslav”, “Three Saints”, “Hierarchs” and the frigates “Nadezhda” and “Ianuarius” fired against the coastal batteries.
Lieutenant Ilyin's finest hour fell on the suffocating night of June 26, 1770. It was for this night that the order was given: to destroy the Turkish fleet, sandwiched on three sides in the bay, by fire ships - small ships filled with flammable and explosive substances. These small ships penetrated the enemy fleet, exploded and set the enemy's crabs on fire. Volunteers were selected for the fireships - both sailors and commanders. The first fireship was commanded by Lieutenant-Commander Dugdal, the second by Lieutenant-Commander Mackenzie, the third by Lieutenant Ilyin, and the fourth by Midshipman Gagarin. The order of the commander-in-chief, read by him before the decisive battle, was clear to everyone: “... Our task must be decisive in order to defeat and destroy this fleet, without extending time, without which here in the Archipelago we cannot have free hands for distant victories.” .
In the local history museum high school Lesnoye is stored amazing book – historical story A. Kuzmina “Sails, torn to shreds,” dedicated to the Battle of Chesma and its main character, Dmitry Ilyin. This is how the author describes the deadly campaign of fire ships to the location of the Turkish fleet: “The fire ship of Lieutenant-Commander Dugdal was the first to weigh anchor. Illuminated on one side by the moon and on the other by burning ships, the fireship moved slightly tilted, carried away by a ten-oared boat. There was some hesitation on Dmitry's fireship.
He left with some delay after the fire-ship of Lieutenant-Commander Mackenzie.
Dmitry stood next to the helm. He saw the entire Turkish fleet, could see our ships lined up, which had now stopped firing while the fireships were attacking, and watched Dugdal’s fireship, which was approaching the very middle of the Turkish fleet.
Apparently, Dugdal was going to set fire to a large Turkish ship.
Brander passed by "Rostislav".
- Good luck! Do not light up under any circumstances until you engage with the enemy! - Brigadier Greig shouted.
Dmitry clearly saw his figure. Greig waved his hat and shouted some other parting words, but they were not heard.
“Mr. Lieutenant, galleys, Turkish galleys...” the sailors made a noise.
Excited by everything that was happening, blinded by the burning ships of the enemy, Dmitry only now paid attention to two galleys that were approaching Dugdal’s fireship with quick and strong pushes.
– Prepare to repel the attack of the galleys! – Ilyin calmly ordered.
Looking to the side, he saw that Mackenzie had suffered misfortune: his ship had landed on a reef running from the cape at the entrance to the strait. The sails and decks were burning. However, their fire blinded the servants of the coastal battery, who were firing at other fire ships - Dmitry felt this from the receding splashes of Turkish cannonballs. Mackenzie was unable to complete the task assigned to him. Now hope is on him, Dmitry. He didn't think about the fact that he could be killed or injured. It didn't matter now. Dmitry saw the Turkish ships standing in front of him, closely, one to the other, and mentally estimated the distance separating him: “Three cables... two and a half.”
The fireship approached the large, eighty-four-gun Turkish ship. There was a damp smell from the shell-covered sides. Flames flashed in the hatches of the ship for a moment - the guns were firing, enemy sailors and soldiers were firing on the deck and on the yards. They showered the approaching fireship with a hail of bullets. Ilyin's hat was knocked off his head, one sailor was killed, and two were wounded. “Now the most important thing is calm. We need to slowly do everything as it should be,” thought Ilyin.
Dmitry, with his own hands, stuck an incendiary projectile - a brandskugel - into the enemy ship, and watched as the incendiary sausages were set on fire. The firebrand flared up. The fire began to crackle and spread across the deck and equipment. The Turkish ship also began to engage from the fireship.
- Get into the boat! - Ilyin shouted as soon as he was convinced that the fire could not be extinguished. Having gone some distance, he ordered the oars to be dried.
Now the Turkish ship seemed even larger, but was no longer scary. He was doomed and dying.
“It’s a bad falcon if it knocks a crow out of its place,” said one of the sailors.
... All night the flame raged in Chesme Bay. From time to time, a column of fire soared into the sky, colored the clouds, and then, with the roar of an explosion, fell down with fragments of wood, gun barrels, and dead bodies. Explosions shook the air one after another..."
“Honor to the All-Russian Fleet! – Admiral Spiridov wrote some time later in a letter to the Vice-President of the Admiralty Collegium Ivan Chernyshev. “From 25 to 26, the enemy military... fleet was attacked, defeated, broken, burned, sent into the sky, drowned and turned to ashes... and they themselves began to be in the entire Archipelago... dominant.” In that terrible night 15 battleships, 6 frigates and over 50 other small ships were blown up and burned. Turkish losses exceeded 12 thousand people, including those taken prisoner. In the presentation of Lieutenant Ilyin to the Order of St. George, 4th degree, it is said: “When the Turkish fleet was burned, he was willingly on the fireship and performed his duty with fearlessness.”
Until 1774 D.S. Ilyin was in the Mediterranean Sea. As commander of the ship "Molniya", he took part in the bombing of Turkish fortresses. In 1774 he was promoted to captain-lieutenant, then due to health reasons he returned to Russia, where he rose to the rank of captain of the first rank.
Ilyin learned the news that Empress Catherine II herself had decided to honor him and present him for an award in St. Petersburg, at an evening in the Vyazemsky house. Literally a few days later, a guards officer found him at a temporary post with a short order: to appear at the palace at 12 o'clock in full dress with orders and medals. He went to the appointment with heavy thoughts in his head. On the one hand, he earned his rewards in battle, risking his life. On the other hand... It was hard on my soul that Admiral Grigory Andreevich Spiridov, who commanded the fleet in the Mediterranean battles, was dismissed from service. Palace intrigues did their job. And not only with Spiridov, but also with Ilyin. The reception was surprisingly short. He was not drunk, as some historians write. He was introduced... drunk. From this blatant and obvious lie, Ilyin was simply speechless. He entered the palace as a hero, and left... He came out with the empress’s paper: “... our sensitive heart,” it said, “cannot allow anger and cruelty. Captain of the first rank Ilyin Dmitry Sergeevich for obscene insolence should be left to repentance. Why not be defamed publicly, but sent to live forever” - this was described in an article by Major General Mikhail Fedorovich Lodygin (1834-1897), who lived in the village. Alekseykovo is next door.
The fatal move played far into his career. last role. Soon, in 1777, Ilyin was dismissed from service and sent to his small family estate - the village of Demidikha, where he lived the rest of his years in complete solitude and poverty. He died at the age of 65 from birth - July 19, 1802. As indicated in the extract from the church record “On the Dead of 1802”: “In July 19th, Mr.... and gentleman Dmitry Sergeevich Ilyin, this body was buried... He died of an unknown disease.” The extract was certified by priest Alexander Troitsky and published by M.F. Lodygin in 1892. The reward was the inscription on the tombstone: “Burn the Turkish fleet in 1770 at Chesma” in the churchyard of the village. Zastigye at the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, now defunct.
Returned Glory
Ilyin was remembered almost a hundred years after his death. A report about the burial place of Lieutenant Ilyin, which had been discovered by the naval department, was placed on the table of Emperor Alexander III. The Emperor deigned to donate one thousand rubles from his own funds for the erection of a monument to the glorious hero and allowed for this purpose to open a subscription for the naval department and the fleet. A new ship was laid down, which served in 1886-1910. as part of the Baltic Fleet, the mine cruiser "Lieutenant Ilyin".
Soon the red granite obelisk was delivered from Finnish quarries to the terrible Russian wilderness. From fragmentary memories local population passed down from generation to generation, the monument was erected by Baltic sailors. For such hard work, physically strong sailors were selected; they cooked their food over a fire, the fire of which illuminated the night sky and attracted the entire surrounding population.
On the 125th anniversary of the Chesme victory in 1895, an obelisk rose above the modest village churchyard, topped with a gilded bronze ball, moon (crescent) and eight-pointed cross (according to historians, such symbolism on top of the obelisk is not accidental and symbolizes the victory of Christianity over Islam). All four sides of the monument were decorated at the top with four crosses of St. George on order ribbons made of dark bronze. There are two inscriptions carved on the pedestal: on the front side - “To the Hero of Chesma, Lieutenant Ilyin”, on the opposite side - “Built by the highest order of the Emperor Alexandra III in reward for glorious military exploits at the Battle of Chesma in 1770.” There are two medallions on the side edges. One has a bronze profile of Empress Catherine II. On the second there is a copy of a medal in honor of the victory of Russian sailors at Chesma. It depicts a burning Turkish fleet and at the top there is a laconic inscription: “Byl”.
By the bitter irony of fate, the monument experienced everything that the hero of the Chesma Battle himself had to endure during his lifetime. Built on the wave of national glory, it was looted and destroyed immediately after the revolution. Golden crosses of St. George and bronze high reliefs were knocked down, gun barrels and anchor chains framing the obelisk disappeared from their places. Granite slabs from the graves of Ilyin’s closest relatives were buried under the foundation... of the barnyard.
By the eighties of the last century, the monument to Ilyin was a pitiful sight. Literally two dozen meters from it, on the shore of a picturesque lake, there are the remains of a farm, barns, and a water heater. The sailor's monument was cut off from the water... by a cattle pen. There is dirt and desolation everywhere... At that time I worked as an employee of the local newspaper “Znamya Oktyabrya”. My mentor (and not only mine!) was the executive secretary of the editorial office of the local newspaper, a man of amazing talent - local historian, journalist, original artist - Vladimir Borisovich Lunev, whom we simply called Borisych. It was thanks to him that the name Ilyin did not sink into complete oblivion.
Every year, for the next anniversary of the Battle of Chesma, Borisych prepared a small material for “his” fourth page about the famous fellow countryman. He was the first to support my desire to somehow change for the better the unenviable fate of the monument. One publication in the newspaper, a second, a third... A letter to Leningrad, to the Naval Museum. The answer was not encouraging: we understand your pain and anxiety, but, alas, we cannot help. The newspaper “Kalininskaya Pravda” publishes a list of the most important monuments in the Upper Volga region. We re-read it three times, there is no “our” monument! We are urgently preparing a letter of protest to the United Historical and Cultural Museum. After some time, the district party committee received a call from the museum - the Ilyin monument was included in the register of historical sights of the ancient Tver land. First victory! It may be modest, but it is a victory.
Together with Borisych we prepare and send a letter to the General Staff Navy. Its meaning is simple and clear: at one time, an amazingly beautiful monument was erected to a sailor in Zastizhye, and now it is abandoned and forgotten, including by the fleet... I won’t hide it - we have not received an answer.
But the director of the program “Serving the Soviet Union!” Medvedev (unfortunately, I no longer remember the name and patronymic of this amazing man), who filmed the first television program about Ilyin, about the monument on his grave, about naval traditions, in a short conversation made it clear that their business trip to our area was in primarily initiated by the command of the Navy. The problems of the monument had already reached the union level, and the well-deserved glory began to return to the hero of the Battle of Chesma.
Even before the arrival of Moscow television journalists in Zastizhye, the first restoration work began. And in this regard, it is impossible not to remember Ivan Ivanovich Morozov. He passed away very early, but left such a bright mark on the history of the area that has not faded to this day. Ivan Ivanovich, who at that time worked as secretary of the district party committee for ideology, is rightfully considered the first restorer of the monument. Moreover, in the literal sense of the word. He closed his cozy office for a whole month, took off his white shirt and tie and picked up his work tool. Together with a team of enthusiasts like him, he mixed concrete, laid paving slabs, and landscaped the cemetery. These were the first, most difficult steps overcoming. Overcoming human indifference. And it was overcome! The very first mass event in Zastizhye rediscovered such living pages of the glorious past for Lesnovites and numerous guests. Since then, the district authorities have considered and continue to consider it their primary duty to take care of memorial complex at the ancient Zastizh churchyard. It was possible to build an excellent dirt road to the monument, improve the shore of the reservoir and thereby organically connect the eternal peace of the captain of the Russian fleet with the ever-living water of the beautiful lake.
In July 2000, the Lesnoy region celebrated the 230th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Chesme. Never before has a village far from all seas and oceans received so many naval officers. The celebrations in Lesnoy had a resonance not only in the district and region, but also in Moscow. After some time, addressed to the head of the district S.N. Kotov received a letter from the Russian State Military Historical and Cultural Center under the Government of the Russian Federation. It expressed sincere gratitude to the district administration and all Lesov residents for their great contribution to “...events held in the region and significant for all of Russia.” The letter further stated that Rosvoentsentr supported the initiative of the residents of the area to name one of the ships of the Russian Navy after Lieutenant Ilyin and submitted a corresponding petition to the Main Headquarters of the Navy. And soon the district administration received a copy of the order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy V.I. Kuroyedov No. 359 dated October 15, 2000, according to which the base minesweeper “BT-40” of the Black Sea Fleet was given the name “Lieutenant Ilyin”. This was done for the purpose of military-patriotic education and preserving the tradition of the Russian fleet.
Today, quite close patronage ties have been established between the ship’s crew and the region. The combat watch on the minesweeper is carried out by Dmitry Dominov, who was called up for naval service by the Forestry District Military Commissariat.
He is very actively involved in collecting materials about D.S. Ilyina, a native of our district, Viktor Vasilyevich Skvortsov, is a representative of the public organization of veterans of special information protection agencies “SPHINCX-79”. It was thanks to his efforts and close interaction with the regional authorities that the problems associated with the restoration of the monument and the perpetuation of the feat of Lieutenant Ilyin reached the level of the Government of the Russian Federation and the State Duma. Thanks to the help of the federal budget, the main thing was achieved - to restore the monument to its original form. Using modest funds from the district budget, work is underway to improve the coastal strip of the lake. In recent years, the collected materials about Ilyin have been summarized by our fellow countryman V.V. Ryzhov, unfortunately, did not mention the names of the enthusiasts through whose efforts the monument was preserved and restored. All this has been done and is being done at just the right time, since 2005 marks two significant dates associated with Iin - the 235th anniversary of the victory of the Russian fleet in the Battle of Chesma and the 110th anniversary of the opening of the obelisk at the hero’s grave. These events became the most important in the life of not only a small region, but also the entire ancient land of Tver.
I would like to complete my essay about Dmitry Sergeevich Ilyin, whose name is on the list of names of the best people in Russia and is immortalized on the marble plaques of the St. George Hall of the Moscow Kremlin, with a poem by my old friend, the famous Tver journalist Alexei Nikolaevich Egorov. These heartfelt lines were written almost sixty years ago, in the victorious forty-fifth. And the author, then a young employee of a local newspaper, managed to connect together the feat of the Russian people in Chesme and the feat of the Soviet soldier in defeated Berlin.
At the monument
The July breeze gently sways the leaf.
A wave kisses the lake shore.
In the shade of birches there is a majestic obelisk,
On it: “The seventieth year. Chesma."
Lieutenant Ilyin is buried here,
Our great fellow countryman is a hero,
In terms of courage, bravery - a giant,
Chesma, who forever glorified himself.
He made it clear to his enemies as a feat:
Don’t come to our land with a sword, don’t go,
Our people - heroes - know how to fight,
And don’t expect him to go downhill in battle.
Decades and centuries pass.
The hero's great-grandchildren met enemies more than once
And they always beat them hard,
How our ancestors punished.
Smirnov N.P., member of the Union of Journalists of the Russian Federation, p. Lesnoye
RUSSIAN EPOS BY YURI SOLOVIEV
From July 25 to September 15, the Udomelsky Museum of Local Lore opened the next exhibition of paintings by YURI SOLOVIEV (born July 5, 1968 in the village of Kotlovan, lives in the village of Gorodishche, Mstinsky district).
Probably professional artists and sophisticated art connoisseurs will find flaws in the paintings of Yuri Solovyov. No wonder - the artist learned the craft of painting himself. When I come into contact with them, what shocks me is not the technique, not even the plot - again and again I am shocked by how, amid spiritual devastation and everyday turmoil, in the most unexpected places, sprouts of the RUSSIAN SPIRIT sprout again and again. The places on Msta where Yuri lives are epic, epic. And the mother’s womb of the Russian land again and again gives birth in its depths to Russian nuggets - not polished academic education, craft training, but coming from the depths of people's existence. This is the nature of the artistic talent of our great fellow countryman Grigory Soroka, the poet Vladimir Solovyov, our contemporaries the graphic artist Leonid Konstantinov, Yuri Solovyov, his father the poet Anatoly Solovyov... This is the main, sacred secret of the Russian soul, this is what they cannot understand in us foreigners, and ourselves... When the burden of life seems insurmountable, such sprouts again and again give hope for the RUSSIAN INEVITABLE REVIVAL.
It’s very nice that Yuri lives in a village - the cradle of Russia - and teaches in a rural school. The village and children are two signs of the Russian revival.
I’m not afraid of epithets - in his work, Yuri managed to rise to the level of epic, to epic - i.e. make generalizations. This happened, I suspect, unconsciously. But that's exactly what it's all about! This is, first of all, the painting “At the Evening Dawn” (2005), which I call “Russian Epic” for myself, the paintings: “Kazikino” (2004), “Winter Day” (2005), “Mound over Mstayu” ( 2004), etc. The chosen language hits the mark. Some of the paintings are patched up, polished, and may simply seem like a lack of artistic technique. But I would warn Yuri himself, first of all, against such hasty conclusions. An original artistic language has been found!
The revival of the Russian village (by this I mean the revival of life for the Russian people as a whole) is connected, first of all, not with the economy. The village will be reborn through the revival of RUSSIAN FOLK SPIRITUAL CULTURE. First, MAN must be reborn to life!
D.L. Pillows
LETTERS FROM OUR READERS
About my spiritual homeland
I remember this feeling very well - the experience of the first meeting with the Tver land, with the most distant side of this region. This meeting was etched into my memory like a deep furrow, it ran like a clear line through my destiny - it separated me, left my former, unmemorable existence in the past and awakened me to a meaningful life.
Fatherland and homeland. These Russian words are close in content, but different in meaning. Such a difference did not arise by chance in our living language, and the vastness of Rus' is perhaps the main reason for this. In a broad sense, the Fatherland is a state, the entire land of the people to which someone belongs by birth, language and faith. In the strict sense, the Russian people from time immemorial called their native land, the place of birth, where someone was born and raised.
I remember that I always felt that I belonged to my Fatherland, the history of which I studied, knew and loved since childhood. But never before had I known the feeling of attachment to my homeland, the feeling of kinship with that land, with that small part of the Fatherland where I was born. In other words, I knew my Fatherland, but it was as if I did not have, did not know, a homeland.
Fate placed me by birth in a giant city, in a squalid quarter with smoking chimneys against the backdrop of a sky clouded with smoke, which was obscured by huge residential multi-story boxes. Many, very many of the inhabitants of this city, as I noticed, were not indigenous, non-local, but in the second or third generation, newcomers and newcomers. We, residents of giant cities, do not have relatives, father's houses. We live in concrete sections, in kennel apartments, which we change easily and often. Who are we? Where are we? Where are we from? No, urban living does not provide answers to these questions. Inanimate, artificial existence lulls the soul yearning for a homeland, corrupts it with sticky comfort - why is there a homeland when there is a place to live, why is there culture when there is civilization, why are there springs when the water supply works?
My fate turned out wonderfully. I was almost twenty years old when I first found myself in a real Russian outback, in the Tver village of Gogolino, which nestled on the banks of the ancient Msta River, near the steep Vasiyan slope. Before that time, before that amazing meeting with my native outback, I had already visited foreign lands, I had already marveled at someone else’s life and met people of a different tribe. But before that I had never been anywhere in my Fatherland; I had never seen or known my primordial Rus'. She was far from me folk life, ordinary Russian people were almost unknown to me. But who knows, perhaps God deliberately destined me to drink from foreign sources earlier, so that later I could clearly feel the sweetness of my own springs.
I remember that the modest, but fabulously expressive beauty of the Tver region unfolded before me unexpectedly and literally mesmerized me. Enchanted, I walked tirelessly around the Msta district and could not stop admiring it. I was especially impressed by the evening village silence - perfect and deep. You used to stand on the forehead of a high hill, overlook the forest expanses, gilded by sunset, listen to the silence. There is not a soul around, nothing will disturb the peace. Then it seems as if there is no one on Earth, and never has been, and that the whole history of mankind is still ahead, and that you are the first Adam. But suddenly a boat rowlock creaks somewhere far along the river, someone’s quiet word echoes, and the obsession disappears. But there is no end to the wonders in the fairy-tale land, and in turn the river captivates my imagination.
The Msta River is quiet and serene at dusk. Majestically, slowly it rolls its black waters past gentle hills and sloping mounds. Its banks in a smooth line either run upward, forming manes and ridges, or descend down, becoming water meadows. Here every stone is a hoary legend, here every inch of land is history. Suddenly a wind blows from somewhere and the sound of hooves is heard. You look at the high bank that suddenly takes your breath away - epic heroes are about to appear at the top. In stern silence they will go down to the quiet river, quench their thirst, scooping up water with large helmets, and give water to tired horses...
Here, in the outback of Tver, I experienced for the first time an encounter with my native history and felt a living involvement in my people. Here for the first time - and I remember with what trepidation - I took off my shoes and walked with hesitant steps barefoot on the black earth. Here I saw how the rye glowed with gold, and for the first time I tasted peasant bread, a little raw, with coarse gray salt. In this land I found my home, which, I always feel, yearns when the owners leave, and rejoices when they return.
I owe the clearest, purest thoughts and feelings to the Tver Platform. I owe him all the best that there is in my work. Here I was born in spirit and, not knowing any other kinship, recognized this region as my spiritual homeland.
Then I traveled around Russia and visited some places. Everywhere is good, everywhere is my Fatherland. But I feel my homeland only in Pomostje. It happened that you drove away from the Tver borders and your heart immediately ached - your soul groaned, begging to return to your native land. I was united by an invisible spiritual umbilical cord, fused with the Tver land. God forbid that this connection be broken, fate do not deprive me of my homeland.
As often as I can, as often as possible, I visit my homeland. I usually come in May. I get off the train at Msta station, leaving the bustle of the roads behind. I walk through fields cut by hills and copses, enjoying the fragrance of spring. The smells of rotten earth and the aromas of young greenery gaining strength intoxicate me. Flocks of larks scatter like bread crumbs across the clear blue sky, filling the entire world with their singing. Fine! I love these places, this land. It is pleasant for me to realize that not only the mighty trees rising from behind the hills, not only the blades of grass swaying by the wind, have their roots rooted in this land, but I, in a certain sense, am also rooted in it. Everything here is familiar and dear to me. Here in front of me is a steep hill, overgrown with bushes and low trees. I know that as soon as I climb to the top of this hill, I will immediately see my house, standing at some distance from the descent. Just thinking about it makes your heart beat faster and takes your breath away slightly. I look around to see if there is anyone around, I kneel down and, bowing low, I touch the ground with my lips: hello, my quiet homeland! I get up slowly, take off my tight shoes and walk on with my bare feet. I am walking on my native land. Thank God, life goes on...
Mironov D.N., spring, 2005
SMORODIN L., D. Gorodok, Spirovsky district: “My small homeland, Ovsishche, borders the Udomelsky district. In the 1930s - 1950s, children from six villages of the Udomelsky district studied in our ten-year school, starting from the fifth grade. In 1972, having arrived on vacation from the Urals, I took a bicycle trip to Blue Lakes, the villages of Khvalovo, Dubniki and Taraki with the hope of meeting my classmates there. Didn't meet. The villagers told me that they live in different cities.
The first time I saw Udomlya was in 1947, when my mother was taking me, exhausted from poor nutrition, for good food to her brother Ivan Antonov, who worked as a miller at the confluence of the Keza River and Mologa. There, in the former Nikolo-Terebensky monastery, occupied at that time by residents of the Truzhenik state farm, I finished the second grade of elementary school. The last time I came to Udomlya was in 2000, and I saw a multi-story stone city on the site of former streets with wooden houses.
I recently became the owner of a set of the almanac “Udomel Antiquity”. Accustomed to reading periodicals diagonally, I read the US almanac with great interest. Familiar lands, names and previously unknown ones open up an entire era in time. And the tragedy of the Russian people, which began in 1917 and continues today.
My genealogy is to some extent connected with the Udomel land. My grandfather Andrei Antonov, the father of my mother Alexandra, had a hardware store in the village of Liskovo, near Pochinok on the Vyshny Volochyok-Maksatikha road. He died in at a young age, leaving his wife Ekaterina with two young children Shura and Vanya without a livelihood. When Shura was eight years old, in 1906, Catherine gave her as a nanny to the landowner Aksakov in the village of Aksakovo. According to his mother, he had ten cows in his yard; his wife, a plump, energetic woman, woke up the milkmaids early in the morning. Aksakov came from peasant background. When the Bologoe-Bezhetsk railway was being built, he carried sand onto the embankment on his horse. Having earned money from construction, he either bought or founded an estate in Aksakov.
Nanny Shura lived with the Aksakovs for several years, where the landowner sent her to school, which, as she said, she went to for three winters, that is, she graduated from three classes. She didn’t want to study further and handed in her textbooks. The mother, already an adult, once met Aksakov’s wife, who by that time was old and broken. The landowner who was digging, with tears in her eyes, complained that the old man (Aksakov - L.S.) was taken away and his property was robbed.
Now, having become acquainted with the Udomelsky region through the Almanac “Udomelskaya Antiquity”, I became even more interested in where the Aksakov estate was located? Where was the school where your mother studied? Where did the landowner Aksakov end his life? Mother often mentioned the village of Deryagino. From this I conclude that Aksakovo was somewhere nearby...”
MOROKOVA A.I., Yekaterinburg, organizer of the Udomlya Museum of Local Lore: “For two weeks I have been under the impression of the book “Soldier's Glory of Udomlya.” I lost peace and sleep. I believe you will understand the state of a person who has passed the age of ninety, a Muscovite who read the diaries of E.A. Petrov. I evacuated from Moscow with the Krasny Bogatyr plant in November 1941. Evgeniy Aleksandrovich in “Battles for Moscow” describes the course of these actions. I consider Udomlya my second homeland. I am happy that I left a noticeable mark on this earth, having lived for 29 years. And having created the Udomelsky Museum of Local Lore, she was the chairman of its Council. My assistants were N.N. Krotov, E.A. Petrov, P.V. Voinov, N.P. Ploskova, I.D. Shutilov. All members of the Council worked on a voluntary basis. When they decided to place a museum in the house in which I lived, with my consent, P.V. became the director. Voinov - and remained so until the museum was given state status. A lot of professional work is going on in local history in Udomlya. I know everything that is being done. It is enough to call the almanac “US”. It’s gratifying to learn about the holding of annual competitions in historical local history among children and youth.”
Editor of the almanac “Udomel Antiquity” Dmitry Leonidovich Podushkov
(Excerpt)
SONG THIRD
Like a fiery mountain, the rising sun shines,
Bloody rays sweep across the Mediterranean waves
And it seems to say to the stormy show-off,
That soon the battle will turn into water into blood.
The boiling shafts at the mouth raise the battle,
They heed the desire of both fleets;
The Turkish sails are whitening in the distance,
They are already meeting our ships.
The heroic spirit is already burning in the Russian eagles,
They fly with the Moon in the streams of Khii.
Like some terrible serpent, stretched across the ramparts,
The head of their fleet joined the Chesmes shores;
The other part extended to the rocky shallows,
Where timid streams, crowded together, began to rustle.
Oh ross, ross! it seemed to you at this hour,
That all of Asia has moved into the sea towards you,
That Xerxes came out again to ancient Athens;
But he will wait for the same fate at the shores.
Three times (*) the proud fleet writhing on the waves,
{* Turkish fleet, consisting of many
ships were located in three rows.)
Would be able to plunge the world into despair and fear;
The way back to the sea without a fight would be trumpeted,
If only it were others, not you, O Russians! were, -
The danger is visible and there are many enemies,
And our small number of ships
Neither the cheerfulness of hearts nor the glory were deprived;
The heroic fire was ignited in the hearts, but was not extinguished.
The sun was already flowing towards the west around the earth
And dark clouds were brought over the show-off,
To hide the roiling sea from view,
Which will soon transform into a terrible hell.
The Russians are flocking to their weapons,
Slowness is disgusting, not fighting;
Boreas, flying around, sows terror in the abyss,
He moves his wings, he blows Russian flags
And, having given them a foreshadowing of victory,
He brought fear to the Sracins, carried fire and smoke.
This is the sign, the thunderous sign for the siege is heard,
rang out three times, rushing towards the Turkish fleet
Then from their ships a sad cry arose,
And their fleet, divided, groaned in the abyss,
He left foam behind, blood in it,
Heralding their destruction, the Russians' glory.
Like stormy clouds, trying to erase each other,
From their dark depths they bring death with Perun,
So the fleets are armed with lightning and thunder,
They flocked together, married with equal courage,
A cry was heard far across the waves,
War spread out its wings, the battle began.
Fortune flies away into the clouds,
There she does not find anything to do for herself;
The Russians do not demand her crown,
They don't need happiness - but brave hearts,
Russians directly expect heroism from them;
Fortune should be the goddess of peace!
Lightning flashed, terrible thunder roared.
And the show-off, listening to the sound of weapons, roared;
Both fleets flew together in smoke and flames,
Cold death opened the doors of the coffin between them;
But Russians are not afraid of terrible death
And, it seems, he is rushing from them to the enemies with a sword.
The sparkling lights in the waters ignited,
And it was as if they stopped in the air,
Only fire often succeeded in following another,
From the copper jaws that tore the air!
Bellona appeared in the clouds with resounding glory;
Bloody Mars has drawn out his sword and flies to battle;
Boiling streams are boiling around the ships.
O curse! Your traces are pernicious everywhere.
The vast sea was transformed into hell,
The ships of the whistling bullets were covered in hail,
Carrying cannonballs of death thunder through the air,
And life goes out where they fly.
Death is seen on ships, and death in the depths of the sea;
The nearest step is a hasty step towards death;
Everywhere there is a cry and a groan, no speeches can be heard there,
All you can hear is the crash, the thunder of guns, the sound of swords.
The midnight Mars boldly flows against enemies,
The soul is one in them, the body is seen as one.
I see a lot of people there in battle,
There are apparently so many different deaths for me.
Another, ending his life, does not complain about fate;
At least he sees only half of himself,
Deprived of both legs, he still rebels,
The current cries out for his salvation:
“Die in peace, friends, leave me (*);
(* These were the true words of one gunner,
whose both legs were torn off by a cannonball.)
You do not serve me, glorify the fatherland."
Another, having a bullet pierced through the chest,
Fights death, daring glory on the road.
Another, already covered with the veil of the shadow of death,
With weapons in hands, he fell to his knees,
And the horror around him rages in vain,
Having exhausted his strength, he fights again.
Others, having closed their eyes, taste the sleep of death,
But people are consoled by the peace of the living.
Others, numb on their weapons,
The residual expression in the face depicts anger.
He, grab the wound with one hand,
Smite his enemies and deal thunder with another.
Someone on a ship fell silent over the edge
To show that he never took a step back from death.
There are hands floating with bloody swords,
Heads with dim eyes roll there,
As if they wanted to die with that,
So that they can still look at the battle through the darkness of death.
Everywhere there is noise and groaning, and show-off and the sky is darkened,
And death rushes from ships to others like a whirlwind.
Wherever you turn, you will see hell everywhere;
Lightning flashes everywhere, there is no salvation anywhere,
The whole air has thickened, the earth trembles in the distance,
And in the black whirlwind, death, rotating its scythe, shines;
And time on the wings, no matter how quickly it flows,
Even more quickly, Mars cuts people with a sword.
Between such fears, between lightning they swam
Which ships with "Hierarch" (1) were:
There are “Three Saints”, there is the daring “Rostislav”;
With Dolgoruky Greig, taking the Orlovs as an example (2),
The crowns were acquired through heroic deeds;
It seemed as if the shadows were fighting with the bodies there,
Those who are threatened by death are not afraid of horror.
That place is in a hurry to capture the dead;
Other dangers of war are neglected,
Wherever the fear strikes the most, there he runs.
Discordia (3), in such jubilant places,
Having anger in my chest, ferocity in my mouth,
The hair is matted and the gaze is hot,
Breath is fiery, lips are bloody,
With an evil smile he looks fiercely at the abuse;
But it’s not enough for her that the blood turns purple:
Not fed up with the bodies lying around her,
With sword and flame he flies between ships;
There she sees piles of defeated people,
But the sacrifice is still too small for her.
She shakes and ignites her flame
And his chest leans against the Russian ship;
Weaving the anchor away to the Turkish ships
With her hand “Eustathia” (4) pushed along the shafts.
Hassan (*) is inflamed with new ferocity,
(* Hassan Bey Pasha, leader of the Turkish fleet.)
He greets our ship like a boar, with a stern face.
Wait! Spiridov and Orlov are flying towards you;
The young hero is ready for any daring.
I barely noticed Hassan’s movement,
Like Boreas, he met the enemy in the abyss.
Theodore, the hours of battle are in vain,
Having disheveled hair on his forehead,
The flowing sweat from the face, the image of labor,
He strives, as if for a feast, for a terrible battle;
Of his accomplices, he says:
“Friends! now three parts of the world are looking at us (5).
We will present ourselves to the spectacle of the universe,
We’ll die or we’ll glorify our fatherland!”
With this word the Turkish flew to the ship,
He threw lightning, fought, thundered.
Neither guns nor grapeshot are effective anymore;
The order of the battle changes;
Ships flying across the waves towards each other
It was as if two mountains had collided onto the ground;
The movement was thrown from both sides into the sea,
Warriors soon lose both their lives and their appearance.
Their bodies are crushed, carried along the streams,
They presented a terrible sight to their eyes.
The sracins hide, the sracins let out a cry!
But the Russians attract their ships with hooks,
Enemies flee inward from mortal arrows,
The heroes of the north follow death;
They stand motionless in the waves, as if in a field,
And the distance is no longer visible.
Others, as if there was earth beneath them,
Ships fell from high into the ramparts;
This new generation of warfare, in the midst of the waves floating,
Of course, he frightened the monsters living there!
Grasping the edge with his hand, another strikes the enemy;
To another his life is not so dear,
Like the honor of the fatherland or the glory of a monarch;
You, Russian state, give birth to such people!
Then proclaim victory over the Turks
The Russian wanted to grab their flag from the stern;
I didn’t suddenly take it away, no matter how hard I tried,
Between the waves and between the skies I remained in the air.
He, having lost his hands, did not let him go,
Deprived of all means, he grabbed the flag with his teeth;
Sracin pierces his belly with a sword, -
It trembles, it holds on, it does not leave the moon.
With such firmness he fought bravely,
Until his ship with the flag fell dead.
Then the warrior saw the warrior before his eyes;
They fought with spears, struck with swords,
They placed their breasts against their chests,
They strike and lay the path to glory with a pile of bodies.
Hell doesn't have time to fill with sacrifices,
Whoever fell there fell no longer wounded, but dead.
He, in a rage, wanted to pierce the enemy with a sword,
But he himself was killed by an arrow and was rendered speechless on the spot.
Others do not know about the wounds of care
And he only feels that he is in the middle of a battle,
There, a hand cut off with a sword will fall,
But this sword still gives a blow to the enemy.
A warrior with a bayonet ran into a saber,
And he moves along it to reach the villain.
Like a whirlwind rises instantly from the ground,
So quickly the warriors flowed to the masts;
There the arrows of their breasts and spears reach,
They overthrow the burning guns.
Burning flames and deadly hail
Hassan's fleet hastily turned back;
But in vain he escaped from the Russian hands,
Now he hurried towards the shore, now he moved higher;
Like an animal entangled in a set of nets,
Or a dove, beating in the talons of an eagle,
Bey-Gassan cannot get away from the Russians.
Oh! Why doesn’t he plunge into show-off this hour!
Gather, O clouds, around the daring ships;
Raise your pontoon, Neptune; Jupiter, pour down the rain!
Neither the pontoon moves nor the noisy rain falls.
There is no salvation left anywhere.
Meanwhile, listening to this brave battle,
Alexey looks at her fearlessly.
The Russians with him are harmless; those who do not dream of being saved,
Death does not dare touch them, does not dare touch them;
There is no place for him, he flies to all places,
Where is he - and glory is here; where he is - and happiness is there;
Minerva covers this ship with agid (*),
(*On the ship of the "Three Hierarchs" indeed
not a single person was killed during his battle,
not injured, although the ship was in heavy fire.)
He commands thunder and lightning not to burn,
Throwing, the menacing death of opponents strikes,
But even death itself spares brave Russians;
The ship groaned from wounds, but the Russians were unharmed;
Are the troops in it immortal or invincible:
They are not afraid of the military thunderstorm.
Then Orlov opened his eyes to “Eustathius”,
The Turkish sees the ship in smoke, on fire, in misfortune,
The brave Russians are almost in power;
He thinks to fly to Theodore for help,
To win together or die together,
But there were important obstacles to this
And his friends restrained his aspirations;
He internally blames his brother for his courage,
And the courage of the young man in him gladdens his heart;
He looks... the flame suddenly engulfs “Eustathia”;
His heart trembled, he listened to the cry and thunder;
Both sea and land shook.
I looked at this ship - but there was no ship!
And my brother is no more! The blows are heard.
There parts of the ship are carried by the sea wave,
The horizon was covered with a cloud of blood,
It seemed as if people were falling out of a cloud into a show-off, -
What a sight for a hero, friend, brother!
He suddenly felt an irrevocable waste!
"You're dead, dear brother! You're dead!" - cries out;
And repeating those words, he will fall unconscious.
I don’t know a better example of this sadness,
This sadness, these complaints, as in the songs of Homer;
In such despair was brave Achilles,
How Antilochus brought the sad news to him,
What a fate, a deplorable fate, has happened to Patroclus;
His unfortunate friend then lost all his feelings,
And I just started to know myself,
If you can call despair a feeling,
The hero fell to the ground, weeping, coldly
And he put his chest to her, the chest is languid, joyless,
He mixed his white hair with ashes,
I watered the green grass with tears;
I was looking for weapons, asking those coming,
To stop the torment that torments the spirit.
Such is his great soul and courage,
But Orlov is firmer in his despair;
Having learned that a stream of tears does not resurrect a brother,
The Sracins hasten to avenge their brother's death;
He sees friendship, honor standing around him,
Kinship, fatherland, for righteous revenge
His heroic spirit to the feat of those calling,
"Wake up, Orlov! and avenge your brother!" - flagrant.
Like a terrible dream, leaving a person
He still twists it and makes a groan, -
Thus, Orlov, burdened with his sorrow,
He moved forward with courage and inflamed with revenge;
With his lips he grumbled against the power of heaven,
But with his heart he revered divine providence;
“Let’s go, my friends!” he announces to those ahead,
Let's strike after the enemies who want to leave us,
To exterminate the villains is a heroic feat!
Russia and honor tell us to do this;
We have blood flowing with boiling streams,
Feodorov's shadow, hovering over the ships,
Friends tell us things we cannot see,
What will their souls suffer if we do not take revenge!
We will send our ship after the fleet of these killers,
We will die or take revenge, we will glorify the fatherland!”
His ship was already running on sails,
He was already striking the villains with his thoughts.
This was Alexander when he went through the wall
One jumped to the Indians in Maliena,
One with a sword attacked many enemies (6);
It was then that the hero was directly among the gods.
Like the courage of such a hero,
Orlov flew after the evil Perun.
Even if Zeus summoned all the gods against him,
Orlov would have gone against them without timidity;
He despises terrible stones and shallows
And the door of glory opens for the Russian fleet.
At that time light Turkish ships
They hastily flowed into the bay, like snakes into a hole;
They left their blood and the sea in our power.
Wait, barbarians, we will reach you soon!
Wait, you too, in the waves, wait, O brave man!
Great souls should not be burdened by melancholy;
Your brother's days will not soon end:
Love itself and the formidable Mars care about him.
Bellona's flame will not be extinguished soon,
But soon the current will dry up your tears (7).
You are now burning with vengeance against the races,
But you will regret what you desire;
You do not thirst for the blood of your villain,
You crave peace for the entire fatherland;
Through victories we seek peace.
Wait for him and sing, my zealous lyre! 1
1 1 On the ship "Three Hierarchs", commanded by Admiral S.K. Greig, was the commander-in-chief of the Russian fleet, A.G. Orlov.
2 Yu. V. Dolgorukov (Dolgoruky) - commander of "Rostislav"; on a hike
The brother of Alexei Orlov, Fedor, participated in the Russian fleet and the Battle of Chesma.
3 Discordia is the personification of discord, strife.
4 The ship "Saint Eustathius Placida" under the command of Admiral G. A. Spiridov, on which F. G. Orlov fought, boarded and almost captured the flagship of the Turks; however, a mast that fell from a burning Turkish ship set fire to the Russian ship, and Eustathius exploded along with the Turkish flagship.
5 Europe, Asia and Africa surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.
6 During the assault in 326 BC. e. Indian city of Maliena
Alexander the Great was the first to overcome the wall of the fortress.
7 The next song of the poem tells how Alexey Orlov received the news of Fyodor’s salvation and tells about the brothers’ joyful meeting.
Chesmes fight. During the Russian-Turkish War of 1768-1774. Russia did not yet have a fleet in the Black Sea, and to support the land army, Russian ships made the transition from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea and opened military operations in the Greek archipelago (a group of numerous islands located in the Aegean Sea, between Greece and Asia Minor). On June 24, 1770, the Russian fleet under the command of A.G. Orlov defeated the Turkish in the Chios Strait (this battle is described in the third song of the poem). The Turkish fleet took refuge in Chesme Bay; I was almost completely destroyed here in the battle that took place on June 26: the Turks lost more than 60 ships and 10,000 people in this battle, while the Russians killed only 11 people (this battle is described in the last, fifth song of the poem ). Emphasizing that his work exactly corresponds real events, Kheraskov wrote in one of the notes to the first song: “The conquest of the Archipelago is known to the whole world; the courage of our heroes surpasses all praise; and I must say once for my entire work that everything written in it is the living truth, excluding poetic decorations, which every a prudent reader can easily distinguish. The entire remainder is arranged according to accurate news received from the most faithful hands, and according to the very words that the writer was fortunate to hear from the heroes he glorified."
there are no audio recordings for the poem CHESMES FIGHT yet...
Tragedies of A.B. Princess
VADIM- the hero of Ya.B. Knyazhnin’s tragedy “Vadim Novgorodsky” (1788-1789). The legendary prototype of this character was Vadim the Brave, mentioned in one chronicle, who led the rebellion of the Novgorodians (1786) against Rurik, who was called to reign, and was the latter killed along with “his many other advisers.” The mysterious personality of Vadim the Brave, about whom nothing more is known, occupied the attention of historiographers of the 18th century. (V.N. Tatishchev, M.V. Lomonosov) and was assessed differently depending on the position in the so-called. "Varangian question".
The first artistic embodiment of this image was the “historical representation” of Catherine II “From the Life of Rurik” (1786). In the play composed by “mother”, V. was presented as a young ambitious man, indifferent to the needs of the people, a participant in dynastic intrigue, using his indigenous origin in the struggle for power with the foreign, but legitimate ruler Rurik, for he (and not V.) Gostomysl bequeathed to reign in Novgorod. At the end of the play, the defeated V. kneels before Rurik, and he generously forgives him.
V. appears differently in the tragedy of the Princess. He is not a young man, but a husband, wise in life, who has proven his heroism on the battlefield. Background to the action: in the absence of V. and the troops, the “nobles” started trouble in Novgorod, which Rurik was called upon to suppress. Having defeated the rebels, he began to reign - rather due to circumstances than of his own free will.
V. and Rurik in Knyazhnin form an unexpected pair of heroic opponents for Russian classic tragedy. The traditional confrontation between a tyrant who usurped power and an enlightened pretender (prince, commander), who acts based on the interests of the people and in agreement with them (for example, Claudius and Hamlet in the tragedy of A.P. Sumarokov), here gives way to a conflict between rulers who are equally worthy capable of self-sacrifice. Rurik is by no means a tyrant. His “autocracy,” which curbed the “proud nobles,” did not encroach on civil rights. " One truth honoring the most sacred charter, have I even taken away a line from your rights? - says Rurik, addressing the people. On the other hand, the freedom-loving V. turns out to be an indirect defender of tyranny, for the freedom that he wants to save plays into the hands of the nobles and allows “the people to do evil and hide their tyranny in imaginary freedom.”
V. is a man of convictions. He takes up arms against the very idea of princely power, which corrupts the most virtuous and worthy: “What’s wrong with the fact that this Rurik was born to be a hero? What hero wearing a crown has not gone astray? Noble Rurik is trying with all his might to extinguish the conflict with V., is ready to cede the principality to him and, finally, agrees to the restoration of the republic. However, in accordance with the spirit of the enlightened XVIII,” such an action requires the sanction of the people. The people, having already suffered from freedom, vote in favor of Rurik and the princely rule. Having uttered an angry monologue addressed to the Novgorodians (“You want to slave, trampled under the scepter? I no longer have a fatherland...”), V. stabs himself to death.
The tragedy of Knyazhnin in the person of V. revealed a new hero. The traditional hero of the tragedy (Hamlet by Sumarokova, Rosslav Knyazhnina) fulfilled the “social contract” and followed the “popular opinion.” The tyrant disdained this opinion, which is why he was always alone. V. finds himself alone with the Prince. This is the first positive hero of the Russian stage to openly challenge “citizenship.” Born of the Age of Enlightenment, V. Knyazhnina is full of illusions about the people. He does not yet know the “court of the mob”, which is known to Pushkin’s Boris Godunov, a character created by another era. It does not fit into V.’s consciousness that the people are capable of making mistakes, and that is why he is so shocked, so crushed by the people’s choice in favor of slavery, albeit an enlightened one. The motive of individualistic rebellion makes V. the forerunner of the heroes of romanticism, who opposed themselves to the light and the mob.
"Rosslav" appeared on the scene at the beginning of 1784, shortly after the revolution in America finally won, when, already on the approaches to the French Revolution, the public atmosphere became extremely tense throughout Europe. This is a tyrant-fighting and patriotic tragedy. National and political themes organically intertwined in it and created an extremely strong and majestic complex.
The plot of Knyazhnin’s tragedy is as follows: Rosslav, the “Russian commander,” is captured by the Swedish tyrant king Christian. Rosslav knows a secret important for the good of Russia, namely, the whereabouts of Gustav, the former king of Sweden, an ally of Russia. Christiann, who wants to destroy Gustav, extracts this secret from Rosslav. He tortures him, threatens him terrible execution; but the Russian hero is unshakable in his love for the fatherland. Rosslav loves the Swedish princess Zafira and is loved by her; but Zafira is also loved by Christian (and also by his nobleman Kedar, Rosslav’s false friend). Rosslav knows that Zafira will die if he does not reveal the secret, but he withstands this test too. At the end of the tragedy, at the moment when Rosslav should have been executed, Gustav appears in Stockholm, a coup takes place, the people renounce the tyrant Christian, and Rosslav is saved; Christiann will “stabbed himself.”
As we see, the basis of the tragedy is the unshakable courage of Rosslav, ready for any torment and death for the good of the fatherland. The Russian prince offers Christiern to return the Swedish cities conquered by Rosslav in exchange for the freedom of Rosslav himself; but the Russian hero rejects this exchange, which, in his opinion, is detrimental to Russia; here the Prince used the legend about the Roman hero Regulus. Those parts of the tragedy in which Rosslav speaks of his love for his homeland are written with exceptional enthusiasm. Generally speaking, this tragedy of Knyazhnin, like others, suffers from some stiltedness, rhetoric, and theatrical effects; This was due to the influence of Voltaire’s drama on the Prince. The princes are leaving restraint and stinginess artistic means, the simplicity of Sumarokov’s tragedy for the sake of scenic decorative and exciting situations; he is very fond of pompous, loud words, remarks designed to delight an audience prone to brilliant aphorisms. All this is redeemed by his genuine enthusiasm, the high and advanced character of his theatrical sermon itself. He strives neither for subtle psychological analysis nor for the reality of characters and situations; he wants to infect the audience with hot and sublime words about the homeland and freedom, heard from his pulpit-stage. His tragedies feature an upbeat, even somewhat pompous, declamatory speech, essentially the same style as Mirabeau’s speech, which shocked the whole world in 1789.
Rosslav is not only a hero and a patriot; he is a free citizen who hates tyranny; he wants to die for the sake of society, for the sake of the fatherland - he talks about this many times; but not once does he speak of loyalty to the prince-tsar; for the sake of the prince he will not do anything. He is contrasted in the tragedy with Christian, who believes that there are no limits to royal power. Christian is an autocrat who declares that his will is law. On the contrary, other characters, Russians, including Rosslav, express Knyazhnin’s idea that the tsar should be a slave of the laws. The autocrat Christian is made a monster, a barbarian; he wages war on Russia on a whim;
It turns out from Knyazhnin that Rosslav is a citizen of a free country. Here the same idea of the state system of medieval Rus', which is characteristic of the Decembrists, was expressed. The prince believes that the original heritage of Russia is freedom, that autocracy is a perverted form of government introduced recently. This idea of the free Russia of the past was at the same time a dream of the Russia of the future. And the image of Rosslav is not only a statement that the Russian people give patriotic heroes, but also a statement that freedom will bring Rosslavs to Russia.
Even with Sumarokov, the motive of the uprising, which served as the denouement of the tragedy, acquired the meaning of a lesson and a warning to tyrants. In Knyazhnin’s “Rosslav”, in the general context of the tragedy, this motive sounds especially menacing. The prince describes how “the whole people, having dissolved the stronghold of obedience,” tore into pieces the accomplice of the tyrant Kedar, how the people, namely the people, and not the nobles, rebelled; and when Christian, stabbing himself, says: “So there is in the world a power higher than kings, from which even the evildoer cannot escape the crown,” then here it is impossible to mean the power of God, but only the power of popular opinion and, if necessary, anger.
As a result, despite its pomposity, the complete conventionality and unreality of the images, “Rosslav” - a tragedy-preaching of ardent patriotism, national valor of the Russian people and love of freedom - is a beautiful, still exciting work of Russian poetry of the 18th century.
Themes and problems of V.V. Kapnist’s comedy “The Yabeda”. Features of poetics.
Characteristic are the cult of ancient poetry, “Horatianism” and the epicureanism of Kapnist, who, starting from the late 1790s, translated a lot and freely adapted Horace. This affected both the craving for a distant ancient culture, unlike living social reality, and the craving for the finished and aestheticized poetic style. Kapnist sees in Horace a teacher in renunciation of the vital interests of life, in disappointment from careless hopes; He interprets Anacreontism as a poetry of light and somewhat sentimental consolation, revealing dreamy happiness in the fleeting joys of the soul. Tongue finishing, harmony sound composition verse, calculation in every turn of phrase, selection of a specific poetic vocabulary - all this subtle work on verse in Kapnist’s lyrics goes in the direction of creating the poetic culture that the young Pushkin received from the Karamzinists.
The comedy was completed by Kapnist no later than 1796, during the reign of Catherine II, but then it was neither staged nor published. Then Kapnist made some changes to it and shortened it in places), and in 1798 it was published and simultaneously staged on the St. Petersburg stage. She was a success; There were four performances in a row. September 20 was set for the fifth, when suddenly Paul I personally ordered that the comedy be banned from production and copies of its publication withdrawn from sale. "Yabeda" was released from the ban only in 1805, already under Alexander I. The plot of "Yabeda" is a typical story of one trial. “The Snitch,” a clever swindler, a specialist in litigation, Pravolov, wants to take away the estate from the honest, straightforward officer Pryamikov without any legal grounds; Pravolov acts with certainty: he diligently distributes bribes to judges; The chairman of the civil court chamber is in his hands, takes bribes from him and is even going to become related to him by marrying his daughter to him. Pryamikov, firmly hoping for his right, is convinced that nothing can be done with the right against bribes. The court had already awarded his estate to Pravolov, but, fortunately, the government intervened in the matter, and the outrages of the civil chamber and Pravolov came to its attention. The latter is arrested, and the members of the court are put on trial; Pryamikov marries the judge's daughter, the virtuous Sofia, whom he loves and who loves him. The theme of “Sneak,” the rampant tyranny and robbery of officials, was an acute, topical topic, necessary in the time of Kapnist and much later, in the 19th century, which has not lost its interest. The comedy was written in the 1790s, at the time of the final strengthening of the bureaucratic and police apparatus created by Potemkin, then Zubov and Bezborodko and, finally, especially flourishing under Paul I. Bureaucracy has long been the enemy of independent social thought; the bureaucracy carried out the arbitrariness of the despot and repeated it on a smaller scale “on the ground.” The bureaucracy, people loyal to the government, bought by the fact that they were given the opportunity to rob the people with impunity, was opposed by the government to attempts to create and organize a noble progressive society. Even a nobleman felt the shackles of the offices, the clerical tricks of the “sneak”, if he himself did not want or could not become a partner in the mutual responsibility of the authorities, higher or lower, if he could not be a nobleman and did not want to be some kind of bribe-taking assessor. To "sneak", i.e. Kapnist attacked the bureaucracy, its wild arbitrariness, corruption, and arbitrariness in his comedy, also from the position of the noble community. Belinsky wrote that “Sneak” belongs to the historically important phenomena of Russian literature, as a bold and decisive attack of satire on chicanery, sneaking and extortion, which so terribly tormented the society of the past.”
26.Epic poems by M.M. Kheraskov "Chesme fight".
Kheraskov was born on October 25, 1733 in the city of Pereyaslavl, Poltava province and came from a noble noble family. His father, Matvey Andreevich, was a descendant of a noble Wallachian boyar who moved to Russia under Peter I almost simultaneously with Dmitry Cantemir. Kheraskov was a hereditary aristocrat on his mother’s side, nee Princess Drutskaya-Sokolinskaya. However, the future poet lost his father early, who died a year after his birth, and the boy was raised in the house of his stepfather, Prince N. Yu. Trubetskoy, a friend of Antioch Cantemir.
Kheraskov graduated from the Land Gentry cadet corps and left it in 1751 with the rank of second lieutenant. After graduating from the corps, he spent four years as an officer in the Ingria Infantry Regiment, feeling absolutely no call to a military career. His service at the Commerce Collegium in St. Petersburg, where he was appointed in 1755, was even shorter. This was a significant year in the history of Russia, Russian culture and education: a university was opened in Moscow, one of the initiators of the creation of which was Lomonosov. And in 1756, Kheraskov sought transfer to serve in this educational institution. Almost all of his further activities are connected with Moscow University, where he went from collegiate assessor to director (1763). Kheraskov left a noticeable mark on the history of Moscow University. Over the years, he was the director of the university library, trustee of the university printing house, editor of the university magazines “Useful Amusement” (1760-1762), “Free Hours” (1763) and other printed publications. With the active assistance of Kheraskov, the Noble boarding school was founded at the university in 1778, where V. A. Zhukovsky, A. S. Griboedov, V. F. Odoevsky, F. I. Tyutchev, M. Yu. Lermontov and many others were subsequently educated outstanding Russian poets and writers. It was Kheraskov who ensured that lectures and teaching at the university were conducted in Russian instead of the previously required Latin and German. In general, Kheraskov’s house in Moscow (not without the influence of his wife Elizaveta Vasilievna, whom the poet married in 1760) became the center of literary life. I. F. Bogdanovich, V. I. Maikov, D. I. Fonvizin and other then still young writers visited and read their works here.
Kheraskov devoted the last five years of his life entirely to literature. In 1803, he published the colossal volume (fifteen thousand verses) of the poem “Bahariana” - “a magical story drawn from Russian fairy tales,” as the author himself defined its genre and specificity in the subtitle. In those same years, he wrote a number of lyrical works, including the programmatic poem “The Poet” (1805), where he gives a number of valuable advice to aspiring poets. The experience of “Bahariana” did not pass without a trace for Russian poetry. Thus, young Pushkin was to a certain extent guided by the traditions of Kheraskov’s “magic story” when creating his fairy tale poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila”.
Kheraskov died in Moscow on September 27, 1807 and was buried in the Donskoy Monastery, where another famous Russian poet, V.I. Maikov, was buried almost thirty years before him.
Literary activity Kheraskova began within the walls of the Land Noble Corps. Here he creates a whole series of fables, satires, epigrams, and tries his hand at dramaturgy, in the genre of a solemn laudatory ode. But all these works are still imitative in nature. Kheraskov denounces the power of money and ranks over the soul of a person and especially a poet, calls on enlightened nobles to devote themselves to serving science, art, literature, and to be a model of morality and virtue for other social classes. All these moralistic arguments would not be very interesting and would not attract special attention from readers if it were not for Kheraskov’s high artistic skill, which manifested itself in the grace of style, ease of spoken language, and most importantly - in extraordinary sincerity, sincerity of tone and poetic intonation. All this favorably distinguished Kheraskov’s philosophical and moralizing poems from a number of similar works by other poets.
However, for all the importance and significance of Kheraskov’s philosophical odes and anacreontic poems, his main works are still epic poems. The first such poem to attract the attention of readers was the heroic poem "Chesme fight"(1771), which is dedicated to the brilliant victory of the Russian fleet over the Turkish in Chesme Bay Mediterranean Sea June 26, 1770. According to their own artistic features Kheraskov's poem was quite traditional. As was expected according to all the canons of classicism, it contains modern military heroic events were often presented in the language and style of epic poems of antiquity, as well as later classicist epics.
In “The Battle of Chesme” there are many references to Homer, especially to his “Iliad”, and to ancient mythology. Kheraskov often compares the heroes of his poem with Achilles, Patroclus and other characters of the Iliad, traditionally big role Mythological images also play in the poem - Jupiter, Neptune (which is quite justified, since we are talking about a naval battle), the god of war Mars. Kheraskov's poem about the Chesma battle is upbeat and majestic. It glorifies the unprecedented victory of Russian weapons, which thundered throughout the world, in the tones of a solemn ode.
Russian poets Kantemir, Lomonosov, Sumarokov. While Russian literature did not have its own national epic, it, according to all the concepts of that time, could not take its rightful place among other European literatures by Kheraskov “Vladimir”. - C.D.). Epi Encouraged by the recognition of the poem among Russian and foreign readers (“Chesme Battle” was soon translated into French and German languages), Kheraskov begins to create an even more monumental epic - a heroic poem "Rossiyada" which he has been working on for over eight years. The poem was published in 1779. It made an even stronger impression on his contemporaries than “The Battle of Chesma”, and immediately elevated Kheraskov to the very top of the poetic Olympus, making him a classic of Russian literature during his lifetime. Using Derzhavin’s successful definition, given to the author of “Rossiyady” immediately after the publication of the poem in the poem “Klyuch” (1779), Kheraskov began to be called nothing less than “the creator of the immortal “Rossiyady””.
Why was Kheraskov’s name surrounded by such honor and respect after the publication of Rossiyada? The fact is that Kheraskov, having created his epic, solved an artistic problem that his predecessors had struggled with unsuccessfully - a poem was then considered the highest kind of poetry, and not having at least one poem for the people meant then not having poetry.”
“Rossiyada” by Kheraskov was grandiose not only in volume (12 songs, about 10 thousand poems), but also in scope historical material. The poem was based on a specific historical fact - the campaign of the Russian army, led by the then young Tsar Ivan IV, near Kazan in 1552. Politically, the capture of Kazan was the most significant event in the history of the fight against the Tatar-Mongols after the Battle of Kulikovo.
However, the content of the poem is much broader than the reflected fact. Kheraskov set himself the task of expressing through artistic reproduction of that distant historical era his attitude to modernity, his view on the problems of autocracy, monarchy, noble valor and virtue. In addition, the victory of the Russians was regarded by the author of the poem not only as the last act of a long historical drama- the three-hundred-year Tatar-Mongol yoke, but also as the triumph of the “true Christian faith” over Mohammedanism. Finally, in “Rossiyada” the element of the “wonderful” is very strong, and reality is often interspersed with artistic fiction. Along with real historical figures, otherworldly forces operate. On the side of the Russians are God, angels, saints of the Russian Church, on the side of the enemies are demons and sorcerers. Political themes and conflicts are intertwined in the poem with fictional love episodes, but the main place in “Rossiyada” is still given to the image historical events. Kheraskov's third epic poem " Vladimir"(1785), dedicated to the theme of the baptism of Rus' under Prince Vladimir and imbued with religious and mystical motives, remained practically unnoticed by readers. It was successful only with the Freemasons, since to a certain extent it reflected the ideas of Freemasonry, which Kheraskov was passionate about at the time of the creation of this poem. But she did not leave a noticeable mark in the history of Russian poetry.
27. Iron-comic poem by V.I. Maykov “Elisha, or the irritated Bacchus”
The first burlesque Russian poem by Vasily Ivanovich Maykov, “Elisha or the Irritated Bacchus,” was born in the wake of literary polemics that spread to a new generation of writers in the 1770s. inherited from Lomonosov and Sumarokov. Maikov was a poet of the Sumarokov school: his poem contains an extremely flattering description of Sumarokov: “Others still live in the world, // Whom they consider to be residents of Parnassus,” - to these verses Maikov made a note: “What is Mr. Sumarokov and those like him like.” The immediate reason for the creation of the poem “Elisha, or the irritated Bacchus” was the first canto of Virgil’s “Aeneid” published in early 1770, the translation of which was carried out by the poet of the Lomonosov school Vasily Petrov.
As rightly noted by V.D. Kuzmina, “this translation was undoubtedly inspired by circles close to Catherine II. The monumental epic poem was intended to play in Russia in the 18th century. approximately the same role that it played when it appeared in Rome during the time of Augustus; it was supposed to glorify the supreme power” - especially since in 1769, as we remember, Trediakovsky’s “Tilemakhida” was published, which by no means represented an apology for the Russian monarchy. According to V.D. Kuzmina, the first song of the “Aeneid” in Petrov’s translation, separate from the context of the entire poem, was an allegorical praise of Catherine II in the image of the wise Carthaginian queen Dido.
Maykov’s poem “Elisha, or the irritated Bacchus” was originally conceived as a parody of Petrov’s translation, and the literary form of struggle, parody, became a unique form of political struggle. In this regard, Maykov’s burlesque poem turned out to be akin to parody publications in N. I. Novikov’s magazine “Drone”, where the texts of Catherine II were actively used for parodic adaptation. Thus, the heroic and burlesque poems were involved in the political dialogue between the authorities and their subjects, along with satirical journalism, and not least of all, this circumstance determined the innovative aesthetic properties of the Russian heroic-comic poem.
The plot of the poem “Elisha, or the irritated Bacchus” retained obvious traces of its original parodic task. The very first verses travesty the canonical epic beginning, the so-called “sentence” - designation of the theme and “invocation” - the poet’s appeal to the muse that inspires him, and this is not just the beginning of an epic poem, but the beginning of Virgil’s “Aeneid”; V modern translation it sounds like this:
I sing battles and husbands, who is the first from Troy to Italy -
A fugitive led by fate, sailed to the shores of the Lavinian<...>
Muse, tell me why you were offended
So the queen of the gods, that the husband, glorious in piety,
At her behest he endured so many bitter vicissitudes<...> .
In Petrov’s translation, “offer” and “invocation” sounded as follows: I sing the sound of weapons and the exploits of a hero<...>
Tell me, oh muse, why the deity is strong
Severity has risen to such unprecedented levels<...>
And here is the beginning of Maykov’s poem: I sing the sound of glasses, I sing that hero,
Who, in the intoxication of terrible troubles, builds,
To please Bacchus among many taverns
He visited and drank Yarygs and Chumaks.<...>
O Muse! Don't keep silent about this,
One day, or at least grumble with a hangover,
It's simply impossible to tell you<...> (230).
Especially the text of the first song of Maykov’s poem is full of parodic reminiscences from Petrov’s translation and personal attacks against him. Description of the “drinking house called Star” - “This house was appointed by Bacchus to be the capital; // Under its special cover it blossomed” (230) - literally coincides with the description of Juno’s beloved city of Carthage in Petrov’s translation: “She intended the universe to be the capital // This city should be produced, if there is a limit to that: // Under her special cover it blossomed " The first song also contains the so-called “personality” - a satirical attack not so much on the text, but on its creator. Describing the activities of Apollo, surrounded by a gathering of mediocre writers, Maikov places his literary enemy in this group:
It was not in idleness that I found Apollo<...>
He was chopping wood from a peasant then
And, sticking out his tongue like a dog, tired and barking,
He repeated the blows in the likeness of a trochee,
And sometimes both iambic and dactyl came out;
Around him was a cathedral of different scribblers<...>
And, having listened to all the blows of the ax,
Everyone went away, as if they were masters;<...>
One of them imagined that he was a Russian Homer,
Not knowing what the meter is in which verses,
The other then equates himself with Virgil,
When he still barely knows how to read and write<...> (234).
And the entire plot of the poem “Elisha, or the irritated Bacchus” retained traces of Maykov’s original parody plan: the main plot situations of “Elisha” are obvious burlesque re-imaginings of the plot situations of “Aeneid”. Virgil's Aeneas was the cause of the quarrel between the goddesses Juno and Venus - like him, Maykovsky's hero becomes an instrument for resolving the dispute between the fertility goddess Ceres and the god of wine Bacchus over how to use the fruits of agriculture - bake bread or distill vodka and beer. Venus shelters Aeneas from the wrath of Juno in Carthage by making the Carthaginian queen love Aeneas and shrouding him in a cloud that makes him invisible. In Maykov, this plot device is reinterpreted as follows: on the instructions of Bacchus, Hermes kidnaps Elisha from prison and, hiding under an invisibility cap, hides him from the police in the Kalinkinsky workhouse (a correctional institution for girls of easy virtue), where Elisha spends time with an elderly woman who has fallen in love with him the boss and tells her the story of his life, where the central place is occupied by a kind of battle epic - a story about the battle of the inhabitants of two neighboring villages, Valdai and Zimogorye, for hay meadows. It is easy to see that this episode is a burlesque adaptation of Aeneas’ famous story about the destruction of Troy and the last battle of the Greeks and Trojans. Aeneas leaves Dido, following the outlines of his destiny - he must found Rome; and the inconsolable Dido, after Aeneas’s departure, throws herself into the fire. Maykovsky's Elisha is inspired by Bacchus to leave the warden of the Kalinkinsky workhouse, and Elisha runs under the invisible cap, leaving “his porta-potties and camisole” in the warden's bedroom, and the warden, offended by Elisha, burns his clothes in the stove. Here the parody plan of Maykov’s poem finally comes to the surface of the text:
How Aeneas sailed away from the sowing of Dido,
But she moaned differently than before
And with less pity Elesya recalled:
She could no longer even hear about him.
She burned his trousers and camisole in her oven,
When it was heated for pies;
And thus did Dido do the same thing (242).
And if we remember who was the prototype of the wise Carthaginian queen for Petrov, the translator of “The Aeneid,” then a very risky parallel arises here: in Maykov’s poem Dido corresponds to the voluptuous mistress of the Kalinkin house: a variation on the theme of the “outdated coquette” of Novikov magazines.
In 1552, the eastern part of Rus' was still burdened by the power of the Horde. At the behest of the Kazan queen Sumbek, rivers of Christian blood are flowing. But these disasters are hidden from the gaze of the young Tsar John IV, who, seduced by amusements, does not heed advice to stop the atrocities of the Horde. Defeated by the flattery of the courtiers, the bitter truth would have remained unknown to the monarch if an ancestor had not appeared to him in a dream and, reminding him of the ruler’s responsibility before God and people, called on John to save the fatherland from evil. The embarrassed king, trying to find support, calls upon his friend Adashev, who convinces John to pray in the church founded by St. Sergius of Radonezh. The tsar's fiery prayer reaches the heavens, where the Creator measured the fate of the two kingdoms: The Russian crown will rise - the Horde will come to an end. The priest, filled with the Holy Spirit, tells the king about this.
John, inspired by the prophecy, convenes the boyars and asks them for advice: to go to war against the infidels or not. The majority is eager to defend their dear fatherland, and John, despite the machinations of the flatterers, decides to go on a campaign immediately. Even his wife’s pleas cannot stop him, because first of all, the tsar is obliged to serve Russia and think not about his own, but about common good. The Russian army is gathering on the battlefield.
Meanwhile, Sumbek, not heeding the menacing visions predicting the fall of Kazan, thinks only about love affairs: she is in love with Prince Osman and does not want to marry anyone else even to save the state. Osman does not reciprocate her feelings, which almost drives the queen to suicide. But an inner voice stops her in time, advising her to seek solace at her husband’s grave.
The tears of the wife defeat the late king to rise from the grave. He predicts peace for Kazan only if the queen chooses Aley, the Sviyazhsk king, as her husband. But, having penetrated into the mystery of the future and seeing the victory of Christianity over Islam, he asks Sumbek to burn the tombs of the Kazan kings in order to allow their souls to go to hell and avoid the shame of being crossed.
Having fulfilled her husband's request, the shocked Sumbek falls asleep. Here she is found by Alei, who drank water from an enchanted spring, which is why he lost his will and, wounded by Eros, turned from a brave warrior into an obedient slave of the queen. Alei is seduced by the insidious speeches of Sumbeka, who, remembering the prediction, does everything to seduce him. Having almost forgotten about Russia, Alei hopes to share the throne with the queen and, by pacifying the rebellious Horde, create universal peace. The king does not notice the deception hidden by caresses: Osman, whom the jealous queen ordered to imprison, still rules over the heart of Sumbeki. Having learned about this, the insidious nobleman Sargun persuades the prince to pretend to be in love with Sumbek in order to avoid punishment, eliminate Aley and save the Horde from being conquered by Russia. Sargun gets his way: Sumbek and Osman are persuaded to exterminate the king.
Meanwhile, the Russian army reaches Kolomna. Suddenly terrible news comes: the Crimean Khan Iskanar devastated Ryazan and approached Tula. John already decides to send an army there, but the appearance of the Divine Sophia stops him. Heeding her advice, the tsar sends Prince Kurbsky to fight the khan. The brave prince defeats Iskanar - the enemies take flight.
The rumor of victory spreads to the very borders of the Russian state. Everything portends a quick successful completion of the campaign. But unexpectedly, a certain elder advises John not to rush, otherwise his soldiers will be forced to fight not with people, but with four hostile elements. And seeing that the king does not heed the warning, he gives him a magic shield, the surface of which will darken as soon as the owner’s mind is clouded by sinful thoughts. The campaign of the Russians, bringing the victory of the Orthodox faith, infuriates Atheism, which invites all pagan gods to destroy John by raising the forces of nature against him. The Volga becomes a disastrous abyss for Russian ships. The foot regiments suffer from unbearable heat, bringing hunger and thirst. The king suffers hardships along with ordinary soldiers, giving his water and food to the wounded.
One night, John, saddened by the fate of the army, moves quite far from the camp. There he sees a vision that tries to force the king to renounce his faith and fatherland, tempting him with power and wealth. John hesitates, but at the same moment he sees that his shield has darkened, and finds the strength to fight back. Enraged Godlessness, leaving, predicts a terrible future for the king: he will become a tyrant and son-killer. John trembles, but suddenly sees in front of him... Alya. He begs the king to trust him and, having received consent, accompanies him to a certain pious hermit. Along the way, Alei tells that Sumbek tried to kill him and only thanks to the loyalty of his friend he managed to escape and escape from Kazan - and soon he met a hermit who directed him to John.
The hermit turns out to be the same old man who gave the king a magic shield. John, saddened by the prediction of Godlessness, asks him to reveal the truth about the future, saying that he wants to retire to the desert, for the hermit is happier than the monarch. The elder explains to the king the futility of such a desire, because fate itself destined him to bear the burden of the crown. The wise hermit advises not to forget the threat and, punishing: “If you want to be happy, be a truthful Tsar,” leads John to the top of a wonderful mountain, to the temple of prophecy, where he sees the fate of Russia until the new golden age - the reign of Catherine II.
When the king returns with Aley, who has become his faithful friend, the heat subsides and the regiments continue on their way. The strength of the army is growing: under Russian banners More and more peoples flocked, and the fleet safely reached Sviyazhsk. But the peace-loving John decides to first send ambassadors to Kazan with a peace offer.
At first, the Kazan people themselves longed for reconciliation, hoping for Aley’s help. But Godlessness sends Discord to the city. Sagrun, who himself dreamed of the throne, convinced Sumbek to kill Aley and rebelled the people against him. Aley manages to escape, and the anger of the crowd turns on his friend Giray, who was almost executed, but Astalon, one of the contenders for the hand of Sumbeki, having freed Giray, kills his rival Osman and demands the queen as his wife. Sagrun, seeing that the Kazan people are afraid of Astalon, tries to kill him and dies with him. Frightened by the menacing omen, the residents of the city decide to deceive John, and, feigning submission, hand over Sumbek to the Russian ambassadors, supposedly as a pledge of peace.
The suffering caused by the death of her loved one and exile changed the former queen. Arriving to John along with her son and Giray, she renounces the past and wants to be baptized. Her attitude towards Aley also changed: she sincerely fell in love with him. Alei, without losing his former feelings for her, still prefers war to marriage: he wants to take revenge for Girey’s suffering. The generous John accepts Sumbek as a sister and soon sends her to Moscow.
Three days later, Russian soldiers reach the walls of Kazan. Suddenly, without warning, the Horde attack: a bloody slaughter begins. The Russians manage to drive the enemies back into the city. However, at night, four mighty knights, including the beautiful Persian Ramida, having destroyed a guard detachment, almost fall into the Russian camp. Prince Paletsky manages to wound Ramida. But, rushing in pursuit of the knights who were carrying her away from the battlefield, he is captured.
The new Kazan Tsar Ediger, having failed to persuade Paletsky to betray, orders his execution. However, Gidromir, one of the four knights, stops the ruler and challenges the prince to a duel on the following conditions: if three Russian warriors defeat three knights, they will leave the battle, and if not, they will destroy the entire Moscow clan. In the duel, Kurbsky wounds Mirsed, and Ramida, violating the conditions, rushes to help her lover. Then both troops enter the battle. Kurbsky is wounded, and Russian soldiers, seized with a thirst for revenge, at the cost of huge losses, force the Tatars to retreat under the protection of the city walls.
The attacks of the Kazan people are repelled, but for a successful assault the Russians begin to dig undermining in order to destroy the city by blowing it up from the inside. The river that supplied the city with water dries up as a result of the digging. And this is not the only disaster that befell Kazan: the knights, blinded by love for Ramida and jealousy, kill each other, and the Persian woman commits suicide. Then the powerful sorcerer, Ramida’s father, decides to exterminate the Russians himself. With his witchcraft he calls upon the fierce Winter with its snows and whirlwinds for help. But the sacred banner depicting the Savior tames the ferocious Boreas.
The inspired army of John rushes to the assault. Holy signs foretell an imminent victory. The people of Kazan are preparing for defense, but an explosion is heard and the walls of the city turn into ruins. The Russians, led by Kurbsky and Aley, enter the city. The maddened Horde begin to kill each other and those who are trying to stop the massacre. The survivors hit the Russians with arrows and fire. But most of the city has already been taken: Kurbsky and Alei are multiplying their victories, and the Kazan Tsar Ediger with his beautiful wives “has disappeared into an idol.” And here the Russian soldiers are overcome not by weapons, but by greed: forgetting about everything, they begin to plunder Kazan. John is in despair. He is ready to punish them, but Shame, sent by Providence, stops the marauders.
There is one step left until victory. The battle moves to the royal court. Ediger's bodyguards cannot hold back the onslaught and throw themselves from the city wall. The Kazan Tsar, seeing that the war was lost, resorted to deceit: he sent the most beautiful girls in order to seduce them with love. The trick fails. But when Ediger, in despair, tries to commit suicide, the heavenly Spirit appears to him. The shocked king converts to Christianity and becomes a subject of John. Rebellious Kazan, bending its knees, breathes its last breath.
Victory! Faith rejoices, Godlessness is put to shame, and the whole world, filled with divine joy, glorifies the glorious deeds of the Russians. “Russia raised the crowned man, / Since then she began to bloom in glory.”