The author of the work is childhood, adolescence and youth. Early work of L.N. Tolstoy (trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth”, “Sevastopol Stories”). Stages of human maturation

Tolstoy's first book, “Childhood,” together with his last two stories, “Adolescence” (1853) and “Youth” (1857), became his first masterpiece. The story “Youth” was also conceived. The story of the soul of a child, teenager, young man was placed at the center of the narrative. The outwardly simple story about Nikolenka Irteniev opened new horizons for literature. N. G. Chernyshevsky defined the essence of the young writer’s artistic discoveries in two terms: “ dialectic of the soul" And " purity of moral feelings“T.’s discovery was that for him the instrument for studying mental life became the main one among other scientific means. "Dial.d." and “chnch” are not two different features, but a single feature of T.’s approach to people, society, the world. According to him, only internal. The ability of an individual, each being, to move and develop opens the way to morality. Growing. The most important changes occur in the soul and from them changes in the world can occur. " People are like rivers"- a famous aphorism from “Resurrection”. The man has it all, man. flowing matter. This judgment formed the basis of “Childhood”.

The idea of ​​T.'s first book is defined by the characteristic title “Four Epochs of Development.” It was assumed that the internal development of Nikolenka, and in essence of every person, would be traced from childhood to youth. Afterbirth. part of “Youth” was embodied in the stories “Morning of the Landowner”, “Cossacks”. One of T.’s most favorite thoughts is connected with the image of Irtenyev - the thought of the enormous possibilities of a person born for movement. The position of childhood - a happy, irrevocable time - is replaced by the desert of adolescence, when the affirmation of one’s “I” occurs in continuous conflict with the people around him, so that in the new time of youth the world seems divided into two parts: one, illuminated by friendship and spirits. Proximity; the other is morally hostile, even if she is sometimes attracted to herself. At the same time, the accuracy of the final assessments is ensured by “purity of character.” Feelings" by the author.

Entering adolescence and youth N.I. asks questions that are of little interest to his elder brother and father: questions of relations with ordinary people, with Natalya Savishna, with a wide range of characters representing the people in Tolstoy’s narrative. Irteniev does not distinguish himself from this circle, but at the same time does not belong to it. But he had already clearly discovered for himself the truth and beauty of the people. In landscape descriptions, in the image of an old house, in portraits of ordinary people, in stylistic assessments of the narrative lies one of the main ideas of the trilogy- the thought of national art and national way of life as the fundamental basis of historical existence. Descriptions of nature, hunting scenes, pictures of rural life reveal the hero’s native country.

Stages of formation:

1. Childhood. The most important era. It's a happy time, but there is a discrepancy between the inner content and the outer shell of people. Ends with the death of the mother. The theme of a simple person winning in front of the light begins.
2. Adolescence. The motive of the road, the image of home, the feeling of homeland. An atmosphere of general unrest. The hero finds support in the purity of his moral feelings. In N. Savishna-temper. The ideal, the beauty of the people.
3. Youth. The hero is more complex, trying to find harmony. The world is divided into 2 parts (see above)

Tolstoy did not paint a self-portrait, but rather a portrait of a peer who belonged to that generation of Russian people whose youth fell in the middle of the century.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is one of the most famous Russian writers. His most famous novels are “Anna Karenina”, “Sunday”, “War and Peace”, as well as the trilogy “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth”. Many of the great writer’s works were filmed, so in our time we have the opportunity not only to read, but also to see the heroes of the novels with our own eyes. One of the books filmed is the trilogy “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth”, full of interesting events. A brief summary of the novel will help you better understand the problems of the work. Perhaps someone will have a desire to read the novel in full.

Novel “Childhood, adolescence, youth”

Lev Nikolaevich wrote his novel for five years. The work “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth” tells about the life of a boy in different periods of his life. The book describes the experiences, first love, grievances, as well as the feeling of injustice that many boys experience as they grow up. In this article we will talk about the trilogy written by Leo Tolstoy. “Childhood, adolescence, youth” is a work that will definitely not leave anyone indifferent.

“Childhood, adolescence, youth.” Summary. Book one. "Childhood"

The novel begins with a description of Nikolenka Irtenyev, who turned 10 years old some time ago. Karl Ivanovich, the teacher, takes him and his brother to their parents. Nikolenka loves her parents very much. The father announces to the boys that he is taking them with him to Moscow. The children are upset by their father’s decision, Nikolenka likes to live in the village, communicate with Katenka, his first love, and go hunting, and he really doesn’t want to part with his mother. Nikolenka has been living with her grandmother for six months now. On her birthday, he reads poetry to her.

Soon the hero realizes that he is in love with Sonechka, whom he recently met, and confesses this to Volodya. Suddenly his father receives a letter from the village saying that Nikolenka’s mother is sick and asks them to come. They come and pray for her health, but to no avail. After some time, Nikolenka was left without a mother. This left a deep imprint on his soul, since this was the end of his childhood.

Book two. "Adolescence"

The second part of the novel “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth” describes the events that occurred after Nikolenka moved to Moscow with her brother and father. He feels changes in himself and in his attitude towards the world around him. Nikolenka is now able to empathize and sympathize. The boy understands how his grandmother suffers after losing her daughter.

Nikolenka goes deeper and deeper into herself, believing that he is ugly and not worthy of happiness. He is jealous of his handsome brother. Nikolenka's grandmother is told that the children were playing with gunpowder, although it was only lead shot. She is sure that Karl has grown old and is not looking after the children well, so she changes their tutor. It is difficult for children to part with their teacher. But Nikolenka doesn’t like the new French teacher. The boy allows himself to be insolent to him. For some unknown reason, Nikolenka tries to open her father’s briefcase with a key and in the process breaks the key. He thinks that everyone is against him, so he hits the tutor and quarrels with his father and brother. They lock him in a closet and promise to flog him. The boy feels very lonely and humiliated. When he is released, he asks his father for forgiveness. Nikolenka begins to convulse, which plunges everyone into shock. After sleeping for twelve hours, the boy feels better and is pleased that everyone is worried about him.

After some time, Nikolenka’s brother, Volodya, enters the university. Soon their grandmother dies, and the whole family grieves the loss. Nikolenka cannot understand people who fight over her grandmother’s inheritance. He also notices how his father has aged and concludes that with age people become calmer and softer.
When there are several months left before entering the university, Nikolenka begins to prepare intensively. He meets Dmitry Nekhlyudov, Volodya’s acquaintance from university, and they become friends.

Book three. "Youth"

The third part of the novel “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth” tells the story of the time when Nikolenka continues to prepare to enter the university at the Faculty of Mathematics. He is looking for his purpose in life. Soon the young man enters the university, and his father gives him a carriage with a coachman. Nikolenka feels like an adult and tries to light a pipe. He starts to feel nauseous. He tells Nekhlyudov about this incident, who in turn tells him about the dangers of smoking. But the young man wants to imitate Volodya and his friend Dubkov, who smoke, play cards and talk about their love affairs. Nikolenka goes to a restaurant where she drinks champagne. He has a conflict with Kolpikov. Nekhlyudov calms him down.

Nikolai decides to go to the village to visit his mother's grave. He remembers his childhood and thinks about the future. His father marries again, but Nikolai and Vladimir do not approve of his choice. Soon the father begins to get along poorly with his wife.

Studying at the University

While studying at the university, Nikolai meets many people whose meaning in life is only to have fun. Nekhlyudov tries to reason with Nikolai, but he succumbs to the opinion of the majority. Ultimately, Nikolai fails his exams, and Dmitry's consolation is regarded as an insult.

One evening Nikolai finds his notebook with rules for himself, in which he wrote a long time ago. He repents and cries, and later begins to write a new notebook for himself with rules by which he plans to live his whole life, without betraying his principles.

Conclusion

Today we talked about the content of the work written by Leo Tolstoy. “Childhood, adolescence, youth” is a novel with deep meaning. After reading its summary, each reader will be able to draw certain conclusions, despite the fact that he has not read it in full. The novel “Childhood, Adolescence, Youth” teaches us not to isolate ourselves with our experiences, but to be able to sympathize and empathize with other people.

The great Russian writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was very fond of children and youth. In them he saw ideal people, not yet spoiled by the vices and troubles of life. This pure, pristine light illuminates the beginning of his famous trilogy “Childhood.

The author himself acts here as a psychologist.

I noticed that Tolstoy’s little hero overcomes irritation with the world with his love for the people around him. And these people, with their reciprocal love for Nikolenka, help him overcome various temporary negative emotions, as, for example, in the case of the fly.

After the release of the second part of the trilogy, “Adolescence,” N.G. Chernyshevsky wrote: “Extraordinary observation, subtle analysis of mental movements, clarity and poetry in pictures of nature, elegant simplicity are the hallmarks of Count Tolstoy’s talent.”

I got the impression that all six years of Nikolenka Irtenyev’s life passed before my eyes (the reader meets the boy when he turns 10, and leaves when he is 16), but in the trilogy there is no consistent, day after day, description of the life of the heroes. This is a story about just a few but significant episodes.

So, in “Adolescence” the author talks about the saddest days in Nikolenka’s life, when he received a unit, was rude to the teacher, opened his father’s briefcase and broke the key. Tolstoy tells in detail over the course of six chapters how the hero was punished and how his punishment ended.

In “Youth” three days are especially highlighted: the day after entering the university, the day following it, when Nikolenka makes visits, and then his visit to the Nekhlyudov family.

Nikolenka and Nekhlyudov discover a new moral law. But correcting all of humanity turned out to be very difficult, because even sincere and persistent attempts at self-improvement most often failed. Behind all these lofty concepts, ordinary vanity, narcissism, and arrogance were often hidden.

In my opinion, the last part of the trilogy is more devoted not to the throwing of the heroes, but to the author’s attempt to prove to himself the possibility of moral improvement.

In her youth, Nikolenka constantly plays some role with varying success. Either the role of a lover with an eye on the novels he had read, or of a philosopher, since he was little noticed in the world, and with thoughtfulness he could disguise his failure, or of a great original. All this pushed his real feelings and thoughts into the background.

Nikolenka strives to be loved, tries to please. But no matter how much the hero wants to be like the people around him, the author shows that this cannot be done because the world is morally alien to him. These people never created moral values ​​and did not try to follow them, much less suffered from the fact that they could not be realized in life. They, unlike Nikolenka, always used those moral laws that were accepted in their environment and were considered mandatory.

I, as a reader, believe that Nikolenka, despite all her failures, will never stop in her moral quest. It is not for nothing that at the end of the trilogy he again sits down to write the rules of life with the conviction that he will never do anything bad, will never spend a single minute idly and will never change his rules. I understand that this impulse was inherent in the writer himself. Tolstoy either renounced his entire past life, or affirmed the truth that was newly revealed to him. But for us he remained a man who constantly strived for moral self-improvement, full of doubts and contradictions, and therefore real.

The grandmother is a countess, one of the most important figures in the trilogy, as if representing a bygone majestic era (like Prince Ivan Ivanovich). B.'s image is covered with universal reverence and respect. She knows how to use a word or intonation to make clear her attitude towards a person, which for many others is a decisive criterion.

Valakhina Sonechka is the daughter of a friend of the Irtenievs, Mrs. Valakhina. Nikolenka meets her at her grandmother’s birthday and immediately falls in love. Here is his first impression: “...A wonderful twelve-year-old girl in a short open muslin dress, white pantaloons and tiny black shoes emerged from the shrouded person. There was a black velvet ribbon on the little white neck; her head was covered in dark blond curls, which in front went so well with her beautiful dark face, and in the back with her bare shoulders...” He dances a lot with S., makes her laugh in every possible way and is jealous of other boys. In “Youth,” Nikolenka, after a long separation, meets again with S., who has turned ugly, but “the lovely bulging eyes and the bright, good-naturedly cheerful smile were the same.” The matured Nikolenka, whose feelings require food, again becomes interested in her.

Grap Ilinka is the son of a foreigner who once lived with the Irtenievs’ grandfather, owed him something and considered it his duty

send to them I. “A boy of about thirteen, thin, tall, pale, with a bird’s face and a good-natured, submissive expression.” People pay attention to him only when they want to laugh at him. This character - a participant in one of the games of the Ivins and Irtenievs - suddenly becomes the object of general mockery, ending with him crying, and his hunted appearance painfully affects everyone. The narrator's memory of him is associated with remorse and is, according to his admission, the only dark spot of his childhood.

“How did I not come to him, protect him and comfort him?” - he asks himself. Later I., like the narrator, enters the university. Nikolenka admits that he is so used to looking down on him that he is somewhat unpleasant that he is the same student, and he refuses I.’s father’s request to allow his son to spend the day with the Irtenievs. From the moment I entered the university, I., however, leaves Nikolenka’s influence and behaves with constant defiance.

Grisha is a wanderer, a holy fool. “A man of about fifty, with a pale elongated face pitted with smallpox, long gray hair and a sparse reddish beard.”

Very tall. “His voice was rough and hoarse, his movements were hasty and uneven, his speech was meaningless and incoherent (he never used pronouns), but the accents were so touching, and his yellow, ugly face sometimes took on such an openly sad expression that, listening to him, it was impossible to resist from some mixed feeling of regret, fear and sadness.” What is mainly known about him is that he walks barefoot in winter and summer, visits monasteries, gives icons to those he loves, and speaks mysterious words that are taken for predictions.

Epifanova Avdotya Vasilievna - neighbor of the Irtenyevs, then the second wife of Pyotr Aleksandrovich Irtenyev, Nikolenka’s father. The narrator notes her passionate, devoted love for her husband, which, however, does not in the least prevent her from loving to dress beautifully and go out into society. Between her and the young Irtenievs (with the exception of Lyubochka, who fell in love with her stepmother, who reciprocates her feelings) a strange, playful relationship is established, hiding the absence of any relationship.

Nikolenka is surprised at the contrast between the young, healthy, cold, cheerful beauty that E. appears before the guests, and the middle-aged, exhausted, melancholy woman, sloppy and bored without guests. It is her untidiness that deprives her of the narrator’s last respect.

3. - a type of commoner, intelligent, knowledgeable, although not belonging to the category of people comme il faut, which at first evokes in the narrator “not only a feeling of contempt, but also some personal hatred that I felt for them for the fact that, without being comme il faut, they seemed to consider me not only their equal, but even good-naturedly patronized me.” Despite the overwhelming disgust for their unkempt appearance and manners, the narrator feels something good in Z. and his comrades and is drawn to them. He is attracted by knowledge, simplicity, honesty, the poetry of youth and daring. In addition to the abyss of shades that make up the difference in their understanding of life, Nikolenka cannot get rid of the feeling of inequality between him, a wealthy man, and them, and therefore cannot “enter into an even, sincere relationship with them.”

However, gradually he is drawn into their life and once again discovers for himself that the same Z., for example, judges literature better and more clearly than him and in general is not only in no way inferior to him, but even superior, so that the height, with which he, a young aristocrat, looks at Z. and his comrades - Operov, Ikonin and others - is imaginary.

Irtenev Volodya (Vladimir Petrovich) is Nikolenka’s older brother (by a year and several months). The consciousness of his seniority and primacy constantly prompts him to actions that hurt his brother’s pride. Even the condescension and grin that he often bestows on his brother turns out to be a reason for resentment. The narrator characterizes V. as follows: “He was ardent, frank and fickle in his hobbies. Fascinated by the most varied subjects, he devoted himself to them with all his soul.” He emphasizes the “happy, noble and frank character” of V. However, despite occasional and short-lived disagreements or even quarrels, relations between the brothers remain good.

Nikolenka involuntarily gets carried away by the same passions as V., but out of pride she tries not to imitate him. With admiration and a feeling of some envy, Nikolenka describes V.’s admission to the university and the general joy in the house on this occasion.

V. makes new friends - Dubkov and Dmitry Nekhlyudov, with whom he soon diverges. His favorite entertainment with Dubkov is champagne, balls, cards.

The main goal of L. N. Tolstoy is to show the development of a person as an individual during his childhood, adolescence and youth, that is, during those periods of life when a person most fully feels himself in the world, his indissolubility with it, and then when the separation of himself begins from the world and understanding of its environment. Individual stories form a trilogy, the action in them takes place according to the idea, first in the Irtenevs’ estate (“Childhood”), then the world expands significantly (“Adolescence”). In the story “Youth,” the theme of family and home sounds much more muted, giving way to the theme of Nikolenka’s relationship with the outside world. It is no coincidence that with the death of the mother in the first part the harmony of relationships in the family is destroyed, in the second the grandmother dies, taking with her enormous moral strength, and in the third the father remarries a woman whose smile is always the same. The return of former family happiness becomes completely impossible. There is a logical connection between the stories, justified primarily by the writer’s logic: the formation of a person, although divided into certain stages, is actually continuous.

The first-person narration in the trilogy establishes the connection of the work with the literary traditions of the time. In addition, it psychologically brings the reader closer to the hero. And finally, such a presentation of events indicates a certain degree of autobiographical nature of the work. However, it cannot be said that autobiography was the most convenient way to realize a certain idea in a work, since it was precisely this, judging by the statements of the writer himself, that did not allow the original idea to be realized. "LN Tolstoy conceived the work as a tetralogy, that is, he wanted to show the four stages of development of the human personality, but the philosophical views of the writer himself at that time did not fit into the framework of the plot. Why is it an autobiography? The fact is that, as he said N.G. Chernyshevsky, L.N. Tolstoy “extremely carefully studied the types of life of the human spirit in himself,” which gave him the opportunity to “paint pictures of the internal movements of a person.” However, the important thing is that there are actually two main characters in the trilogy: Nikolenka Irteniev. and an adult remembering his childhood, adolescence, youth. Comparison of the views of a child and an adult individual has always been the object of interest of L. N. Tolstoy. And distance in time is simply necessary: ​​L. N. Tolstoy wrote his works about everything that is currently happening. moment he was worried, which means that in the trilogy there should have been a place for an analysis of Russian life in general, and I must say - there was.

Here, the analysis of Russian life is a kind of projection of his own life. To see this, it is necessary to turn to those moments of his life, in which a connection can be traced with the trilogy and other works of Lev Nikolaevich.

Tolstoy was the fourth child in a large noble family. His mother, nee Princess Volkonskaya, died when Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but according to the stories of family members, he had a good idea of ​​“her spiritual appearance”: some of his mother’s traits (brilliant education, sensitivity to art, a penchant for reflection and even portrait resemblance Tolstoy gave Princess Marya Nikolaevna Bolkonskaya ("War and Peace") Tolstoy's father, a participant in the Patriotic War, who was remembered by the writer for his good-natured, mocking character, love of reading, and hunting (served as the prototype for Nikolai Rostov), ​​also died early (1837). studied by a distant relative T. A. Ergolskaya, who had a huge influence on Tolstoy: “she taught me the spiritual pleasure of love.” Childhood memories always remained the most joyful for Tolstoy: family legends, first impressions of the life of a noble estate served as rich material for his works, and were reflected. in the autobiographical story "Childhood".

When Tolstoy was 13 years old, the family moved to Kazan, to the house of a relative and guardian of the children, P. I. Yushkova. In 1844, Tolstoy entered Kazan University at the Department of Oriental Languages ​​of the Faculty of Philosophy, then transferred to the Faculty of Law, where he studied for less than two years: his studies did not arouse any keen interest in him and he passionately indulged in secular entertainment. In the spring of 1847, having submitted a request for dismissal from the university “due to poor health and home circumstances,” Tolstoy left for Yasnaya Polyana with the firm intention of studying the entire course of legal sciences (in order to pass the exam as an external student), “practical medicine,” languages, agriculture, history, geographical statistics, write a dissertation and “achieve the highest degree of excellence in music and painting.”

After a summer in the countryside, disappointed by the unsuccessful experience of managing under new conditions favorable to the serfs (this attempt is depicted in the story “The Morning of the Landowner,” 1857), in the fall of 1847 Tolstoy went first to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg to take candidate exams at the university. His lifestyle during this period often changed: he spent days preparing and passing exams, he devoted himself passionately to music, he intended to start an official career, he dreamed of joining a horse guards regiment as a cadet. Religious sentiments, reaching the point of asceticism, alternated with carousing, cards, and trips to the gypsies. In the family he was considered “the most trifling fellow,” and he was able to repay the debts he incurred then only many years later. However, it was precisely these years that were colored by intense introspection and struggle with oneself, which is reflected in the diary that Tolstoy kept throughout his life. At the same time, he had a serious desire to write and the first unfinished artistic sketches appeared.

In 1851, his elder brother Nikolai, an officer in the active army, persuaded Tolstoy to go together to the Caucasus. For almost three years, Tolstoy lived in a Cossack village on the banks of the Terek, traveling to Kizlyar, Tiflis, Vladikavkaz and participating in military operations (at first voluntarily, then he was recruited). The Caucasian nature and the patriarchal simplicity of Cossack life, which struck Tolstoy in contrast with the life of the noble circle and with the painful reflection of a person in an educated society, provided material for the autobiographical story “Cossacks” (1852-63). Caucasian impressions were also reflected in the stories “Raid” (1853), “Cutting Wood” (1855), as well as in the later story “Hadji Murat” (1896-1904, published in 1912). Returning to Russia, Tolstoy wrote in his diary that he fell in love with this “wild land, in which the two most opposite things - war and freedom - are so strangely and poetically combined.” In the Caucasus, Tolstoy wrote the story "Childhood" and sent it to the magazine "Sovremennik" without revealing his name (published in 1852 under the initials L.N.; together with the later stories "Adolescence", 1852-54, and "Youth", 1855 -57, compiled an autobiographical trilogy). Tolstoy's literary debut immediately brought real recognition.

In 1854, Tolstoy was assigned to the Danube Army in Bucharest. Boring life at the headquarters soon forced him to transfer to the Crimean Army, to besieged Sevastopol, where he commanded a battery on the 4th bastion, showing rare personal courage (awarded the Order of St. Anne and medals). In Crimea, Tolstoy was captivated by new impressions and literary plans (he was planning, among other things, to publish a magazine for soldiers); here he began to write a series of “Sevastopol stories”, which were soon published and had enormous success (even Alexander II read the essay “Sevastopol in December” ). Tolstoy's first works amazed literary critics with the boldness of his psychological analysis and a detailed picture of the “dialectics of the soul” (N. G. Chernyshevsky). Some of the ideas that appeared during these years allow one to discern in the young artillery officer the late Tolstoy the preacher: he dreamed of “founding a new religion” - “the religion of Christ, but purified of faith and mystery, a practical religion.”

In November 1855, Tolstoy arrived in St. Petersburg and immediately entered the Sovremennik circle (N. A. Nekrasov, I. S. Turgenev, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. A. Goncharov, etc.), where he was greeted as a “great hope of Russian literature" (Nekrasov). Tolstoy took part in dinners and readings, in the establishment of the Literary Fund, became involved in the disputes and conflicts of writers, but felt like a stranger in this environment, which he described in detail later in “Confession” (1879-82): “These people disgusted me, and I was disgusted with myself." In the fall of 1856, Tolstoy, having retired, went to Yasnaya Polyana, and at the beginning of 1857 he went abroad. He visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany (Swiss impressions are reflected in the story “Lucerne”), returned to Moscow in the fall, then to Yasnaya Polyana.

In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the village, helped to establish more than 20 schools in the vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana, and this activity fascinated Tolstoy so much that in 1860 he went abroad for the second time to get acquainted with the schools of Europe. Tolstoy traveled a lot, spent a month and a half in London (where he often saw A.I. Herzen), was in Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, studied popular pedagogical systems, which generally did not satisfy the writer. Tolstoy outlined his own ideas in special articles, arguing that the basis of education should be “the freedom of the student” and the rejection of violence in teaching. In 1862 he published the pedagogical magazine "Yasnaya Polyana" with books for reading as an appendix, which became in Russia the same classic examples of children's and folk literature as those compiled by him in the early 1870s. "ABC" and "New ABC". In 1862, in the absence of Tolstoy, a search was carried out in Yasnaya Polyana (they were looking for a secret printing house).

However, about the trilogy.

According to the author’s plan, “Childhood”, “Adolescence” and “Youth”, as well as the story “Youth”, which, however, was not written, were supposed to make up the novel “Four Epochs of Development”. Showing step by step the formation of Nikolai Irtenyev's character, the writer carefully examines how his hero's environment influenced him - first a narrow family circle, and then an increasingly wider circle of his new acquaintances, peers, friends, rivals. In his first completed work, dedicated to the early and, as Tolstoy argued, the best, most poetic time of human life - childhood, he writes with deep sadness that rigid barriers have been erected between people, separating them into many groups, categories, circles and circles. The reader has no doubt that it will not be easy for Tolstoy’s young hero to find a place and a job in a world living according to the laws of alienation. The further course of the story confirms this assumption. Adolescence turned out to be a particularly difficult time for Irtenyev. Drawing this “era” in the hero’s life, the writer decided to “show the bad influence” on Irtenyev of “the vanity of the teachers and the clash of family interests.” In the scenes of Irtenyev’s university life from the story “Youth”, his new acquaintances and friends - student commoners - are depicted with sympathy, their mental and moral superiority over the aristocratic hero, who professed the code of a secular man, is emphasized.

The sincere desire of the young Nekhlyudov, who is the main character in the story “The Morning of the Landowner,” to benefit his serfs looks like the naive dream of a dropout student who, for the first time in his life, saw how hard his “baptized property” lives.

At the very beginning of Tolstoy’s writing career, the theme of the disunity of people powerfully invades his work. In the trilogy “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth” the ethical inconsistency of the ideals of a secular person, an aristocrat “by inheritance” is clearly revealed. The writer’s Caucasian military stories (“Raid”, “Cutting Wood”, “Demoted”) and stories about the defense of Sevastopol amazed readers not only with the harsh truth about the war, but also with his bold denunciation of aristocratic officers who came to the active army for ranks, rubles and awards . In “The Morning of the Landowner” and “Polykushka” the tragedy of the Russian pre-reform village is shown with such force that the immorality of serfdom became even more obvious to honest people.

In the trilogy, each chapter contains a certain thought, an episode from a person’s life. Therefore, the construction within the chapters is subordinated to internal development, the conveyance of the hero’s state. Tolstoy's long phrases, layer by layer, level by level, build a tower of human sensations and experiences. L. N. Tolstoy shows his heroes in those conditions and in those circumstances where their personality can manifest itself most clearly. The hero of the trilogy finds himself facing death, and here all conventions no longer matter. The hero’s relationship with ordinary people is shown, that is, the person is, as it were, tested by the “nationality”. In small but incredibly bright inclusions, moments are woven into the fabric of the narrative in which we are talking about something that goes beyond the understanding of a child, which can only be known to the hero from the stories of other people, for example, war. Contact with something unknown, as a rule, turns into almost a tragedy for a child, and memories of such moments come to mind primarily in moments of despair. For example, after a quarrel with St.-Jerme, Nikolenka begins to sincerely consider herself illegitimate, recalling snatches of other people’s conversations.

Of course, L.N. Tolstoy masterfully uses such traditional Russian literature methods of presenting a person’s characteristics as describing a portrait of a hero, depicting his gesture, manner of behavior, since all of these are external manifestations of the inner world. The speech characteristics of the heroes of the trilogy are extremely important. The refined French language is good for people comme il faut, a mixture of German and broken Russian characterizes Karl Ivanovich. It is also not surprising that the German’s heartfelt story is written in Russian with occasional inclusions of German phrases.

So, we see that L. N. Tolstoy’s trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth" is built on a constant comparison of the inner and outer world of a person. The autobiographical nature of the trilogy is obvious.

The main goal of the writer, of course, was to analyze what constitutes the essence of each person. And in the skill of carrying out such analysis, in my opinion, L.N. Tolstoy has no equal.