The theoretical significance of Goncharov's novel is an ordinary story. Goncharov “Ordinary History” - analysis

Elements of satire in “Ordinary History”. Despite Goncharov’s critically noted feature as an objective artist, he loved to introduce a satirical element into his works. And in each of his major works this element of satire is found. Thus, in his first novel “ An ordinary story“The author does not limit himself to an objective reproduction of pictures of urban and rural life and their types, but compares two figures, each of which highlights the somewhat comical nature of the other, and in their depiction the author makes it possible to notice his somewhat sarcastic attitude towards them.

An ordinary story. Movie. Part 1

In the first half of the novel, one can feel the author’s slight mockery of the sentimentalism and “beautiful soul” of young Aduev. An exalted young man, rushing around with his exceptional, poetic figure, brought up in the lazy freedom of the countryside, comes to St. Petersburg. The young man imagines arms open for him everywhere, recognition of his genius, fame and incense of fame; he speaks in a high style and writes sentimental poems and stories. All the sobriety and dry efficiency of the capital city is embodied for the young romantic in his uncle, the elder Aduev. The venerable official, with his neatness, sobriety of views and efficiency, sets off the absurd enthusiasm of his nephew, which the author laughs at.

The comedy of the collision of a rural romantic with the sober metropolitan reality is emphasized by the memory of patriarchal relations in the village, of the mother’s worries about feeding and comfortably settling her son. But the sober official is not the author’s ideal; in the second half of the novel, the entire foundation of this positive person collapses. He, who preached to his nephew the need to curry favor, marry a rich woman, etc., sees that he himself, having achieved all external blessings, lost true, spiritual happiness in the pursuit of them. Young Aduev, who ultimately fulfills his uncle’s behests, has abandoned his pompous ideals, acquired a paunch and a rich bride, and wears an order with great dignity, is depicted in a rather comical form.

Thus, both types, the enthusiastic romantic and the dry practitioner, served the author as an object for reproducing the artistic and satirical.

Household paintings. Young Aduev. But these two figures are drawn against a background of wide epic paintings life. The author made one feel the quiet serenity of village life, in the bosom of which the young dreamer Aduev grew up and was brought up; the situation of village life is described in detail, and the details are not piled up chaotically, but give an overall harmonious and full picture village life. In the same way, in the city, following the various experiences of his hero, the author calmly and impartially depicts the figures and appearances of the people around him, describing the hobbies and disappointments of young Aduev. He is disappointed in everything: in his literary dreams, and in love, and in people. He seeks solace in carousing and finally decides to return to the village, saying goodbye to the capital in a lush rhetorical monologue. “Farewell,” the disappointed dreamer addresses the city, “the magnificent tomb of deep, strong, gentle and warm movements of the soul.”

An ordinary story. Movie. Part 2

The author's sarcastic attitude towards the young hero and his romantic dreams is justified in the second half of the novel, showing that poetry and daydreaming were not the main properties of his nature, but were externally borrowed from fashionable literary movements modernity. Plunging back into rural peace and a worry-free lazy life, young Aduev returns to the city completely transformed. He lost his daydreaming and, in his enthusiasm, acquired in return a sober and practical view of things, settled down and lived like everyone else, submitting to ordinary worldly wisdom.

The general conclusion of the novel “An Ordinary Story” can be considered pessimistic. Poetry and high hobbies turn out to be something superficial, external, and cannot withstand the resistance of everyday practicality; but the latter does not provide a lasting foundation human life, because the acquisition of external benefits occurs at the expense of the most important thing: happiness and mental satisfaction in life.

But Goncharov does not impose any conclusions on the reader: as an impartial artist, he described what exists, what he saw around him in life. His task was to give readers a complete, harmonious and truthful image. Both types - the phrase-mongering dreamer and the dry bureaucrat - were strikingly striking at that time, and the artist aptly depicted them.

Analysis of the novel “An Ordinary Story”

In “Ordinary History,” every person at any stage of his development will find the necessary lesson for himself. The naivety and sentimentality of Sashenka Aduev is funny in a business atmosphere. His pathos is false, and the loftiness of his speeches and ideas about life are far from reality. But the uncle cannot be called an ideal either: a efficient breeder, a respected person in society, he is afraid of sincere living feelings and in his practicality goes too far: he is afraid to show sincere warm feelings for his wife, which leads her to a nervous breakdown. There is a lot of irony in the uncle's teachings, but the simple-minded nephew takes them too directly - first arguing with them, and then agreeing.
Deprived of false ideals, Alexander Aduev does not acquire genuine ideals - he simply becomes a calculating vulgarity. Goncharov’s irony is aimed at the fact that such a path is no exception. Youthful ideals disappear like “hairs” from a son’s head, which Aduev Jr.’s mother so laments. This is an “ordinary story.” There are not many people who can withstand the pressure big city and bourgeois society on their mind and soul. At the end of the novel, we see that the cynic uncle is much more humane than his capable student nephew. Alexander Aduev has turned into a business man, for whom nothing is more important than career and money. And St. Petersburg expects new victims - naive and inexperienced.

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“Ordinary History” - a novel about the problem of choosing between the material and spiritual components of human existence

Collected works of I.A. Goncharov, who wrote for his long life quite a few articles, essays, letters, sketches for unfinished works, amounting to eight very weighty volumes. However, in the history of Russian literature, this writer remained the author of “only” three novels with “O”: “Ordinary History”, “Oblomov” and “Precipice”. Goncharov himself believed that any novel is an exhaustive description of life, in which each new work should provide a new formula of human existence compared to the previous one: “ True work art can only depict established life in some image, in physiognomy, so that the people themselves are repeated in numerous types under the influence of certain principles, orders, education, so that some permanent and definite image-form of life appears and so that the people of this forms appeared in many types or instances with known rules and habits. And this, of course, takes time. Only that which leaves a noticeable feature in life, that which enters, so to speak, into its capital, its future foundation, is included in a work of art that leaves a lasting mark on literature.”

Thus, it turns out that each of the three novels by I.A. Goncharov, presenting to the reader his own, “refined” version of the “formula of being,” can be perceived as part of a trilogy, and their study, from our point of view, must be united by a common task, the formulation of a certain “cross-cutting” question, a definition general theme, connecting three Goncharov masterpieces. This theme is the search for an ideal, a standard of life.

The plot of the writer’s debut novel, “An Ordinary Story,” centers on the fate of a young man facing the problem of choice. life path. The problem of choosing between the material and spiritual components of human existence, searching for a harmonious combination of them turns out to be relevant for today’s “young people pondering life.”

Let us ask ourselves the question: where does a young man get such “concepts” with which he looks like a black sheep in St. Petersburg, what is the history of the formation of his character, his “spiritual biography”.

The “spiritual biography” of Aduev Jr., which explains the character of Alexander and the origins of his worldview, protracted infantilism, is connected with the fact that he grew up and was brought up in a village, a province, he was shaped by a way of life that is commonly called patriarchal. Uncle calls the village with its nature, with its freedom of morals, simplicity and unpretentiousness of human and public relations"gracious stagnation." Alexander had a special influence on his mother, her concern for her son’s happiness, her simple-minded instructions, the very patriarchal atmosphere of her home, and her indulgence of “Sasha” in all his desires. Let us note that “Alexander was spoiled, but not spoiled by his home life.” Studying at a provincial university was also significant, where Alexander “studied diligently and a lot,” as a result of which he knew “a dozen sciences and half a dozen ancient and modern languages,” and also received sublime ideas about the world and people.

So, the Russian provincial way of life formed a pampered young man, accustomed to “the caresses of his mother, the reverence of the nanny and all the servants,” but not spoiled, who considers friendship, love, and creativity to be the unshakable foundations of human existence. There's nothing wrong with that. It is fraught with future tragedy that these values ​​in his mind acquire “hyperbolic” proportions. The epithets that accompany the nouns “friendship”, “love”, “talent” in the hero’s speech testify to this. Friendship is “heroic”, love is “eternal”. With such an ideological arsenal, the hero sets off to conquer the capital, dreaming “of the benefits he will bring to the fatherland.”

However, the change from a provincial way of life to a metropolitan one (the path chosen by Alexander) can also be read in Goncharov’s novel as a universal situation: a young man, in search of an application of strength, having matured, leaves his father’s house, wanting to realize himself “in a wide space.” This is how “brilliant Petersburg” seems to him. But Aduev Jr. even in the capital dreams of living according to the same laws as in the provinces, which, in turn, allows us to say that the hero is hopelessly behind the times, is guided by archaic ideas, thinks like “under Tsar Pea” ( cf. Stolz’s words addressed to Ilya Ilyich Oblomov: “You reason like an ancient man”).

So, the roots of Alexander Aduev’s idyllic worldview, seasoned with romanticism, are in the past, in the life of the estate. The environment projects its essential traits onto the hero - both good and bad: selfishness towards his mother, towards Sophia - from her Alexander expects fidelity, while he calls his feeling “little love”, considers it something like a rehearsal for the future "colossal passion" Thus, all the forces of the patriarchal structure “work in harmony to forever turn a person into a spoiled child... The connection between provincial morals and romantic ideal human relations clarifies the basis of the bizarre mutual transitions of beauty and egocentrism, which are constantly found in romantically to life. The basis of this peculiar dialectic turns out to be infantilism: romanticism is understood by Goncharov as the position of an adult child who has retained childhood illusions and childish egoism in the world of “adult” affairs, relationships and responsibilities. Goncharov sees in romantic life position purely childish misunderstanding of the real laws of the world, purely childish ignorance own strength and opportunities and, finally, purely childhood wish so that the world is the way you want it to be. And he consistently motivates all this by the influence of the patriarchal structure.” In addition, we note that the image of the Rooks in “Ordinary History” anticipates the description of the homeland of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov. The hero of Goncharov’s next novel asks the question: “Why am I like this?” The answer to it will be the image of Oblomovka. “Blessed Oblomovka” in the lives of both heroes determined the leading features of their psychology. (However - in parentheses - we note that in comparison with Oblomov, Alexander is striking in his narrowness of interests and poverty of mental activity. The hero’s romantic dreams are read, among other things, as an immaturity of the mind, an undemanding soul. The author’s irony in relation to Aduev Jr. is especially obvious in the first pages of the novel (But, note, already in the second chapter the author “delegates” the role of the ironist to his uncle.)

The province is opposed to St. Petersburg - as a completely different image, a different style of life. In one of the episodes of the novel, the uncle, listening to his nephew, exclaims: “Oh, province! Oh, Asia! The oppositions “province - capital”, Asia - Europe, East - West, contemplation - activity, idealism - pragmatism, romanticism - realism show the duality of Russian life and existence in the era of the creation of the novel. And this could not but be reflected in “Ordinary History”. The very geography of Russia, its position between East and West, Europe and Asia, contributes to the fact that in Russian culture and social sphere“Pro-Western” and “Pro-Eastern” sentiments are constantly in conflict, and the time of the creation of the novel is characterized by an intensification of the struggle between Westerners and Slavophiles. Thus, each of the heroes of Goncharov’s novel offers his own recipe for the world order. We also draw attention to the fact that each of the spheres of life depicted by Goncharov in the novel (similar to how it will be in “Oblomov”) receives a figurative expression in words-“signs”, words-symbols: “business”, “all sorts of rubbish”, “yawned”, “career and fortune”, “with calculation” - uncles. To characterize the nephew’s worldview, such words as “yellow flowers”, “material signs of immaterial relationships”, “hugs”, “sincere outpourings”, “talent” are significant.

Often characters characterize the same objects and phenomena in different ways, for example: “material signs of immaterial relationships” Aduev Sr. calls “all sorts of rubbish”, “career and fortune”, “business” in the consciousness of this hero is opposed to “sincere outpourings” and etc.

Why is it so alien to my uncle? spiritual world nephew? The fact is that from the village Pyotr Ivanovich ended up in St. Petersburg, where he made his way through the service without guardianship or protection: “At first I whole year He served without pay..."; he worked to achieve comfort and material well-being (“business brings money, and money brings comfort”) and married only when he realized that he could provide his wife with a comfortable existence. Aduev achieved everything himself and is proud of it. In Pyotr Ivanovich’s youth there was also a romantic infatuation, a “first tender love”, evidence of which we find in the ending of the novel: and he “loved<…>, cried<…>over the lake<…>was jealous, raging" and "plucked yellow flowers." However, later he denied himself the right to love and forgot how to feel.

The elder Aduev is brilliantly characterized by the phrase he said after Alexander’s breakup with Nadenka Lyubetskaya: “He laid out the whole theory of love in the palm of his hand, and offered money<…>, and tried with dinner and wine,” and Alexander “just roars.” These words succinctly and accurately convey the mental “structure” of Pyotr Aduev and reveal in Pyotr Ivanovich a pragmatic, skeptical person, a hero distinguished by spiritual blindness and deafness. He is deaf to living life, the life of the soul; he once deliberately abandoned it in the name of “business” and “comfort”. The hero loves “with calculation,” and makes friends, and lives... Shattering his nephew’s dreams of “eternal love” and “heroic friendship,” the uncle acts as a tempter, a kind of modern Mephistopheles (the situation of temptation will also be found in “Oblomov”). How does the uncle “tempt” his nephew? Comfort. Let us also pay attention to what phonetic associations the surname Aduev evokes. Motifs of demonism, the “hellish cold” exuded by the uncle, are also found in the novel.

So, we will not find a single common point in the views of uncle and nephew in the first part of “Ordinary History.” Let's add to this the opinion of critic and literary scholar V.M. Markovich: “At Goncharov’s<…>two “terrible extremes” collide: “one is enthusiastic to the point of extravagance, the other is icy to the point of bitterness.” Both points of view are marked by dogmatism and fanaticism, both assert themselves aggressively, with absolute intolerance of dissent.<...>. It is obvious that we are faced with individuals who have been formed in a certain way and are unable to change without some fatal losses for them. For each of the heroes, going beyond the limits of his original position means self-destruction and such transformations that, in essence, are equivalent to the death of one person and the appearance of another. This inevitability is demonstrated by the epilogue, and it is explained by the system of motivations that connects the points of view of the uncle and nephew with the formative influence of two ways of life. Goncharov rediscovers at the everyday level tragic truth about the “two-worldness” of Russia, once discovered by the author of “Onegin” in the sphere of spiritual culture. The two ways of life that were presented to the reader in the novel of the 40s are precisely two worlds in which people live differently and for different reasons. Although their difference is not as deep as that which separated the worlds of Onegin and Tatyana from each other, we are faced with the equally obvious impossibility of bringing together and uniting opposites. This is what motivates the sharpness of the dialogic conflict in “Ordinary History.”<…>The “new order” and “gracious stagnation” do not communicate with each other in any way: according to Herzen’s expression (which, however, refers to a different situation), “when moving from the old world to the new, you cannot take anything with you.”

The motif of time passing is one of the most important in the novel (“Two weeks have passed...”, “About two years have passed...”, “About a year has passed since those described in last chapter the first part of the scenes and incidents...", "Four years after Alexander's second arrival in St. Petersburg..."). During the eight years spent in St. Petersburg, Alexander gained experience of life in the capital, served, experienced three love interests, became disillusioned and lost faith. The test of love is a traditional means of characterizing a hero in Russian literature. For Aduev Jr., love became not only a source of disappointment, but also the stages of his moral evolution. The development of Alexander's love relationships with the three women depicted in the novel is nothing more than milestones on his path to healing from a romantic “illness” - the idealization of reality in the spirit of a patriarchal idyll. Let us note that, according to the author himself, the readers in the first part of the novel are presented with a type of romantic dreamer, “all the idle, dreamy and affective side of old morals with the usual impulses of youth - to the high, great, graceful, to effects, with a thirst to express it in crackling prose, most of all in verse.” Typification of the phenomena of reality is a feature of the works of the “natural school,” and the female figures of the novel, first of all, Nadenka Lyubetskaya, are also a reflection of the phenomena of the time: “Nadenka, the girl, the object of Aduev’s love,” also came out as a reflection of her time. She is no longer an unconditionally submissive daughter to the will of any parents.<…>. She fell in love with Aduev without asking and almost does not hide it from her mother or is silent only for the sake of decency, considering that she has the right to dispose of her own life in her own way. inner world <…>. All she had to see was that young Aduev was not a force, that everything that she had seen a thousand times in all the other young men with whom she danced and flirted a little was repeated in him. She listened to his poetry for a minute. Writing poetry was then a diploma for the intelligentsia. She expected that strength and talent lay there. But it turned out that he only writes passable poetry, but no one knows about them, and he is also sulking to himself at the count because he is simple, smart and behaves with dignity. She went over to the side of the latter: this was the conscious step of the Russian girl so far - silent emancipation, a protest against the authority of her mother, which was helpless for her. But this is where this emancipation ended. She realized, but did not turn her consciousness into action, she stopped in ignorance, since the very moment of the era was a moment of ignorance.<…>And indeed, the Russian girl did not know how to act consciously and rationally in this or that case. She only vaguely felt that it was possible and time for her to protest against her parents giving her away in marriage, and she could only, unconsciously of course, like Nadenka, declare this protest, rejecting one and moving her feelings to another.

This is where I left Nadenka. I no longer needed her as a type...<…>. Many people asked me what happened to her next?<…>. Look in “Oblomov” - Olga is a transformed Nadenka of the next era.” This last remark by Goncharov is an indirect confirmation that the main female type has not yet been drawn, that the author’s address to it is yet to come.

Let's return to the hero. How do the character’s behavior and feelings differ in each of the three love “plots” described in “An Ordinary Story”? The “nerve” of Alexander’s experiences and feelings at the moment of each of these hobbies can be extremely succinctly described with the words: “holy feelings” - “boredom” - “temptation”.

Alexander perceives the outcome of his relationship with Nadenka as a catastrophe, a tragedy, curses her and his rival count, and is ready to die of despair. A year later, “the true sadness passed,” but the hero “was sorry to part with her.” Goncharov further notes with subtle irony: “He somehow liked to play the role of a sufferer. He was quiet, important, vague, like a man who, in his words, withstood the blow of fate.”

Love for Yulia, which gave Alexander hope for the resurrection of his soul, gradually, over time, turns under the pen of Goncharov almost into a farce: “They continued to systematically revel in bliss.” This feeling, devoid of poetry, faded away on its own, and the reason for its loss was not the corroding skepticism of his uncle, not the betrayal of his beloved, but habit, boredom. It is here that the words “yawned” and “yawning” are increasingly repeated on the pages of the novel.

And finally, the intrigue with Lisa. Here there is no longer any talk of “eternal love”, but there are “slender waist”, “leg”, “luxurious shoulders”, “curl” depicted by the helpful imagination of the hero. (I can’t help but remember another romantic - “poor Lensky”, to Onegin’s question “Why is Olga your frisky?” He answered: “Oh, dear, how prettier // Olga’s shoulders are, what a chest! // What a soul!..”) . “He is disappointed” - this is Uncle Alexander’s verdict. “Boredom” drives the hero to the village, he leaves the capital for a year and a half in order to appear before the reader again “four years after his second visit<…>to St. Petersburg" in a new capacity - a successful official and groom

What caused the mental crisis experienced by Alexander? "Who is guilty?"

In the hero’s opinion, it was primarily his uncle’s “lessons” that became disastrous for him: “Exactly, uncle, you have nothing to be surprised at.”<…>you helped circumstances a lot to make me what I am now<…>. You explained to me<…>theory of love, deception, betrayal, cooling<…>. I knew all this before I began to love<…>. You rejected friendship and called it a habit<…>. I loved people<…>. And you showed me what they are worth. Instead of guiding my heart in affections, you taught me not to feel, but to dissect, consider and beware of people: I looked at them - and stopped loving them!

Alexander names among the “culprits” of his drama St. Petersburg with its “new order,” where he did not get the opportunity to realize his dreams and plans, where he “lost trust in happiness and life and grew old in soul.” If Aduev Jr. had stayed in the village, he, according to his own statement, could have avoided disappointments and would have been happy.

It would seem that the point of view of a nephew who realized that the path he had chosen was associated with the inevitable loss of ideal, harmony, dreams, and who received a harsh punishment in St. Petersburg life lesson, can be read as close to the author's. At least in the hero’s letters from the village, according to V.M. Markovich, “the author’s voice is heard and the author’s idea of ​​life emerges, which for the reader is equal to the truth.” The reader is already ready to accept the version that the “new order” has a detrimental effect on the destinies of romantically minded young people, preventing them from realizing their ideal aspirations, but Goncharov does not allow this reader’s impression to take hold.

The uncle, speaking about Alexander’s inability for proper “development,” blames patriarchal upbringing, remarking: “he would have gotten used to<…>, yes, he was already very spoiled in the village by his aunt, yes yellow flowers" From his point of view, it was the atmosphere of “blessed stagnation” that nourished the hero’s soul that did not allow his nephew to become “on par with the century.”

And finally, at some point, an accusation against Alexander himself comes from the lips of Lizaveta Alexandrovna: “Peter Ivanovich! Yes, he is to blame a lot!<…>. But you had the right not to listen to him... and you would be happy in your marriage...” “Which version is supported by the author’s objective narration and the objective development of the plot?” Yes - to one degree or another - everything! Each of the motivations has the right to exist.

Faith in “eternal love,” contrary to the “sad predictions” of his uncle, does not leave Alexander during his infatuation with Nadenka, but love for Yulia leaves the hero’s heart on its own, because Pyotr Ivanovich does not interfere at all in the relationship between his nephew and Yulia Tafaeva.

Life in the village, where Alexander dreamed of future “heroic friendship” and “ eternal love“, also left its mark on the character of the hero: he prepared himself for them and failed to accept life as it appeared to him in “cold, brilliant” St. Petersburg.

And finally, in her own way, Lizaveta Aleksandrovna was right in placing the blame for the collapse of youthful ideals and hopes on Alexander Aduev himself: he could not listen to the “sad predictions of the elder Aduev, live “with his own mind,” and resist circumstances.

But besides these motivations embedded in the structure of the novel, there is at least one more, so to speak, “supra-objective” one - the hero’s maturation, the transition from a tender, “pink” age to maturity. Pushkin’s lines can be attributed to Alexander Aduev almost without correction:

Blessed is he who was young from his youth, Blessed is he who matured in time, Who gradually knew how to endure the cold of life Over the years... But it’s sad to think that youth was given to us in vain, That they cheated on it all the time, That it deceived us; What are ours best wishes That our fresh dreams have decayed in quick succession, Like rotten leaves in autumn...

If Alexander had matured “on time”, preserved his “best desires” and “fresh dreams” - the universal laws of the transition from age to age would have occurred in his fate less painfully, their consequences would have been less catastrophic. Goncharov’s hero lacked wisdom and patience, and here Pushkin comes to mind again:

Will I retain contempt for fate, Will I carry towards it the inflexibility and patience of my proud youth?

This is perhaps the most important question in the life of every young person. And Russian literature has repeatedly presented it to its readers. We present here a fragment of Plyushkin’s chapter “ Dead souls": "...anything can happen to a person. Today's fiery young man would recoil in horror if they showed him his own portrait in old age. Take with you on the journey, emerging from the soft youthful years into stern, embittering courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them on the road, you will not pick them up later!

The ending of the novel “An Ordinary Story” caused a lot of controversy. Let us recall the opinion of V.G. Belinsky: “...we do not recognize the hero of the novel in the epilogue: this face is completely false, unnatural.<…>Romantics like this are never made positive people. The author would rather have the right to make his hero die in the village game in apathy and laziness, than to force him to serve profitably in St. Petersburg and marry with a large dowry.<…>. The ending of the novel invented by the author spoils the impression of this entire wonderful work, because it is unnatural and false.”

The epilogue of the novel turns out to be all the more unexpected for those who are ready to join the critic’s opinion. Here the narrative makes a completely unpredictable “somersault”: Aduev Sr., for whom “business” was the main value, is convinced from his own experience that his life’s credo has failed, that inattention on his part destroyed his young wife. Now Pyotr Ivanovich appears before us disappointed and unhappy. And yesterday’s romantic turned into a vulgarity and a careerist, “in a word, he screwed up the matter.” But this is not the end of “Ordinary History”.

Final scene. The two heroes participating in this scene are like twins. Before us again is that Pyotr Ivanovich whom we saw at the beginning of the novel, and new Alexander, who acquired the features of his uncle, becoming more rationalist and pragmatist than Aduev Sr. himself. Thus, Goncharov does not allow either one or the other life position to gain a foothold in the reader’s consciousness, leaving the ending open. From here - the threads to the new novel, to Oblomov.

What is the “ordinariness” of the story told by Goncharov? "Real Russian society, as one becomes convinced artistic research Goncharov, offers a person only extremes: either an escape from reality, or its complete subordination to the latest fetishes.<…>. Taking into account this cruel logic, Alexander’s final metamorphosis is natural and logical. As Goncharov later sadly stated, “between reality and ideal lies<…>an abyss over which a bridge has not yet been found, and will hardly ever be built.”

Thus, we have the right to talk about the unity of the concrete historical and the universal in “Ordinary History.” And, despite the “closedness”, “implicitness” of the author’s position in the novel as a whole, despite the external impartiality of the narrative, we catch in the novel a hint of the result of the author’s study of the situation. Main question novel (and Russian life in general in the 40s): “How can a person live?” - that is, the question about the “norm”, about the ideal and reality, about the correlation between the material and spiritual components of human existence. According to V.A. Nedzvetsky, “one cannot help but see that the very relationship between personality and reality in the broad sense of this concept is ultimately transformed by the author of Ordinary History into the relationship between the ideal and life as such.” And this is a timeless question, an eternal question, and in Goncharov’s first novel it was only posed. This is the result of Goncharov’s first novel and the beginning of a new one.

Composition

The writer worked on “An Ordinary Story” for three years. In an autobiographical article “An Extraordinary History” (1875-1878), he wrote: “The novel was conceived in 1844, written in 1845, and in 1846 I had a few chapters left to finish.” Goncharov read his “Extraordinary History” to Belinsky for several evenings in a row. Belinsky was delighted with the new talent, who performed so brilliantly. Before giving his work “for judgment” to Belinsky, Goncharov read it several times in the friendly literary circle of the Maykovs. Before appearing in print, the novel underwent many corrections and alterations.

Recalling the late 40s, the dark time of Nicholas’s reign when advanced Russian literature played a huge role in the fight against the feudal-serf reaction, Goncharov wrote: “Serfdom, corporal punishment, oppression of the authorities, lies of social and social prejudices. family life, rudeness, savagery of morals among the masses - this is what stood in line in the struggle and what the main forces of the Russian intelligentsia of the thirties and forties were directed towards.”

“Ordinary History” showed that Goncharov was a writer sensitive to the interests of his time. The work reflects the changes and shifts that took place in the life of feudal Russia in 1830-1840. calling for the fight against “all-Russian stagnation”, for work for the good of the fatherland, Goncharov passionately searched around him for those forces, those people who could carry out the tasks facing Russian life.

The essence of the pseudo-romantic worldview inherent in a significant part of the idealistic intelligentsia of the 1930s, divorced from reality, was revealed by Goncharov in the image of the main character of the novel, Alexander Aduev.
Romantic perception of life, sublime abstract dreams of glory and exploits, of the extraordinary, poetic impulses - who did not, to some extent, go through all this in their youth, in the “era of youthful unrest.” But Goncharov’s merit as an artist is that he showed how these youthful dreams and illusions were distorted and disfigured by the lordly-serf upbringing.

Young Aduev knows about grief and troubles only “by ear” - “life smiles at him from the shrouds.” Idleness and ignorance of life “prematurely” developed “heartfelt inclinations” and excessive daydreaming in Aduev. Before us is one of those “romantic sloths,” barchuks who are accustomed to blithely living off the labor of others. Young Aduev sees the purpose and happiness of life not in work and creativity (work seemed strange to him), but in an “exalted existence.” “Silence... stillness... blessed stagnation” reigns on the Aduev estate. But in the estate he does not find a field for himself. And Aduev leaves to “seek happiness,” “to make a career and fortune - to St. Petersburg.” All the falsity of Aduev’s everyday concepts begins to be revealed in the novel already in the first clashes between his dreamer nephew, spoiled by laziness and lordship, and his practical and intelligent uncle, Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev. The struggle between uncle and nephew also reflected the then, just beginning, breakdown of old concepts and mores - sentimentality, caricatured exaggeration of feelings of friendship and love, poetry of idleness, family and home lies of feigned, essentially unprecedented feelings, waste of time on visits, on unnecessary hospitality etc. In a word, all the idle, dreamy and affective side of the old morals with the usual impulses of instincts for the high, great, graceful, for effects, with a thirst to express this in crackling prose, mostly in verse.

Aduev Sr. at every step mercilessly ridicules the feigned, groundless dreaminess of Aduev Jr.

But the young hero does not give in to moral teaching. “Isn’t love a thing?” he answers his uncle. It is characteristic that after the first failure in love, Aduev Jr. complains “about the boredom of life, the emptiness of the soul.” The pages of the novel devoted to the description of the hero’s love affairs are an exposure of the egoistic, possessive attitude towards a woman, despite all the romantic poses that the hero takes in front of the chosen ones of his heart.

For eight years, my uncle worked with Alexander. In the end, his nephew becomes a business man, waiting for him brilliant career and an advantageous marriage of convenience. Not a trace remained of the former “heavenly” and “sublime” feelings and dreams. The evolution of the character of Alexander Aduev, shown in “Ordinary History,” was “ordinary” for some of the noble youth of that time. Having condemned the romantic Alexander Aduev, Goncharov contrasted him in the novel with another, undoubtedly more positive in a number of traits, but by no means ideal person - Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev. The writer, who was not a supporter of the revolutionary transformation of feudal-serf Russia, believed in progress based on the activities of enlightened, energetic and humane people. However, the work reflected not so much these views of the writer as the contradictions that existed in reality, which were carried with them by the bourgeois-capitalist relations that replaced the “all-Russian stagnation”. Rejecting the romanticism of the Aduev type, the writer at the same time felt the inferiority of the philosophy and practice of the bourgeois “ common sense”, selfishness and inhumanity of the bourgeois morality of the elder Aduevs. Pyotr Ivanovich is smart, businesslike and in his own way a “decent person.” But he is extremely “indifferent to man, to his needs and interests.”
..what happened main goal his works? Did he work for a common human goal, fulfilling the lesson given to him by fate, or only for petty reasons, in order to acquire official and monetary importance among people, or, finally, so that he would not be bent into an arc by need and circumstances? God knows. He didn’t like to talk about lofty goals, he called it nonsense, but he spoke dryly and simply about what to do.”

Alexander and Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev are contrasted not only as a provincial romantic nobleman and a bourgeois businessman, but also as two psychologically opposite types. “One is enthusiastic to the point of extravagance, the other is icy to the point of bitterness,” says Lizaveta Alexandrovna about her nephew and husband.

Goncharov sought to find an ideal, that is, a normal type of person, not in Aduev Sr. and not in Aduev Jr., but in something else, a third, in the harmony of “mind” and “heart.” A clear hint of this is already contained in the image of Lizaveta Aleksandrovna Adueva, despite the fact that the “age” has “eaten” her, according to Belinsky’s fair remark, Pyotr Ivanovich.

These wonderful images include not only Lizaveta Alexandrovna, but also Nadenka.

The daughter is a few steps ahead of her mother. She fell in love with Aduev without asking and almost does not hide this from her mother or is silent only for the sake of decency, considering for herself the right to dispose in her own way of her inner world and Aduev himself, which, having studied him well, she has mastered and commands. This is her obedient slave, gentle, spinelessly kind, promising something, but pettyly proud, a simple, ordinary young man, of which there are a bunch everywhere. And she would have accepted him, gotten married - and everything would have gone as usual. But the figure of the count appeared, consciously intelligent, dexterous, and brilliant. Nadenka saw that Aduev could not stand comparison with him either in mind, or in character, or in upbringing.
She listened to his poetry for a minute. She expected that strength and talent lay there. But it turned out that he only writes passable poetry, but no one knows about them, and he is also sulking to himself at the count because he is simple, smart and behaves with dignity. She went over to the side of the latter: this was the conscious step of the Russian girl so far - silent emancipation, a protest against the authority of her mother, which was helpless for her.

But this is where this emancipation ended. She realized, but did not turn her consciousness into action, she stopped in ignorance, since the very moment of the era was a moment of ignorance.

“Ordinary History” immediately placed Goncharov in the first rank of progressive realist writers. “An Ordinary Story” fully reflected the strong and original talent of Goncharov, the called master of the Russian realistic novel.

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(1812-1891)

IA Goncharov came from an old noble family. He was born in the city of Simbirsk, the writer spent his childhood in a rich landowner's estate. From 1822 to 1830, Goncharov studied at the Moscow Commercial School, and in 1831 he took an exam at Moscow University for the philological or, as it was then called, the verbal faculty. The university left a memory of itself as the best time in the writer’s life: here he learned the wonderful spirit of freedom of Moscow University, a temple of science that educated “not only the mind, but the entire young soul.” In the memoirs about the university (they have the subtitle “How we were taught 50 years ago”) the names of Lermontov and Herzen, Belinsky and K. Aksakov, historian M. Kachenovsky and professor of theory of fine arts and archeology N. Nadezhdin appear.

One of the brightest impressions of those years was A. Pushkin’s visit to the university in September 1832. Goncharov recalls the atmosphere of the dispute that arose after a lecture between Pushkin and Kachenovsky about the authenticity of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” Goncharov creates an image of “literary antagonism” that arose between the participants in the dispute back in 1818, when Pushkin wrote the first, but not the last, epigram on Kachenovsky. During his student years, he showed interest in professional literary pursuits: in 1832, the magazine “Telescope” published an excerpt from E. Xu’s novel “Atar-Gul” translated by Goncharov.

Having graduated from the university in 1834, Goncharov went home, where he was “swept by the same “Oblomovism” that he observed in childhood.” In order to “not fall asleep looking at this calm,” in the fall Goncharov moved to St. Petersburg and began serving in the Ministry of Finance.

The role of the literary and artistic circle of academician of painting N. Maikov, whose sons, Valerian and Apollo, the future writer taught literature, was also significant in the development of Goncharov’s literary talent. The appearance in print of the novel “An Ordinary Story” (1846) meant recognition of Goncharov’s literary talent.

In 1853, Goncharov set off on a circumnavigation of the world on the military frigate Pallada, which lasted two years. The result of the trip was the essays “Frigate “Pallada” - a unique phenomenon of Russian literature mid-19th V.

In 1859, Goncharov published the novel “Oblomov”, and ten years later - “The Precipice” (1869). In the last years of his life, Goncharov appeared as a brilliant publicist in “Notes on the Personality of Belinsky”, literary critic- in the sketch “A Million Torments”, memoirist (“Servants of the Old Century”), art historian, who collected a lot of material for articles about the work of A.N. Ostrovsky. A special place in Goncharov’s journalism belongs to the articles “Better late than never”, “Intentions, objectives and ideas of the novel “The Cliff””, in which the writer provides a rationale for the principles of realism.

Artistic method

In 1879, an article by I.A. appeared in the magazine “Russian Speech”. Goncharov “Better late than never.” 33 years after the publication of his first novel, “An Ordinary Story,” Goncharov held an answer to his readers, trying in the article to “once and for all explain his own view for author's tasks." This critical analysis own creativity was a revision of the preface to a separate edition of The Precipice in 1870, which was never published. Goncharov returned to him in 1875, but only now, says Goncharov, this material can serve as a preface to the collection of all his works.

Goncharov’s article is of fundamental importance for characterizing the originality creative method writer. Formulation of your own aesthetic principles Goncharov begins with the definition of a creature artistic creativity, which is “thinking in images.” According to Goncharov, there are two types of creativity - “unconscious” and “conscious”. The “unconscious” artist creates, obeying the requirement to outline the impression, to give space to the work of the heart, the flow of fantasy. For such artists, the ability to convey the power of impression prevails over the analysis of life. In other writers, Goncharov believes, “the mind is subtle, observant and overcomes imagination and heart,” and then the idea is expressed in addition to the image and often obscures it, revealing a tendency. Goncharov defines his type of creativity as “unconscious”.

Belinsky was one of the first to draw attention to this feature of Goncharov’s work, defining it as an excellent “ability to draw.” The basis of his artistic images was always the impression of a person, event, phenomenon, and he hurried to remember it, putting a verbal image on scraps of paper: “... I move forward, as if by groping, at first I write sluggishly, awkwardly, boringly (like the beginning in Oblomov and Raisky), and I myself find it boring to write, until light suddenly pours in and illuminates the path where I should go... I always have one main image and at the same time the main motive: it is this that leads me forward - and On the way, I accidentally grab what comes to hand, that is, what is close to him...” From the episode, the sketch, the overall picture subsequently emerged. This happened with “Oblomov’s Dream”, which, being published in 1849 as a separate work, served as a sketch for the epic canvas “Oblomov”.

Explaining to the reader how the “mechanism” of the unconscious works in an artist, Goncharov resorts to the metaphorical image of a “mirror,” comparing their ability to reflect life. “It’s difficult to draw from life,” writes Goncharov, “and in my opinion, it’s simply impossible to create types that have not yet been formed, where its forms have not been established, the faces have not been layered into types.” The mirror of creative consciousness can repeat as many images as it likes, but it cannot convey something that does not yet have a definite form, especially if we're talking about about the laws of social development.

The process of creating your own artistic image Goncharov calls typification, which he understands as a “mirror” reflection of life, environment, era in the phenomenon that interests him: “All this, in addition to my consciousness, was naturally reflected in my imagination by the power of reflection, as a landscape from a window is reflected in a mirror, as it is sometimes reflected in a small pond there is a huge setting: the sky overturned over the pond*, with a pattern of clouds, and trees, and a mountain with some buildings, and people, and animals, and vanity, and stillness - all in miniature likenesses. So this simple physical law is fulfilled over me and my novels - in a way almost imperceptible to me.”

Goncharov is the author of three large epic works. The time interval between the appearance of each of them in print is about ten years: “An Ordinary History” was published in 1846, “Oblomov” was completed in 1857, and published in 1859, “The Break” dates back to 1869 G.

In this temporary space, the implementation of plans is an important feature of Goncharov’s creative method. He needed time to process the impressions of life, to put them into the artistic system of one, as Goncharov himself insisted on this, and not three novels: the reader had to “catch one common thread, one consistent idea - the transition from one era of Russian life to another” . Thus, according to Goncharov’s plan, each part of this novel cycle was an artistic picture of a certain era of Russian reality, and together they represented its biography, told by an intelligent, thoughtful writer. These principles noted by Goncharov were realized in the artistic structure of the novels, in their plot organization, compositional scheme, and system of images and characters.

"An Ordinary Story"

The appearance of Goncharov's first novel in print was preceded by several small experiments in poetry and prose. On the pages of the handwritten almanac “Moonlit Nights”, published by the Maykov circle, 4 of his poems are published (later these are the poems of Sashenka Aduev from “Ordinary History”), the stories “Dashing Illness” (1838) and “Happy Mistake” (1839).

In these early works one can feel the influence of Pushkin's prose. Thus, in “The Happy Mistake,” which is reminiscent of a secular story in genre, the ardent passions of the romantic characters already have a psychological motivation.

Essay “Ivan Savvich Podzhabrin” - the only one early work young writer, published during Goncharov’s lifetime in Sovremennik in 1848. This is a typical physiological essay exploring morals, in which the features of Gogol’s style are noticeable: the narration in it is focused on a fairy tale style, quite great place occupy lyrical digressions, and Ivan Savvich and his servant Avdey were created, undoubtedly, under the influence of “The Inspector General”.

Already by the beginning of the 40s, Goncharov’s creative positions were determined: his unconditional interest in Russian reality: in what “stood” but did not become a thing of the past, and in what was new, which was making its way into life.

The novel “An Ordinary History” was the first Russian work to explore the forms of social progress in Russia. Goncharov's innovation lay in the fact that he tried to see the manifestation of social patterns in the fate of an individual. In the novel we have the ordinary story of the transformation of the young romantic Alexander Aduev into a representative of the new bourgeois formation. Already in the first attempt of the novel, certain plot and compositional principles for the structure of the conflict are developed, which will subsequently be used by Goncharov in his other works.

Externally, the plot of “An Ordinary Story” has a pronounced chronological character. Goncharov carefully and leisurely tells the story of the life of the Aduevs in Rrach, creating in the reader’s imagination an image of a noble province dear to the author’s heart. At the beginning of the novel, Sashenka Aduev is passionate about Pushkin, he writes poetry himself, listening to what is happening in his heart and soul. He is exalted, intelligent, confident that he is an exceptional being, who should not have the last place in life. Throughout the course of the novel, Goncharov debunks the romantic ideals of Aduev. As for the social revelations of romanticism, they are not directly declared anywhere in the novel. Goncharov leads the reader to the conviction that the historical time of romanticism has passed through the entire course of the novel’s events.

The narrative in the novel begins with a presentation of the history of Yevsey and Agrafena - the Aduev serfs, an ordinary story landowner's tyranny, told in a casually calm tone. Sending her son to St. Petersburg, Anna Pavlovna is focused only on her experiences, and she does not care about the feelings of Yevsey and Agrafena, whom she separates for a long time. However, the author says, addressing the reader, she “did not prepare her son to fight what awaited him and awaits everyone ahead.”

Goncharov reveals the world provincial nobility, living in a completely different dimension, in three letters brought by his nephew to his uncle.

Each of them is associated with one of the plot motives that will be implemented in the novel. Thus, in Zaezzhalov’s letter Kostyakov is mentioned - “ wonderful person- the soul is wide open and such a joker,” communication with whom will constitute one of the “epochs” of the development of the younger Aduev. The aunt's letter also represents a kind of anticipation of one of plot twists novel. The ardent enthusiasm of Marya Gorbatova's memories of yellow flower and the ribbon as a symbol of the will of tender feelings for Pyotr Ivanovich is replaced by a completely reasonable request for English wool for embroidery. This letter is a kind of “summary” of the image of Sashenka’s future, to which the hero will come in the finale. In the phrase that ends the letter to the mother: “Do not leave him, dear brother-in-law, with your advice and take him into your care; I pass it on to you from hand to hand” the most important principle of constructing a system of images of a work has been “programmed”. The role of Sashenka’s mentor passes to his uncle, but his philosophy of life is just as little taken into account by young Aduev as his mother’s words. One of the functions of the uncle’s image in the novel is to debunk the romantic ideals of the nephew.

The fate of Pyotr Ivanovich is a clear example of the benefits of abandoning romantic illusions. This hero does not deny reality and does not oppose himself to it; he recognizes the need for active inclusion in life, familiarization with the harsh everyday work. The hero of the novel, which appeared in print in 1846, became an artistic generalization of a phenomenon that was just “erupting” in Russian reality, but did not escape the attentive Goncharov. Many of the writer’s contemporaries went through the harsh school of everyday work: Gogol, Dostoevsky, Nekrasov, and Saltykov, who overcame social romanticism, but did not lose faith in ideas. As for the image of the elder Aduev, Goncharov shows what a terrible moral disaster the desire to evaluate everything around us from the standpoint of practical benefit can turn into for a person.

The assessment of the romantic as the most important personality quality is far from unambiguous. Goncharov shows that the “liberation” of a person from the ideals of youth and the associated memories of love, friendship, and family affections destroys the personality, occurs unnoticed and is irreversible. Gradually, the reader begins to understand that an ordinary story of familiarization with the prose of life has already happened to Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev, when, under the influence of circumstances, a person is freed from romantic ideals of goodness and becomes like everyone else. It is this path that Alexander Aduev takes, gradually becoming disillusioned with friendship, love, service, and family feelings. But the end of the novel - his profitable marriage and borrowing money from his uncle - is not the end of the novel. The ending is a sad reflection on the fate of Pyotr Ivanovich, who succeeded on the basis of real practicality. The depth of the moral catastrophe that has already befallen society with the loss of faith in romanticism is revealed precisely in this life story. The novel ends happily for the younger one, but tragically for the older one: he is sick with boredom and the monotony of the monotonous life that has filled him - the pursuit of a place in the sun, fortune, rank. These are all quite practical things, they generate income, give a position in society - but for what? And only a terrible guess that Elizaveta Alexandrovna’s illness is the result of her devoted service to him, service that killed her living soul, makes Pyotr Ivanovich think about the meaning of his life.

In studies of Goncharov’s work, it was noted that the originality of the novel’s conflict lies in the collision of two forms of life presented in the dialogues between uncle and nephew, and that dialogue is the constructive basis of the novel. But this is not entirely true, since the character of Ayauev Jr. changes not at all under the influence of his uncle’s beliefs, but under the influence of circumstances embodied in the twists and turns of the novel (writing poetry, infatuation with Nadenka, disappointment in friendship, meeting with Kostikov, leaving for the village, etc. .). The circumstances “alien” to the hero are concretized by the image of St. Petersburg given in the second chapter of the novel against the backdrop of the memories of the “provincial egoist” Aduev about the peace of rural life. The turning point in the hero occurs during his meeting with the Bronze Horseman. Aduev turns to this symbol of power “not with a bitter reproach in his soul, like poor Evgeny, but with an enthusiastic thought.” This episode has a pronounced polemical character:

Goncharov’s hero “argues” with Pushkin’s hero, being confident that he can overcome circumstances and not submit to them.

The dialogue plays an essential function in clarifying the author's point of view, which is not identical to either the position of the uncle or the position of the nephew. It manifests itself in a dialogue-dispute that continues without stopping almost until the end of the novel. This is a debate about creativity as a special state of mind. The theme of creativity first appears in a letter from young Aduev to Pospelov, in which the hero characterizes his uncle as a man of the “crowd,” always and equally calm in everything, and completes his analysis moral qualities Pyotr Ivanovich concluded: “...I think he hasn’t even read Pushkin.” The serious conclusion that vegetating “without inspiration, without tears, without life, without love” can destroy a person will turn out to be prophetic: having added prose to Pushkin’s lines (“And without hair”), the uncle, without suspecting it, pronounces a sentence on himself. Sashenka’s romantic poems, which he destroyed with his criticism, from the position of Pyotr Ivanovich are an expression of reluctance to “pull the burden” of daily work, and his remark “writers are like others” can be seen as the hero’s conviction that unprofessional pursuit of literature is self-indulgence and a manifestation of lordly laziness . Confronting the positions of his heroes, Goncharov himself is arguing with an invisible enemy, because the poems of Dtsuev Jr. are the poems of the young Goncharov, which he never published, apparently feeling that this is not his kind of creativity. However, the fact of their inclusion in the text of the novel is very significant. Of course, they are weak artistically and may seem like a parody of romantic reverie. But the lyrical pathos of the poems is caused not only by Goncharov’s desire to expose idealism: Sashenka’s romanticism is aimed at criticizing the depersonalization of man by the bureaucratic reality of St. Petersburg and at criticizing the moral slavery of women.

The theme of the poet and the crowd - one of the cross-cutting themes of the novel - manifests itself in a unique way. Its detailed interpretation by the young Aduevs is given in Chapter IV, revealing the state of the hero who has reached the apogee of happiness in love. Dreams about Nadenka and dreams of poetic glory merge together, but the author accompanies this enthusiastic monologue with his own commentary. From it the reader learns about a comedy, two stories, an essay, about a “journey somewhere” created by Sashenka, but not accepted into the magazine, gets acquainted with the plot of the story from American life, which Nadenka listened to with delight, but was not accepted for publication. Failures are perceived by Aduev in the spirit of the romantic conflict between the poet and the crowd; he recognizes himself as a person capable of “creating a special world” without difficulty, easily and freely. And only at the end of the monologue the position of the author-narrator, who doubts the success of this kind of creativity, is indicated.

Dialogue as the most important content element genre form Goncharov's novel turns out to be a form of expression of the author's point of view in other novels: its dialectical character will increase. The writer’s task was to strive to indicate his position without insisting on it as the only reliable one. This, apparently, can explain the “absurdities” of the artistic structure, the inconsistency of the characters of the heroes of “Oblomov” and “Cliff”, for which Druzhinin, Dobrolyubov, and many others reproached the author. Goncharov, due to his character, temperament, and worldview, could not and did not want to write out thoughts that were not thought through and not suffered through personal experience recipes for correcting damaged morals. Like his young hero Aduev, he took on elegant prose when “the heart beats more evenly, the thoughts come into order.”

In the 40s personality conflict and society was seen by him as developing in several directions at once, two of which he evaluates in Ordinary History, and the other two he outlines as possible: the hero’s involvement in the life of the St. Petersburg petty bureaucracy and philistinism (Kostyakov) - this conflict has already been partially revealed in Medny horseman" in the fate of Evgeniy) - and immersion in physical and moral sleep, from which Aduev sobered up. Philistinism and sleep are intermediate stages of the hero’s evolution, which in the artistic structure of “Oblomov” are fully realized and develop into independent storylines.

The theme, ideas and images of “Oblomov” and “Cliff” already existed hidden in art world“Ordinary history”, the measured life of Goncharov the official went on as usual. By the will of fate and his own will, he was destined to experience what he dreamed about as a teenager.

Already in the first novel, “An Ordinary Story” (1847), the idea of ​​the entire trilogy received an original embodiment. The conflict between uncle and nephew was intended to reflect very characteristic phenomena of Russian public life 1840s, morals and life of that era. Goncharov himself explained his plan as follows in the critical article “Better late than never” (1879): “The struggle between uncle and nephew also reflected the then, just beginning, breakdown of old concepts and mores - sentimentality, caricatured exaggeration of feelings of friendship and love, poetry idleness, family and home lies of feigned, essentially unprecedented feelings<…>, a waste of time on visits, on unnecessary hospitality,” etc.

All the idle, dreamy and affective side of old morals with the usual impulses of youth - towards the high, great, graceful, towards effects, with a thirst to express this in crackling prose, most of all in verse.

All this “was obsolete, gone away; there were faint glimpses of a new dawn, something sober, businesslike, necessary.” This assessment of the conflict is quite understandable if we take it from a general historical perspective. According to Goncharov, the landowner way of life that raised Alexander Aduev, the idle environment of the landowner’s estate without intense labor of soul and body - these are the social reasons that determined the complete unpreparedness of the “romantic” Aduev to understand the real needs of modern social life.

These needs, to a certain extent, are embodied in the figure of Uncle Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev. Healthy careerism coexists quite well in his character with education and an understanding of the “secrets” of the human heart. Consequently, according to Goncharov, the advent of the “industrial age” itself does not at all threaten the spiritual development of the individual, does not turn it into a soulless machine, callous to the suffering of other people. However, the writer, of course, is by no means inclined to idealize the moral character of the representative of the new, victorious “philosophy of business.” In the epilogue of the novel, the uncle appears as a victim of this “philosophy”, having lost his wife’s love and trust and himself found himself on the verge of complete spiritual emptiness.

Here we come to understand the essence of the conflict in Goncharov’s first novel. The types of “romantic” and “man of action” for a writer are not only and not so much signs of the hero’s belonging to a certain class, profession, or even cultural and everyday microenvironment (“province” or “capital”). These are, first of all, understood and interpreted very broadly “ eternal types“and even (in an allegorical sense) the “eternal” poles of the human spirit: the sublime and the base, the divine and the devil, etc. It is not for nothing that the fate of the heroes is surrounded by many literary reminiscences. For example, Alexander’s speeches and actions constantly “rhyme” (in the form of direct quotes, allusions) with the destinies of many heroes European literature, the same “disappointed idealists” as himself. Here are Goethe’s Werther, and Schiller’s Karl Moor, and the heroes of Zhukovsky-Schiller’s ballads. and Eugene from Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman”, and Balzac’s Lucien de Rubempre from “Lost Illusions”…. It turns out that the “romantic biography” of Alexander Aduev is as much a biography of a Russian provincial romantic of the 1840s as it is an “international” biography, “a barely noticeable ring in the endless chain of humanity.” Goncharov himself pushes the hero to this conclusion in the episode where Alexander’s condition is described after the inspired playing of a visiting violinist struck his imagination. It’s no wonder that sometimes Alexander perceives his dispute with his uncle through the prism of the plot of Pushkin’s famous poem “The Demon”, and then Pyotr Ivanovich appears to him in the image of an “evil genius” tempting an inexperienced soul...

The meaning of Pyotr Ivanovich’s “demonic” position is that the human personality for him is just a mechanical cast of his “Century”. He declares love to be “madness”; “illness” on the grounds that it only interferes with one’s career. Therefore, he does not recognize the power of the heart’s passions, considering human passions “mistakes, ugly deviations from reality.” He also refers to “friendship”, “duty”, “loyalty”. All this is allowed to a modern person, but within the boundaries of “decency” accepted in society. He, therefore, wrongfully reduces the very essence of the “Century” only to a bureaucratic bureaucratic career, narrowing the scope of the “case.” It is not without reason that proportionality, correctness, and measure in everything become the dominant characteristics of both his behavior and his appearance (cf., for example, the description of a face: “not wooden, but calm”). Goncharov does not accept in his hero an apology for the “deed” as such, but extreme forms of denial of dreams and romance, their beneficial role in the formation human personality at all. And in this case, the rightness in the dispute already goes to the side of the nephew: “Finally, isn’t it a general law of nature that youth should be anxious, ebullient, sometimes extravagant, stupid, and that everyone’s dreams will eventually subside, as they did for me? » This is how Alexander, wise in life, reflects in his final letter to his uncle.

Closer to the finale, the genre structure of Goncharov’s first novel, oriented towards the plot canons of the “novel of education,” becomes clearer. Education by life is understood in the novel primarily as the education of the hero’s feelings. “Lessons of Love” become a true school of life for Alexander. It is not for nothing that in the novel it is the personal, spiritual experience of the hero that becomes the main subject of artistic research, and love conflicts are closely intertwined with the main conflict of the novel - a dispute between two worldviews: “idealistic” and “sober-practical”. One of the lessons of life wisdom for Alexander was the discovery of the beneficial, uplifting power of suffering and delusion: they “purify the soul” and make a person “participant in the fullness of life.” Anyone who at one time was not an “incurable romantic”, was not “eccentric” and was not “crazy” will never become a good “realist”. Pushkin’s wisdom - “the old man is funny and flighty, the sedate young man is funny” - seems to hover over the final pages of Goncharov’s work. This wisdom helps to understand the enduring essence of the dispute between uncle and nephew.

Is it because in the finale Pyotr Ivanovich pays so cruelly for his efficiency that he too quickly hastened to accept the “truth” of the “Century” and so easily and indifferently parted with both the “yellow flowers” ​​and the “ribbon” stolen from his beloved’s chest of drawers, and with other “romantic nonsense” that was still present in his life? And Alexander? The transformation of Alexander, a “romanticist” into a “realist,” differs from a similar transformation of his uncle in that he takes a “sober view” of life, having previously gone through all the steps of the romantic school of life, “with full consciousness of its true pleasures and bitterness.” Therefore, for Alexander, the hard-won “realistic” worldview is not at all a “necessary evil” of the “Century”, for the sake of which it is imperative to suppress everything poetic in oneself. No, Alexander, quite like Pushkin, begins, as the author notes, “to comprehend the poetry of the gray sky, a broken fence, a gate, a dirty pond and a trepak,” that is, the poetry of “the prose of life.” That is why the hero again rushes from Rooks to the “businesslike”, “non-romantic” Petersburg, because he is gradually imbued with the peculiar “romance of business”. It is not without reason that in his letter to his aunt he now considers “activity” to be the “powerful ally” of his romantic love for life. His “soul and body asked for activity,” the author notes. And on this path, the vector of spiritual evolution of Aduev Jr. foreshadowed the appearance of the future hero Goncharov, equally passionate about the “romance of the matter” - Andrei Stolts...

One can only complain that all these spiritual insights of the hero remained insights. He didn't make a Stolz. In the epilogue, instead of Stolz, we see a somewhat softened copy of Aduev Sr. instead of the “hero of the cause” - the “hero-businessman”. Neither in the field of “dreams” nor in the field of “deeds” did Alexander succeed in spiritually transforming and defeating the heavy tread of the “industrial age”.

But the reader still remembers that such a possibility was not at all excluded by Goncharov for his hero. Goncharov’s first novel definitely found itself within the artistic boundaries of the “natural school.” The author of “Ordinary History” disagreed with the team of the collection “Physiology of St. Petersburg” in solving the main problem of realism - the problem of the typical. In Goncharov’s characters one can always feel a certain “residue” that cannot be directly derived from historical time or “environment”. Like the author of “Eugene Onegin,” it is important for Goncharov to emphasize both the realized and unrealized capabilities of the heroes, not only the extent of their compliance, but also the degree of their inconsistency with their “Century.” Projecting the conflict of “An Ordinary Story” onto the plot collisions of Goncharov’s next novel “Oblomov,” we can say that the idealism of Alexander Aduev concealed two equal, although opposite, development possibilities. As in the fate of Vladimir Lensky, in the fate of his younger “literary brother” there was, relatively speaking, both the “Oblomov option” and the “Stolz option.” The development of this dialectic of character will be traced by Goncharov in the system of images of the novel “Oblomov”