The great legacy of academician D.S. Likhacheva. Brief biography of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev

Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev - Russian literary scholar, cultural historian, text critic, publicist, public figure.
Born on November 28 (old style - November 15) 1906 in St. Petersburg, in the family of an engineer. 1923 - graduated from labor school and entered Petrograd University at the Department of Linguistics and Literature, Faculty of Social Sciences. 1928 - graduated from Leningrad University, defending two diplomas - in Romano-Germanic and Slavic-Russian philology.
In 1928 - 1932 he was repressed: for participating in a scientific student circle, Likhachev was arrested and imprisoned in the Solovetsky camp. In 1931 - 1932 he was at the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and was released as a “shock soldier of the Belbaltlag with the right to reside throughout the entire territory of the USSR.”
1934 - 1938 worked at the Leningrad branch of the publishing house of the USSR Academy of Sciences. I caught my attention when editing the book by A.A. Shakhmatov “Review of Russian chronicles” and was invited to work in the department of ancient Russian literature at the Leningrad Institute of Russian Literature ( Pushkin House), where since 1938 he led scientific work, since 1954 he headed the sector of ancient Russian literature. 1941 - defended his candidate's dissertation "Novgorod chronicle codes of the 12th century."
In Leningrad besieged by the Nazis, Likhachev, in collaboration with archaeologist M.A. Tianova, wrote the brochure "Defense ancient Russian cities", which appeared during the siege of 1942.
In 1947 he defended his doctoral dissertation "Essays on History literary forms chronicles of the 11th - 16th centuries." 1946-1953 - professor at Leningrad State University. 1953 - corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1970 - academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1991 - academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Foreign member of the Academies of Sciences: Bulgarian (1963), Austrian (1968), Serbian (1972), Hungarian (1973), Honorary Doctor of the Universities: Torun (1964), Oxford (1967), Edinburgh (1970). USSR Prize (1952, 1969) 1986 - Hero of Socialist Labor. Awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and medals.
Bibliography
Full bibliography on the author's website.
1945 - "National Identity Ancient Rus'"
1947 - “Russian chronicles and their cultural and historical significance”
1950 - "The Tale of Bygone Years"
1952 - "The Emergence of Russian Literature"
1955 - "The Tale of Igor's Campaign. Historical and literary essay"
1958 - "Man in the literature of Ancient Rus'"
1958 - "Some tasks of studying the second South Slavic influence in Russia"
1962 - “The culture of Rus' in the time of Andrei Rublev and Epiphanius the Wise”
1962 - "Textology. Based on Russian literature of the X - XVII centuries."
1967 - "Poetics of Old Russian Literature"
1971 - “The Artistic Heritage of Ancient Rus' and Modernity” (together with V.D. Likhacheva)
1973 - "Development of Russian literature X - XVII centuries. Epochs and styles"
1981 - "Notes about Russian"
1983 - “Native Land”
1984 - "Literature - reality - literature"
1985 - “Past for the future”
1986 - "Research on Old Russian Literature"
1989 - "About Philology"
1994 - Letters about good
2007 - Memories
Russian culture
Titles, awards and bonuses
* Hero of Socialist Labor (1986)
* Order of St. Andrew the First-Called (September 30, 1998) - for outstanding contribution to the development of national culture (awarded the order for No. 1)
* Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree (November 28, 1996) - for outstanding services to the state and great personal contribution in the development of Russian culture
* The order of Lenin
* Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1966)
* Medal “50 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945.” (March 22, 1995)
* Pushkin Medal (June 4, 1999) - in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of A. S. Pushkin, for services in the field of culture, education, literature and art
* Medal “For Labor Valor” (1954)
* Medal “For the Defense of Leningrad” (1942)
* Medal “30 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945.” (1975)
* Medal “40 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945.” (1985)
* Medal “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.” (1946)
* Medal “Veteran of Labor” (1986)
* Order of Georgiy Dimitrov (NRB, 1986)
* Two Orders of Cyril and Methodius, 1st degree (NRB, 1963, 1977)
* Order of Stara Planina, 1st degree (Bulgaria, 1996)
* Order of the Madara Horseman, 1st degree (Bulgaria, 1995)
* Sign of the Leningrad City Council Executive Committee “To a resident of besieged Leningrad”
In 1986 he organized the Soviet (now Russian) Cultural Foundation and was chairman of the presidium of the Foundation until 1993. Since 1990, member of the International Committee for the Organization Library of Alexandria(Egypt). He was elected as a deputy of the Leningrad City Council (1961-1962, 1987-1989).
Foreign member of the Academies of Sciences of Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Serbia. Corresponding member of the Austrian, American, British, Italian, Gottingen academies, corresponding member of the oldest US society - the Philosophical Society. Member of the Writers' Union since 1956. Since 1983 - Chairman of the Pushkin Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences, since 1974 - Chairman of the Editorial Board of the yearbook “Cultural Monuments. New discoveries". From 1971 to 1993 he headed the editorial board of the series " Literary monuments", since 1987 he has been a member of the editorial board of the New World magazine, and since 1988 of the Our Heritage magazine.
Russian Academy of Art History and musical performance awarded the Order of Arts “Amber Cross” (1997). Awarded an Honorary Diploma of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg (1996). Awarded the Great Gold Medal named after M.V. Lomonosov (1993). First Honorable Sir St. Petersburg (1993). Honorary citizen of the Italian cities of Milan and Arezzo. Laureate of the Tsarskoye Selo Art Prize (1997).
* In 2006, the D. S. Likhachev Foundation and the Government of St. Petersburg established the D. S. Likhachev Prize.
* In 2000, D. S. Likhachev was posthumously awarded the State Prize of Russia for the development of artistic direction domestic television and the creation of the all-Russian state television channel “Culture”. The books “Russian Culture” have been published; “The skyline of the city on the Neva. Memoirs, articles."
Interesting Facts
* By Presidential Decree Russian Federation 2006 has been declared the year of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev in Russia.
* The name Likhachev was assigned to minor planet No. 2877 (1984).
* In 1999, on the initiative of Dmitry Sergeevich, Pushkin Lyceum No. 1500 was created in Moscow. The academician did not see the lyceum and died three months after the construction of the building.
* Every year, in honor of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, the Likhachev Readings are held at the State Educational Institution Gymnasium No. 1503 in Moscow and the Pushkin Lyceum No. 1500, which brings together students from various cities and countries with performances dedicated to the memory of the great citizen of Russia.
* By order of the Governor of St. Petersburg in 2000, the name of D. S. Likhachev was given to school No. 47 (Plutalova Street (St. Petersburg), house No. 24), where Likhachev readings are also held.
* In 1999, the Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage was named after Likhachev.

Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev is one of the great people of the twentieth century. His scientific heritage is extremely extensive and varied. Among Likhachev’s works are academic monographs dedicated to various aspects cultural history, from the poetics of ancient Russian literature to landscape gardening art of the 18th-19th centuries, scientific articles and journalistic notes, comments on various literary monuments, including the beloved Tale of Igor’s Campaign by scientists, editorial prefaces, reviews, translations and much more.

Likhachev became an employee of the department (later the sector) of ancient Russian literature at the Institute of Russian Literature of the Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House) in 1937. His first monograph was the brochure “Defense of Ancient Russian Cities”, written by him in collaboration with archaeologist Professor M.A. Tikhanova in besieged Leningrad, especially for soldiers defending the Leningrad borders (this brochure, by order of the Leningrad Regional Committee, was distributed in the trenches).

In the post-war years, Likhachev defended his candidate and doctoral dissertations on ancient Russian chronicles. In 1954, D. S. Likhachev became the head of the sector of ancient Russian literature at the Institute of Literature. In 1958 he published the monograph “Man in the Literature of Ancient Rus',” where the theory of the change of cultural and historical styles in medieval Russian literature was first presented. The need to systematize the work of studying and preparing for publication of ancient Russian written monuments brings to life his fundamental “Textology” (), which made a real revolution in modern literary criticism, and not only in the field of domestic medieval studies, but also in the theoretical and literary field, since Likhachev’s doctrine of the history of the creation of a text as the “key” to the interpretation of its content became one of the first examples of semiotic thinking in literary criticism. In 1967, “The Poetics of Old Russian Literature” appears, in which D. S. Likhachev refutes the view of the “Eurasian” nature of Russian culture, and also develops the concept of “chronotope”, revolutionary for that time, which formed the basis modern study reflections of temporary categories of thinking in art and culture. At the same time, in the 1960-1970s, Likhachev created many articles devoted to the largest figures of the “pre-Petrine” period of Russian literature (the best of them are presented in the collection “The Great Heritage” - the most popular book by Likhachev the literary critic, which was reprinted several times. Particular attention to throughout his entire life creative path Likhachev the literary critic devoted much attention to The Tale of Igor's Campaign, defending this masterpiece of ancient Russian literature from the attacks of skeptics who denied the authenticity of the Tale. D. S. Likhachev’s works dedicated to the “Word” marked the beginning of a new stage of active study immortal work; On the initiative and under the leadership of D.S. Likhachev, the “Encyclopedia “Tales of Igor’s Campaign” was created in the 1980s.”

From some important points of view, Likhachev’s scientific heritage has not yet been studied. Dmitry Sergeevich was the first in the modern history of Russia to substantiate culture as the spiritual basis of national existence, and its preservation as a guarantee of the spiritual security of the nation. Without culture, he tirelessly emphasized, the present and future of peoples and states becomes meaningless. A prominent place in the extensive creative heritage of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev is occupied by works on local history, devoted mainly to St. Petersburg.

D. S. Likhachev’s contribution to the development of modern art criticism has not yet received scientific understanding. In Likhachev’s theoretical views on the history and theory of art, two groups of ideas stand out. The first group consists of the scientist’s thoughts about the origin and nature of art, and the second group consists of reflections on the mode of existence and patterns of development of the artistic process. Likhachev's thoughts on the origin of art are attractive for their originality and deep understanding of the nature of art.

Among the huge number of scientific and journalistic works of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, more than a hundred titles can be classified as directly pedagogical, fully or partially revealing current issues of education and upbringing younger generation modern Russia. Other works of the scientist devoted to problems of culture, history and literature, although they do not directly pose pedagogical questions, are in essence and humanistic in orientation (address to man, his historical memory, culture, citizenship and moral values) contain enormous educational potential.

And everything that was written and expressed by D. S. Likhachev is deeply and organically connected with moral problems. Whatever issue he touched on, he always paid attention to the moral basis or moral side. D. S. Likhachev was an ethicist in literally this word, for the deepest basis of his views was genuine patriotism, in contrast to those who are “patriots on the tip of their tongues,” for whom not morality, but moralizing, chiding replaces genuine feelings and thoughts.

Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev first came to our University at the end of 1992, got to know us in detail, and he liked the University - primarily because, in his words, it is “alive”, there is “living” science here. Academician Likhachev called our university the university of the future and accepted the offer to become our Honorary Doctor. Before this, Dmitry Sergeevich was an Honorary Doctor of 19 of the most prestigious universities in the world, but in Russia he remained an Honorary Doctor of only one - Humanitarian University trade unions and collaborated with us until the end of his days.

Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev (1906-1999) - Soviet and Russian philologist, cultural critic, art critic, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (USSR Academy of Sciences until 1991). Chairman of the Board of the Russian (Soviet until 1991) Cultural Foundation (1986-1993). Author of fundamental works devoted to the history of Russian literature (mainly Old Russian) and Russian culture. On February 8, 1928, he was arrested for participating in the student circle “Space Academy of Sciences,” where shortly before his arrest he made a report on the old Russian spelling, “trampled and distorted by the enemy of the Church of Christ and the Russian people”; sentenced to 5 years for counter-revolutionary activities. Until November 1931 - political prisoner in the Solovetsky camp special purpose. He was released early in 1932 and later returned to Leningrad.

At the beginning of February 1928, the table clock on Oranienbaumskaya Street struck eight times. I was alone at home, and a chilling fear immediately seized me. I don't even know why. I heard our watch chime for the first time. My father did not like the clock chime, and the clock chime was turned off before I was born. Why exactly did the clock decide to strike for me for the first time in twenty-one years, measuredly and solemnly?

On February 8, in the morning, they came for me: an investigator in uniform and the commandant of our buildings at the Sabelnikov Printing Yard. Sabelnikov was clearly upset (later the same fate awaited him), and the investigator was polite and even sympathized with the parents, especially when the father turned terribly pale and fell into a leather office chair. The investigator brought him a glass of water, and for a long time I could not shake off my acute pity for my father. The search itself did not take much time. The investigator consulted some piece of paper, confidently walked up to the shelf and pulled out the book “International Jewry” by H. Ford in a red cover. It became clear to me: the book was pointed out by one of my university acquaintances, who, out of the blue, showed up to me a week before my arrest, looked at the books and kept asking, smiling carnivorously, if I had any anti-Soviet ideas. He insisted that he really loved this bad taste and vulgarity.

Mother packed her things (soap, linen, warm clothes), and we said goodbye. Like everyone else in these cases, I said: “This is a misunderstanding, it will soon be cleared up, I will return quickly.” But even then, mass and irrevocable arrests were in use. In a black Ford, which had just appeared in Leningrad at that time, we drove past the Exchange. Dawn had already gained strength, the deserted city was unusually beautiful. The investigator was silent. However, why do I call him “investigator”. My real investigator was Alexander (Albert) Robertovich Stromin, the organizer of all the processes against the intelligentsia of the late 20s - early 30s, the creator of the “academic case”, the case of the Industrial Party, etc. Subsequently, he was the head of the NKVD in Saratov and was shot “ as a Trotskyist" in 1938

After a personal search, during which a cross, a silver watch and several rubles were taken from me, I was sent to a prison cell on the fifth floor - a pre-trial detention building on Shpalernaya (from the outside this building has three floors, but to avoid escapes the prison stands as if in a case) . The chamber number was 273: a degree of cosmic cold. At university I was into L.P. Karsavin, and when he ended up in the pretrial detention center, by the will of fate he ended up in the same cell with the brother of a woman close to Lev Platonovich. I remember this young man, who wore a corduroy jacket and spoke quietly so as not to hear the guard, who sang gypsy romances perfectly. Before this, I read the book by L.P. Karsavin "Noctes petropolitanae".

Perhaps this cell, in which I sat for exactly six months, was truly the most difficult period of my life. Difficult psychologically. But in it I met a huge number of people who lived according to completely different principles. Let me mention some of my cellmates. In “solitary cell” 273, where I was pushed, there was an energetic Nepman Kotlyar, the owner of some store. He was arrested the day before (this was the period of the liquidation of the NEP). He immediately suggested that I clean up the cell.

The air there was extremely heavy. Once painted oil paint the walls were black with mold. The toilet seat was dirty and had not been cleaned for a long time. Kotlyar demanded a rag from the jailers. A day or two later, someone's woolen underpants were thrown to us. Kotlyar suggested that they were taken from someone who had been shot. Suppressing the vomit that was rising in our throats, we began to scrub the mold off the walls, wash the floor, which was soft with dirt, and most importantly, clean the toilet seat. Two days of hard work were a lifesaver. And the result was: the air in the chamber became clean. The third was a professional thief who was pushed into our “solitary situation.” When I was called in for interrogation at night, he advised me to put on a coat (I had my father’s warm winter coat with squirrel fur with me):

“During interrogations, you need to be warmly dressed - you will be calmer.” The interrogation was the only one (apart from the usual filling out of the questionnaire before). I sat in my coat as if it were armor. Investigator Stromin (the organizer, as I already said, of all the processes of the late 20s - early 30s against the intelligentsia, not excluding the failed “academic one”) could not get from me any information he needed (my parents were told : “Your son is behaving badly”). At the beginning of the interrogation, he asked: “Why in a coat?” I answered: “I have a cold” (that’s what the thief taught me). Stromin, apparently, was afraid of influenza (as the flu was called then), and the interrogation was not exhaustingly long. Then in the cell there were alternately: a Chinese boy (for some reason there were many Chinese in the prison in 1928), from whom I unsuccessfully tried to learn Chinese; Count Rochefort (I think that’s his last name) is a descendant of the compiler of the Tsar’s regulations on prisons; a peasant boy who came to the city for the first time and became “suspiciously” interested in a seaplane, which he had never seen before. And many others.

My interest in all these people kept me going. Our cell was taken for walks for six months by “grandfather” (that’s what we called him), who, under the tsarist government, also took many revolutionaries around. When he got used to us, he showed us the cells where various revolutionary celebrities were sitting. I regret that I did not try to remember their numbers. There was a “grandfather” who was a stern servant, but he did not play the guards’ favorite game - driving a live rat towards each other with brooms. When a guard noticed a rat running through the yard, he began to sweep it with a broom until it became weak and died. If there were other guards nearby, they joined in this race and, screaming, drove the rat towards each other with a broom - into an imaginary gate. This sadistic game caused extraordinary excitement among the guards. At the first moment the rat tried to break free, to run away, but it was crushed and crushed with squeals and screams. The prisoners watching this from under the muzzles in their cells could compare the fate of the rat with their own.

Six months later, the investigation ended, and I was transferred to a general library cell. In the library cell (in which, by the way, N.P. Antsiferov was sitting after me, as he recalls) there were a lot most interesting people. They slept on the floor - even right next to the toilet seat. There, for fun, we alternated between making “reports” and then discussing them. The indestructible habit of the Russian intelligentsia for discussing general issues supported it both in prisons and in camps. The reports were all on some extravagant topics, with theses that sharply contradict generally accepted views. This was a typical feature of all prison and camp reports. The most impossible theories were invented. I also gave a report. My topic was that each person determines his own destiny, even in what might seem like chance. This is how all the romantic poets died early (Keith, Shelley, Lermontov, etc.). They seemed to be “asking for” death, misfortune. Lermontov even began to limp on the same leg as Byron. I also expressed some thoughts regarding Zhukovsky’s longevity. Realists, on the contrary, lived long. And we, following the traditions of the Russian intelligentsia, determined our own arrest. This is our “free destiny”. Half a century later, reading “Walking with Pushkin” by A. Sinyavsky, I thought: “What a typical prison camp fiction” - his whole concept about Pushkin. However, I also made such “stunning” reports, but this time on Solovki. More on this later.

The most interesting person in the library cell there was undoubtedly the head of the Petrograd boy scouts, Count Vladimir Mikhailovich Shuvalov. Immediately after the revolution, I sometimes met him on the streets in a boy scout uniform with a tall boy scout stick and a peculiar hat. Now, in the cell, he was gloomy, but strong and fit. He studied logic. As far as I remember, these were some considerations that continued Husserl’s Logical Investigations. I don’t understand how he could completely disconnect from the noisy environment of the cell to work. He must have had a great will and great passion. When he presented the results of his searches, although I had previously studied logic with A.I. Vvedensky and S.I. Povarnin (with whom Shuvalov himself had previously studied), had difficulty understanding him.

He was subsequently expelled and completely disappeared from my sight. It seems that his relative (maybe his wife) worked at the Russian Museum, working on icons. Still, strange things were done by our jailers. Having arrested us because we met once a week for just a few hours to jointly discuss issues of philosophy, art and religion that worried us, they united us first in a common prison cell, and then for a long time in camps, combining our meetings with other similarly interested in resolving ideological issues by the people of our city, and in the camps - widely and generously with people from Moscow, Rostov, the Caucasus, Crimea, Siberia. We went through a gigantic school of mutual training, only to disappear later in the vast expanses of our homeland.

In the library cell, where, at the end of the investigation, people who were awaiting their time were collected, I saw sectarians, Baptists (one of them crossed our border from somewhere in the west and was awaiting execution, did not sleep at night), Satanists (there were such), Theosophists, home-grown Freemasons (who gathered somewhere on Bolshoy Prospekt on the Petrograd side and prayed to the sounds of a cello; by the way, what vulgarity!). The OGPU feuilletonists, the “Tur brothers,” tried from time to time to make us all look funny and malicious (they published a feuilleton “Ashes of Oaks” sprinkled with lies about us in Leningradskaya Pravda, “The Blue International” about others, etc.). M.M. later recalled the feuilleton “Ashes of the Oaks”. Bakhtin.

Our relatives also united, meeting at programs and at various “windows”, where they gave, and more often did not give, information about us. They consulted on what to convey, what to give to the prisoner, where and what to get for their prisoners. Many became friends. We already guessed who would be given and how much. One day we were all called “without our belongings” to the head of the prison. In a deliberately gloomy tone, the head of the prison, somehow especially howling, read the verdict to us. We stood listening to him. Igor Evgenievich Anichkov was inimitable. With a demonstrably absent-minded look, he looked at the wallpaper of the office, the ceiling, did not look at the boss, and when he finished reading, expecting us to rush to him with the usual lamentations: “we are not guilty,” “we will demand a real investigation, a full-time trial,” and etc., Igor Evgenievich, who received 5 years, like me, pointedly casually asked: “Is that all? Can we go? - and, without waiting for an answer, he turned to the door, dragging us along with him, to the complete bewilderment of the chief and the guards, who did not immediately come to their senses. It was great!

At the same time, I take this opportunity to correct some inaccuracies reported by O.V. Volkov in the book “Plunge into Darkness” (Paris, 1987. pp. 90-94). I.E. Anichkov had not a 3-year camp sentence, but 5 years, and after his “liberation” in 1931, he wandered through exile just like O.V. Volkov himself. After Stalin’s death, I. E. Anichkov returned to Leningrad, where he taught at the Pedagogical Institute for several years, subjected to constant “working” for his reluctance to recognize the “new doctrine of language” of N. Ya. Marr and Marxist teaching in general. His mother Anna Mitrofanovna Anichkova was never a university professor, she lived by private lessons and teaching languages at the private “Phonetic Institute” of S.K. Boyanus and died in the spring of 1933 in communal apartment on the French embankment.

Two weeks after the verdict was pronounced, we were all called “with our things” (at Solovki they shouted differently: “Fly like a bullet with your things”) and were sent in black crows to the Nikolaevsky (now Moskovsky) station. We arrived at the far right tracks, where country trains now depart from. One by one we left the “black raven”, and the crowd of mourners in the semi-darkness (it was an October evening), recognizing each of us, shouted: “Kolya!”, “Dima!”, “Volodya!” The crowd of relatives and friends who were not yet afraid, just comrades in training or service, was rudely driven away by soldiers of the convoy regiment with sabers drawn. Two soldiers, waving sabers, walked in front of those seeing us off, while one convoy handed us over to another according to lists.

They put us in two “Stolypin” carriages, which were considered tsarist time terrible, and in Soviet times they acquired a reputation as even comfortable. When we were finally shoved into cages, the new convoy began to give us everything that our relatives had brought to us. I received a large pastry pie from the University Library. There were also flowers. When the train started moving, the head of the convoy chief appeared from behind the bars (oh an idyll!), and said in a friendly manner: “You guys, don’t be angry with us: this is the service! What if we don’t make it?” Someone answered: “Well, why do you absolutely need to swear and use checkers at those seeing you off?”

Quote According to the publication: Likhachev D.S. Memories. - M.: Vagrius, 2006. - (Series: My 20th century).

Russian Empire - September 30, 1999, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation) - Soviet and Russian philologist, art critic, screenwriter, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (until 1991 - USSR Academy of Sciences).
Author of fundamental works devoted to the history of Russian literature (mainly Old Russian) and Russian culture. Author of works (including more than forty books) on to a wide circle problems of the theory and history of ancient Russian literature, many of which have been translated into English, Bulgarian, Italian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Czech, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, German and other languages. Author of 500 scientific and about 600 journalistic works.

Biography

Childhood

Childhood D.S. Likhachev fell during that short but brilliant time in the history of Russian culture, which is usually called the Silver Age. Parents D.S. Likhachev did not belong to a literary or artistic environment (his father was an engineer), however, this era also affected their family. Likhachev's parents' great hobby was ballet. Every year, despite the lack of funds, they tried to rent an apartment as close as possible to Mariinsky Theater, bought two ballet passes to the third tier box and did not miss almost a single performance. Little Dmitry also attended the theater with his parents from the age of four. In the summer, the family went to the dacha in Kuokkala. Many representatives of the artistic and literary world Petersburg. On the paths of the local park one could meet I.E. Repina, K.I. Chukovsky, F.I. Shalyapin, Sun. Meyerhold, M. Gorky, L. Andreev and other writers, artists, actors, musicians. Some of them performed in an amateur country theater, reading poetry and memoirs. “People of art have become, if not familiar to us all, then easily recognizable, close, and approachable,” says D.S. Likhachev.

In 1914, a month after the outbreak of World War I, Mitya Likhachev went to school. First he studied at the Gymnasium of the Humane Society (1914–1915), then at the Gymnasium and real school of K.I. May (1915–1917), and finally - at the school named after. L. Lentovskaya (1918–1923). Having already crossed the eighty-year mark of life, D.S. Likhachev will write: “...secondary school creates a person, higher school gives a specialty.” Those educational institutions in which he studied as a child truly “created man.” Studying at the Lentovskaya school had a particularly great influence on the boy. Despite the hardships of the revolutionary times and significant material difficulties (the school building was not heated, so in winter children sat in coats and mittens over gloves), the school managed to create a special atmosphere of cooperation between teachers and students. There were many talented teachers among the teachers. There were circles at the school, the meetings of which were attended not only by schoolchildren and teachers, but also by famous scientists and writers. D.S. Likhachev especially liked to participate in literature and philosophy circles. At this time, the boy begins to seriously reflect on worldview issues and even thinks through his own philosophical system (in the spirit of A. Bergson and N. O. Lossky, who fascinated him at that time). He finally decides to become a philologist and, despite his parents’ advice to choose a more profitable profession as an engineer, in 1923 he entered the ethnological and linguistic department of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Petrograd University.

University

Despite the repressions against the intelligentsia that had already begun, the 1920s were the heyday of the humanities in Russia. D.S. Likhachev had every reason to say: “Leningrad University in the 1920s humanities was the best university in the world. Such a professorship as Leningrad University had at that time did not exist in any university either before or after.” There were many outstanding scientists among the teachers. It is enough to name the names of V.M. Zhirmunsky, L.V. Shcherby, D.I. Abramovich (for whom D.S. Likhachev wrote thesis based on the stories about Patriarch Nikon), etc.

Lectures, classes in archives and libraries, endless conversations on worldview topics in a long university corridor, attending public speeches and debates, philosophical circles - all this fascinated and spiritually and intellectually enriched the young man. “Everything around was extremely interesting<…>the only thing I had an acute lack of was time,” recalls Dmitry Sergeevich.

But this culturally and intellectually rich life unfolded against an increasingly gloomy social background. The persecution of the old intelligentsia intensified. People learned to live in anticipation of arrest. The persecution of the Church did not stop. It is about them that D.S. Likhachev remembers with particular pain: “You always remember your youth kindly. But I, and my other friends at school, university and clubs, have something that is painful to remember, that stings my memory and that was the most difficult thing in my young years. This is the destruction of Russia and the Russian Church, which took place before our eyes with murderous cruelty and which, it seemed, left no hope for revival.”

However, the persecution of the Church, contrary to the wishes of the authorities, led not to a decrease, but to an increase in religiosity. In those years when, according to D.S. Likhachev, “churches were closed and desecrated, services were interrupted by trucks driving up to the churches with brass bands playing on them or amateur choirs Komsomol members,” educated youth went to churches. Literary and philosophical circles, which existed in large numbers before 1927 in Leningrad, began to acquire a predominantly religious, philosophical or theological character. D.S. In the twenties, Likhachev attended one of them - a circle called Helfernak (“Artistic, Literary, Philosophical and Scientific Academy”), meetings were held in the apartment of school teacher I.M. Likhachev. Andreevsky. On August 1, 1927, by decision of the participants, the circle was transformed into the Brotherhood of St. Seraphim of Sarov. In addition, D.S. Likhachev also participated in another circle, the Space Academy of Sciences. The activities of this comic academy, which consisted of writing and discussing semi-serious scientific reports, walks to Tsarskoe Selo and friendly pranks, attracted the attention of the authorities, and its members were arrested. Following this, members of the Brotherhood of St. Seraphim of Sarov were also arrested (the investigation into both circles was combined into one case). The day of the arrest - February 8, 1928 - was the beginning new page in the life of D.S. Likhacheva. After a six-month investigation, he was sentenced to five years in the camps. A few months after graduating from Leningrad University (1927), he was sent to Solovki, which Likhachev would call his “second and main university.”

Solovki

The Solovetsky Monastery, founded by the Monks Zosima and Savvaty in the 13th century, was closed in 1922 and turned into the Solovetsky special-purpose camp. It became a place where thousands of prisoners served their sentences (at the beginning of the 1930s, their number reached 650 thousand, of which 80% were so-called “political” and “counter-revolutionaries”).

Forever D.S. Likhachev remembers the day when their convoy was unloaded from the wagons at the transit point in Kemi. The hysterical screams of the guards, the shouts of Beloozerov, who was taking the stage: “The power here is not Soviet, but Solovetsky,” the order for the entire column of prisoners, tired and chilled in the wind, to run around the pillar, raising their legs high - all this seemed so fantastic in its absurd reality that D. WITH. Likhachev could not stand it and laughed. “We’ll laugh later,” Beloozerov shouted at him threateningly.
Indeed, there was little funny in Solovetsky life. D.S. Likhachev experienced its hardships to the fullest. He worked as a sawyer, a loader, an electrician, a cowshed, a “vridlo” (a vridlo is a temporary horse, as prisoners who were harnessed to carts and sleighs instead of horses were called on Solovki), lived in a barracks, where at night the bodies were hidden under an even layer of swarming lice, dying of typhus. Prayer and the support of friends helped me get through it all. Thanks to the help of Bishop Victor (Ostrovidov) and Archpriest Nikolai Piskanovsky, who became D.S.’s spiritual father on Solovki. Likhachev and his comrades in the Brotherhood of St. Seraphim of Sarov, the future scientist managed to escape from grueling general works to the Criminological Office, which was involved in organizing a children's colony. At his new job, he had the opportunity to do a lot to save the “louses” - teenagers who had lost all their clothes at cards, lived in barracks under bunks and were doomed to starvation. In the Criminological Office, Likhachev communicated with many remarkable people, of whom the famous religious philosopher A.A. made a particularly strong impression on him. Meyer.

An incident occurred on Solovki that had great consequences for D.S.’s internal self-awareness. Likhacheva. At the end of November 1928, mass executions began in the camp. Likhachev, who was on a date with his parents, having learned that they were coming for him, did not return to the barracks and sat at the woodpile all night, listening to the shots. The events of that terrible night produced a revolution in his soul. He would later write: “I realized this: every day is a gift from God. I need to live for the day at hand, be content with the fact that I live another day. And be grateful for every day. Therefore, there is no need to be afraid of anything in the world. And one more thing - since the execution this time was carried out as a warning, I later found out that an even number of people were shot: either three hundred or four hundred people, along with those who followed soon after. It is clear that someone else was “taken” instead of me. And I need to live for two. So that I don’t feel ashamed in front of the one who was married to me!”

In 1931 D.S. Likhachev was transferred from Solovki to the White Sea-Baltic Canal, and on August 8, 1932 he was released from prison and returned to Leningrad. The era in his biography is ending, about which he said in 1966: “The stay on Solovki was the most significant period of my life.”

Pushkin House

Returning to his hometown, D.S. Likhachev could not get a job for a long time: his criminal record got in the way. His health was undermined by the Solovki. A stomach ulcer opened, the disease was accompanied by severe bleeding, Likhachev spent months in the hospital. Finally, he managed to become a scientific proofreader at the publishing house of the Academy of Sciences.

At this time he reads a lot, returns to scientific activity. In 1935 D.S. Likhachev married Zinaida Aleksandrovna Makarova, and in 1937 they had two girls - twins Vera and Lyudmila. In 1938 D.S. Likhachev went to work at the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where on June 11, 1941 he defended his dissertation for the degree of candidate philological sciences on the topic “Novgorod chronicles of the 12th century.”

Eleven days after the defense, the Great Patriotic War began. For health reasons D.S. Likhachev was not called up to the front and remained in besieged Leningrad until June 1942. He remembers how the day went in their family. In the morning we heated the potbelly stove with books, then together with the children we prayed, prepared meager food (crushed bones, boiled many times, soup made from wood glue, etc.). Already at six o'clock in the evening we went to bed, trying to throw on as much warm clothing as possible. We read a little by the light of the smokehouse and for a long time could not fall asleep due to thoughts about food and the internal cold permeating the body. It is amazing that in such a situation D.S. Likhachev did not give up his studies in science. Having survived the severe winter of the siege, in the spring of 1942 he began collecting materials on the poetics of ancient Russian literature and prepared (in collaboration with M.A. Tikhanova) a study “Defense of Old Russian Cities.” This book, published in 1942, was the first book published by D.S. Likhachev.

After the war D.S. Likhachev is actively involved in science. In 1945–1946 His books “National Identity of Ancient Rus'”, “Novgorod the Great”, “Culture of Rus' in the Age of the Formation of the Russian National State” were published. In 1947, he defended his doctoral dissertation “Essays on the history of literary forms of chronicle writing of the 11th–16th centuries.” Student and employee D.S. Likhacheva O.V. Tvorogov writes: “D.S.’s own scientific path. Likhachev began somewhat unusually - not with a series of articles on specific issues and minor publications, but with generalizing works: in 1945–1947. Three books were published one after another, covering the history of Russian literature and culture over several centuries.<...>In these books, a feature characteristic of many of Likhachev’s works appeared - the desire to consider literature in its closest connections with other areas of culture - education, science, fine arts, folklore, folk ideas and beliefs. This broad approach allowed the young scientist to immediately rise to those heights of scientific generalizations that are the threshold of conceptual discoveries.” In 1950 D.S. Likhachev prepared for publication in the “Literary Monuments” series two most important works ancient Russian literature - “The Tale of Bygone Years” and “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”. In 1953 he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in 1970 - a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He becomes one of the most authoritative Slavists in the world. His most significant works: “Man in the Literature of Ancient Rus'” (1958), “Culture of Rus' in the Time of Andrei Rublev and Epiphanius the Wise” (1962), “Textology” (1962), “Poetics of Old Russian Literature” (1967), “Eras and Styles” "(1973), "The Great Legacy" (1975).

D.S. Likhachev not only himself was engaged in the study of ancient Russian literature, but was also able to collect and organize scientific powers to study it. From 1954 until the end of his life, he was the head of the Sector (since 1986 - Department) of Old Russian Literature of the Pushkin House, which became the country's main scientific center on this topic. The scientist did a lot to popularize ancient Russian literature, so that its seven centuries of history became known to a wide circle of readers. On his initiative and under his leadership, the series “Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus'” was published, awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation in 1993. “In total, about 300 works were published in 12 books of the series (not counting the poems that made up the last volume). Translations and detailed commentaries made the monuments of medieval literature accessible to any non-specialist reader. The publication of “Monuments” made it possible to convincingly refute the still prevailing idea of the poverty and monotony of Russian medieval literature,” writes O.V. Tvorogov.

In the 1980s–1990s, D.S.’s voice was especially loud. Likhachev the publicist. In his articles, interviews, and speeches, he raised such topics as the protection of cultural monuments, ecology cultural space, historical memory How moral category and others. He devoted a lot of energy to work in the Soviet (since 1991 - Russian) Cultural Fund created on his initiative. Spiritual authority D.S. Likhachev was so great that he was rightly called “the conscience of the nation.”

In 1998, the scientist was awarded the Order of Apostle Andrew the First-Called “For Faith and Fidelity to the Fatherland” for his contribution to the development of national culture. He became the first holder of the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle after the restoration of this highest award in Russia.

Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev died on September 30, 1999. His books, articles, conversations are that great heritage, the study of which will help preserve the spiritual traditions of Russian culture, to which he dedicated his life.

Bibliography

Major works

The culture of Rus' in the time of Andrei Rublev and Epiphanius the Wise (1962)
Textology (1962)
Epochs and Styles (1973)
Russian chronicles and their cultural and historical significance. - M.; L.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1947. - 499 p. (Reprint 1966, 1986).
Man in the literature of Ancient Rus'. M.; L.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1958. 186 p. (Reprint 1970, 1987).
Textual criticism: Based on Russian literature of the 10th - 17th centuries. M.; L.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1962. 605 p. (Reprint 1983, reprint 2001: with the participation of A. A. Alekseev and A. G. Bobrov).
Textology: Krat. feature article. - M.; L.: Nauka, 1964. - 102 p.
Poetics of Old Russian Literature. L.: Nauka, 1967. 372 p. (Reprinted 1971, 1979, 1987).
The artistic heritage of Ancient Rus' and modernity. L.: Nauka, 1971. 120 p. (Collaborated with V.D. Likhacheva).
Development of Russian literature X - XVII centuries: Epochs and styles. L.: Nauka, 1973. 254 p. (Reprint 1987, 1998).
Great Legacy: Classic works literature of Ancient Rus'. M.: Sovremennik, 1975. 368 p. (For lovers of Russian literature). (Reprint 1980, 1987, 1997).
"The Laughing World" of Ancient Rus'. L.: Nauka, 1976. 204 p. (Ser. "From the history of world culture"). Joint with A. M. Panchenko. (Reprint 1984: “Laughter in Ancient Rus' - jointly with A. M. Panchenko and N. V. Ponyrko; reprint 1997: “Historical poetics of literature. Laughter as a worldview”).
"The Tale of Igor's Campaign" and the culture of its time. L.: Khudozhestvennaya lit., 1978. 359 p. (Reprint 1985).
Notes about Russian. M.: Sov. Russia, 1981. 71 p. (The Writer and Time). (Reprint 1984, 1987).
Literature - reality - literature. L.: Sov. writer, 1981. 215 p. (Reprint 1984, 1987).
Poetry of gardens: Towards the semantics of gardening styles. L.: Nauka, 1982. 341 p. (Reprint 1991, 1998).
Letters about the good and the beautiful. M.: Det. lit., 1985. 207 pp. (Reprinted 1988, 1989, 1990, 1994, 1999).
Selected works: in 3 volumes. L.: Hood. literature., 1987. T. 1. 656 p. T. 2. 656 p. T. 3. 656 p.
Notes and observations: From notebooks different years. L.: Sov. writer, 1989. 608 p.
Russian art from antiquity to the avant-garde. M.: Art, 1992. 408 p.
Memories. St. Petersburg: Logos, 1995. 519 p. (Reprinted 1997, 1999, 2001).
Essays on Philosophy artistic creativity/ RAS. Institute of Russian lit. SPb.: Rus.-Balt. information BLITZ Center, 1996. 159 p. (Reprint 1999).
About the intelligentsia: Sat. articles. (Supplement to the almanac "Eve", issue 2). St. Petersburg, 1997. 446 p.
Thoughts about Russia. St. Petersburg: Logos, 1999. 666 p.
Editing and introductory articles to each volume in publications ancient Russian monuments: “Izbornik” (1969, 1986), “Monuments of Literature of Ancient Rus' (in 12 volumes, 1978-1994), “Library of Literature of Ancient Rus'” (in 20 volumes; published since 1997; during the lifetime of D.S. . Likhachev 7 volumes were published, by 2002 - 10 volumes).
Russian culture. M.: Art, 2000. 438 p.

Awards, prizes and memberships

Hero of Socialist Labor (1986)
Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called (September 30, 1998) - for outstanding contribution to the development of national culture (awarded the order for No. 1)
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree (November 28, 1996) - for outstanding services to the state and great personal contribution to the development of Russian culture
The order of Lenin
Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1966)
Medal "50 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (March 22, 1995)
Pushkin Medal (June 4, 1999) - in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of A. S. Pushkin, for services in the field of culture, education, literature and art
Medal "For Labor Valor" (1954)
Medal "For the Defense of Leningrad" (1942)
Medal "30 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (1975)
Medal "40 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (1985)
Medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" (1946)
Medal "Veteran of Labor" (1986)
Order of Georgiy Dimitrov (NRB, 1986)
Two Orders of Cyril and Methodius, 1st degree (NRB, 1963, 1977)
Order of Stara Planina, 1st class (Bulgaria, 1996)
Order of the Madara Horseman, 1st class (Bulgaria, 1995)
Sign of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council “To a resident of besieged Leningrad”

In 1986 he organized the Soviet (now Russian) Cultural Foundation and was chairman of the presidium of the Foundation until 1993. Since 1990, he has been a member of the International Committee for the Organization of the Library of Alexandria (Egypt). He was elected as a deputy of the Leningrad City Council (1961-1962, 1987-1989).

Foreign member of the Academies of Sciences of Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Serbia. Corresponding member of the Austrian, American, British (1976), Italian, Göttingen academies, corresponding member of the oldest US society - the Philosophical Society. Member of the Writers' Union since 1956. Since 1983 - Chairman of the Pushkin Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences, since 1974 - Chairman of the Editorial Board of the yearbook “Cultural Monuments. New discoveries". From 1971 to 1993 he headed the editorial board of the “Literary Monuments” series, since 1987 he has been a member of the editorial board of the New World magazine, and since 1988 of the Our Heritage magazine.

The Russian Academy of Art Studies and Musical Performance awarded him the Amber Cross Order of Arts (1997). Awarded an Honorary Diploma of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg (1996). Awarded the Great Gold Medal named after M.V. Lomonosov (1993). First Honorary Citizen of St. Petersburg (1993). Honorary citizen of the Italian cities of Milan and Arezzo. Laureate of the Tsarskoye Selo Art Prize (1997).

Memory

May 25, 2011 in the atrium of the Library of Foreign Literature named after M. I. Rudomino.
In 2006, the D. S. Likhachev Foundation and the Government of St. Petersburg established the D. S. Likhachev Prize.
In 2006, a memorial plaque was installed in Moscow on house No. 4 on 1-Neopalimovsky Lane, where the editorial office of the magazine “Our Heritage” was located.
In 2000, D. S. Likhachev was posthumously awarded the State Prize of Russia for the development of the artistic direction of domestic television and the creation of the all-Russian state television channel “Culture”. The books “Russian Culture” have been published; “The skyline of the city on the Neva. Memoirs, articles."
By decree of the President of the Russian Federation, 2006 was declared in Russia the year of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev. The name of Likhachev was assigned to minor planet No. 2877 (1984).
In 1999, on the initiative of Dmitry Sergeevich, Pushkin Lyceum No. 1500 was created in Moscow. The academician did not see the lyceum and died three months after the construction of the building.
Every year, in honor of Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev, the Likhachev Readings are held at the State Educational Institution Gymnasium No. 1503 in Moscow and the Pushkin Lyceum No. 1500, which brings together students from various cities and countries with performances dedicated to the memory of the great citizen of Russia.
By order of the Governor of St. Petersburg in 2000, the name of D. S. Likhachev was given to school No. 47 (Plutalova Street (St. Petersburg), house No. 24), where Likhachev readings are also held.
In 1999, the Russian Research Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage was named after Likhachev.

Literature

Lukov Vl. A. D. S. Likhachev and his theoretical history of literature // Knowledge. Understanding. Skill. - 2006. - No. 4. - P. 124-134.

15 years ago, Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev (November 28, 1906 - September 30, 1999) - Soviet and Russian philologist, art critic, screenwriter, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (until 1991 - USSR Academy of Sciences) passed away.

Author of fundamental works devoted to the history of Russian literature (mainly Old Russian) and Russian culture. Author of works (including more than forty books) on a wide range of problems in the theory and history of ancient Russian literature, many of which have been translated into different languages. Author of 500 scientific and about 600 journalistic works. Likhachev made a significant contribution to the development of the study of ancient Russian literature and art. Likhachev's range of scientific interests is very wide: from the study of icon painting to the analysis of prison life of prisoners.

Throughout all the years of his activity, he was an active defender of culture, a promoter of morality and spirituality.

On February 8, 1928, D. S. Likhachev was arrested. The formal reason was truly ridiculous. Several young people united in a circle - the “Space Academy of Sciences” with their own “charter”, which declared loyalty to friendship, humor and optimism. They were engaged in “fun science”, making reports and jokingly “handing out” “lecterns” to each other. When the circle turned one year old, one of the “academicians” sent a congratulatory telegram supposedly from the Pope, which, however, attracted the attention of the NDVD. The young people were accused of “connecting with the Pope,” and the matter turned serious - they all ended up in camps. This was the period of the “Red Terror”, which began long before 1937...

The camp on Solovki turned out to be a “state within a state”, where there was power “not Soviet, but Solovetsky”. This meant cruel tyranny, mass executions and sophisticated atrocities by not entirely sane guards. Here D.S. Likhachev had to master many “specialties”: he worked as a wood sawyer, a loader in the port, an electrician, a worker in the Fox nursery, and looked after cows in the Selkhoz. In 1931, Dmitry Likhachev, along with other prisoners, was taken from Solovki: construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal began, for which labor was required. Here he had to become an “accounting worker”, then a railway dispatcher. The long-awaited release took place in the summer of 1932 - six months ahead of schedule thanks to the title “Udarnik BBK” received.

The main thing he took out of it terrible period, - the perception of every day lived as a gift. And also the understanding that every person is a person: his life was saved by the most different people, including a burglar thief and a bandit, “the king’s lesson.”

Dmitry Sergeevich himself also managed to live through this period, doing a lot of good - he organized a colony for juvenile delinquents, looked for teenagers around the island and saved them from death...

We publish an interview academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev about the role of the purity of the Russian language and the complex, often tragic, personal biography, inextricably intertwined with the fate of our Fatherland.

– How many words were there about protecting culture – a waterfall! Inflation of the word, the chattering of lofty concepts - this is no less detrimental to the soul and the Russian language than party censorship. And the result is the same - dumbness. It was impossible to say then, but now there is nothing. It even seems to me that people on the bus do not communicate, but moo at each other.

– We are a country without turning to another. This is what I heard from one emigrant who came to Russia: “Do you know what has replaced calling to another person? The word "well". The guide always turns to us and says: “Well, let’s go...”, “Well, now we’ll have lunch...” The constant “well”, the habit of dealing with prodding has entered the language. I remember how in 1937, when mass arrests began in St. Petersburg, I suddenly heard that at the post office they said “citizen” to me, the policeman said “citizen”, the conductor on the tram said “citizens”, but they always said “comrade”. What happened was that every person was a suspect. How to say “comrade” - or maybe he is a spy for some Iceland?

– Was this an official ban?

“I don’t know what kind of ban it was, I didn’t read it, but one fine day, like a cloud, came over the city - a ban on saying “comrade” in all official institutions. I asked someone: why did you say “comrade” to me before, and now “citizen”? And they say that this is what was indicated to us. It was humiliating. A country without respect for another person. What kind of relationships generally arise from childhood, from school, if girls start swearing? It’s very difficult for me to talk about this because I feel like I’m falling into a moralizing discourse. But I have a lot of letters on this subject, obscenities, or, as they more cautiously said before the revolution, “three-story expressions.”

- Swearing invades literature. When last year I first saw the swear words under the blue cover of Novy Mir, I felt uneasy, just scared...

– If the shamelessness of everyday life passes into language, then the shamelessness of language creates an environment in which shamelessness is already a common thing. Nature exists. Nature does not tolerate shamelessness.

– “Interlocutor” published an obscene newspaper a year ago, as if as a joke. The boys were frolicking, but they tried to seriously bring one of the authors to justice. What started here! Almost all of literary and journalistic Moscow rose to the defense of the “hero.”

- Not him, but you need to defend yourself from him. The lack of rights in which the Russian people lived for almost a century humiliated people. Now some people think that permissiveness is the shortest way out of a humiliating situation. But this is self-deception. Anyone who feels free will not answer with obscenities...

– Have you ever had to resort to “obscene” language in some extreme situations?

- No, I didn’t have to.

D.S. Likhachev on Solovki. 1930

– Even in the camp?

- Even there. I just couldn't swear. Even if I decided to myself, nothing would come of it. On Solovki I met the collector Nikolai Nikolaevich Vinogradov. He ended up in Solovki in a criminal case and soon became his boss’s man. And all because he swore. For this, a lot was forgiven. Most often those who did not swear were shot. They were "strangers". The island authorities were going to shoot the intelligent, kind Georgy Mikhailovich Osorgin and had already put him in a punishment cell when, with the permission of higher authorities, his wife, Princess Golitsyna, came to see Osorgin on a date. Osorgin was released on parole as an officer with the condition that he would not tell his wife anything about the fate awaiting him. And he didn't tell her anything.

I also turned out to be a stranger. Why didn't I please them? Because, obviously, he was wearing a student cap. I wore it so that I wouldn’t be beaten with sticks. Near the doors, especially to the thirteenth company, there were always young men with sticks. The crowd poured in both directions, there were not enough stairs, the temples had three-story bunks, and therefore, in order to move faster, the prisoners were driven with sticks. And so, so as not to be beaten, to distinguish myself from the punks, I put on a student’s cap. And they really never hit me. Only once, when the train with our stage arrived in Kem. I was already standing below, by the carriage, and from above the guard was driving everyone away and then hit him in the face with his boot... They broke their will, divided them into “us” and “strangers”. That’s when the swear words came into play. When a person swears, it’s his own. If he didn't swear, he could have been expected to fight back. That’s why Vinogradov managed to become one of his own - he swore, and when he was released, he became director of the museum on Solovki. He lived in two dimensions: the first was determined by the inner need to do good, and he saved intellectuals and saved me from common work. The other was determined by the need to adapt, to survive.

At one time, Prokofiev was the head of the Leningrad Writers' Organization. In the regional committee he was considered one of his own, although he had been the son of a policeman all his life, he knew how to swear and therefore knew how to somehow find mutual language with the authorities. And intellectuals, even those who sincerely believed in socialism, were rejected out of hand - too intellectuals, and therefore not one of their own.

D.S. Likhachev’s autograph under the photograph (Solovki, 1930)

– Just a hundred years ago there were 287 words in the Russian language dictionary starting with “good.” Almost all of these words have disappeared from our speech, and those that remain have acquired a more mundane meaning. For example, the word “reliable” meant “full of hope”, “encouraged”...

– The words disappeared along with the phenomena. How often do we hear “mercy”, “benevolence”? This is not in life, therefore it is not in language. Or “decency”. Nikolai Kalinnikovich Gudziy always amazed me - no matter who I talked about, he would ask: “Is he a decent person?” This meant that the person was not an informer, would not steal from his friend’s article, would not denounce him, would not read a book, would not offend a woman, would not break his word. What about “courtesy”? "You did me a favor." This is a kind service that does not offend the person to whom it is provided. "A kind man." Whole line words disappeared with concepts. Let's say, “a well-mannered person.” He is a well-mannered man. This was primarily said before about the person whom they wanted to praise. The concept of good manners is missing now; people won’t even understand it.

It still remains a misfortune of the Russian language that the teaching of the Church Slavonic language has been abolished. It was a second language, close to Russian.

- Smart...

– Yes, yes, this language raises the meaning of what it’s about we're talking about in a word. This is another completely high emotional environment. The exclusion of Church Slavonic from school education and the invasion of swearing are symmetrical phenomena.

The general degradation of us as a nation affected the language first of all. Without the ability to turn to each other, we lose ourselves as a people. How to live without the ability to name? It is not for nothing that in the book of Genesis, God, having created animals, brought them to Adam so that he would give them names. Without these names, a person would not be able to distinguish a cow from a goat. When Adam gave them names, he noticed them. In general, to notice a phenomenon is to give it a name, to create a term, therefore in the Middle Ages science was mainly concerned with naming and creating terminology. It was a whole period – scholastic. Naming was already knowledge. When an island was discovered, it was given a name, and only then was it a geographical discovery. Without naming there was no opening.

Solovetsky notes by D.S. Likhachev

– After the first documentaries With your participation and television meetings in Ostankino, your speech has become a kind of standard for the speech of a cultured person. Who could you use as an example, whose speech do you like?

– At one time, the standard of Russian speech was the language of the Maly Theater actors. There has been a tradition there since Shchepkin’s times. And now we need to listen good actors. In St. Petersburg - Lebedeva, Basilashvili.

– Over the years of our lives, words become overgrown with shades and memories known only to us - just like a ship becomes overgrown with shells. Maybe that’s why writers’ dictionaries seem so interesting to me. There are, alas, few of them. A dictionary of Pushkin’s language, which has long become a rarity, recently published a dictionary for Ostrovsky’s plays...

– I would put in first place the need to create a Bunin dictionary. His language is rich not only in its connection with the village and the noble environment, but also in the fact that it contains a literary tradition - from “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, from chronicles.

It is very important to read aloud to children. So that the teacher comes to class and says: “Today we will read “War and Peace.” Do not disassemble, but read with comments. This is what our literature teacher Leonid Vladimirovich Georg read to us at Lentovskaya school. Most often this happened during the lessons that he gave in place of his sick fellow teachers. He read to us not only War and Peace, but also Chekhov’s plays and Maupassant’s stories. Showed us how interesting it is to teach French, rummaged through dictionaries in front of us, looking for the most expressive translation. After such lessons, I studied only French for one summer.

The saddest thing is when people read and unfamiliar words do not interest them, they skip them, follow only the movement of intrigue, the plot, but do not read in depth. We must learn not to read quickly, but to read slowly. Academician Shcherba was a promoter of slow reading. Over the course of a year, he and I only managed to read a few lines from “ Bronze Horseman" Each word seemed to us like an island that we had to discover and describe from all sides. From Shcherba I learned to appreciate the pleasure of reading slowly.

interviewed by D. Shevarov

Published by: TVNZ. 1996. March 5. “I live with a feeling of parting...”

Likhachev Dmitry Sergeevich, historian of ancient Russian literature, academician, first holder of the restored Order of St. Andrew the First-Called.

Born into the family of an engineer. In 1923 he graduated from labor school and entered Petrograd University at the Department of Linguistics and Literature of the Faculty of Social Sciences. In 1928 he graduated from the university, defending two diplomas - in Romano-Germanic and Slavic-Russian philology.

In 1928, for participating in a scientific student circle, Likhachev was arrested and imprisoned in the Solovetsky camp. In 1931 - 1932 he was at the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and was released as a “drummer of the Belbaltlag with the right to reside throughout the entire territory of the USSR.”

In 1941 Likhachev defended his Ph.D. thesis “Novgorod Chronicles of the 12th Century.” In Leningrad, besieged by the Nazis, Likhachev, in collaboration with archaeologist M.A. Tianova wrote the brochure “Defense of Old Russian Cities,” which appeared during the siege of 1942. In 1947, Likhachev defended his doctoral dissertation “Essays on the history of literary forms of chronicle writing of the 11th - 16th centuries.”

Likhachev gained worldwide fame as a literary critic, cultural historian, text critic, popularizer of science, and publicist. His basic research“The Tale of Igor’s Host”, numerous articles and commentaries made up an entire section of Russian medieval studies.

His monograph “Textology. Based on the material of Russian literature of the 10th - 17th centuries.” While studying special questions, Likhachev knows how to talk about them simply, intelligibly and not for a specialist. In the book “Man in the Literature of Ancient Rus',” Likhachev showed how styles changed in ancient Russian literature, giving the modern reader the opportunity to perceive the work of the past.

Likhachev managed to do a lot as a teacher and organizer of science; he was a member of many foreign academies, was twice awarded the State Prize (1952, 1969), and in 1986 became a Hero of Socialist Labor.