Sumarokov, Alexander Petrovich

Origin. Beginning

The poet and playwright belonged to the noble family of the Sumarokovs , whose rise began in the second half of the 17th century. Grandfather - Pankraty Bogdanovich (1650-1730) - in the rank of clerk with a key was under Tsar Fedor Alekseevich , and then under Peter I ; the latter awarded him for his faithful service. According to legend, the tsar’s godson was his son Peter , the future father of the poet, who rose to the colonel in military service, and in 1737 transferred to the public service and corrected the position of judge in the Forfeiture Office . In 1762, Pyotr Sumarokov resigned with the rank of State Councilor . He became related to the family of Priklonsky , the brother-in-law , Pyotr Spiridonovich Priklonsky (1709-1780), belonged to a group of nobles who actively opposed the " leaders " during the reign of Anna Ioannovna . The family was wealthy: according to the revision tale of 1737, in the six estates of the Sumarokovs there were 1737 male serfs. In addition to Alexander, Peter and Praskovya Sumarokovs had two sons and three daughters. Alexander was born in Finland, where his father was on business at the time ^{[5] [6]} .

Since 1726, Peter Sumarokov served in St. Petersburg and, apparently, was the first teacher of his son ^[3] . Sumarokov Sr. from 1702 studied with the famous Ruthenian teacher Ivan Zeykan (or Zeykin), who later gave lessons to the heir to the throne, the future Emperor Peter II , and participated in the education of Alexander Sumarokov ^{[3] [6] [7]} . The family legend testified that Alexander began to compose poems and “reflections” very early in the spirit of Christian humility. March 30, 1732, together with his brother Vasily (1715-1767), Alexander was accepted into the first set of the land gentry cadet corps . One of the early Russian poets studied with him - M. G. Sobakin , famous military figures P. A. Rumyantsev , Prince A. M. Golitsyn , Count P. I. Panin , poet-translator A. V. Olsufiev and others ^{[ 6]} . The classes of the Corps were solemnly called the "Knight's Academy"; its creators set the task of educating in the humanitarian spirit of the European culture the higher nobility of the Russian Empire. According to G. A. Gukovsky :

It was necessary to achieve the transformation of the Russian landowner into a "knight" in the Western spirit. In addition to sciences, the cadet was taught not only dances, but also recitation (many sciences were taught in the corps, and the student could specialize in one or another field; in general, the course was not unified). Particularly distinctly, this salon-aristocratic style acquired a corps education under Elizabeth , when successive changes took place in the personnel of the corps: German fissile-burgher influence was replaced by French influence, which was destined to play such a large role in the formation of the psyche of the Russian noble intellectual. The ideal of the Dutch shipyard yielded to the ideal of Versailles ^[8] .

The legend said that already at the time of Sumarokov there was a literary society and a theater circle in the building, there was an extensive library that wrote out European news and foreign newspapers and magazines. Sumarokov loved and knew how to study, in the corps he acquired an excellent education by the standards of his time, mastered German and French languages ​​and the beginnings of Italian; here he became interested in Wolfian ethics ^[3] . In the case, he read Paul Talman ’s novel “Riding to the Island of Love” translated by V. Trediakovsky ; after the publication in 1735 of the “New and Concise Way to Compose Russian Poems,” Sumarokov adopted Trediakovsky’s poetic reform and began to compose syllabic verses ^[9] . On the issue of 1740, two congratulatory odes of Sumarokov dedicated to the empress were printed ^[10] . Released in 1740 as lieutenant , Sumarokov first entered the military field office of Count Minich (actually becoming his deputy for the Corps) ^[10] , and then an adjutant to the vice chancellor Count M. G. Golovkin (April 14) ^[3] .

Career ups and downs

G. A. Gukovsky argued that Sumarokov’s life, “poor in external events, was very sad” ^[11] . The palace coup of 1741 did not affect the career of Sumarokov. Perhaps, under the patronage of his father, he was promoted to captain and appointed to the retinue of the life campaign of Lieutenant Count Alexei Razumovsky ^[12] . After a petition for transfer to the state service (April 5, 1742), he received the rank of major and was appointed adjutant of the Chief Jägermeister Razumovsky. At the end of 1745, Major Sumarokov was appointed head of the office of the Life Campaign , his attempts to strengthen discipline led to numerous conflicts, then his first encounter with I. Shuvalov took place ^[3] .

On November 10, 1746, Sumarokov married the chamber-jungfer of Grand Duchess Catherine Alekseevna Johanna Christine Balk (1723-1769), who had been married to her for 20 years and had two daughters from her - Catherine and Praskovia. His career growth took its normal course: in 1751 he received the rank of colonel, at Christmas 1755 - the brigadier rank . December 30, 1756 Sumarokov, left in the army, was appointed director of the Russian Theater. During this period, a group of admirers and like-minded Sumarokov was formed, which included I. I. Melissino , I. V. Shishkin, A. V. Olsufiev and others ^[13] . In 1755-1758 he was an active member of the academic journal “ Monthly Works ”, in 1759 he published his own journal of satirical and moralizing connotation “ Hardworking Bee ” - the first private journal in Russia. In July 1761, he was dismissed with a salary and since then has not served. In the same year, an open quarrel took place between Sumarokov and MV Lomonosov because of an attempt by Alexander Petrovich to join the Academy of Sciences ^[14] . Back in 1756, Sumarokov received recognition abroad: he was elected an honorary member of the Leipzig Academy of Liberal Arts ^[15] .

After the accession of Catherine II, he was transferred to the public service and granted the rank of state adviser . By the decree of the empress of August 28, 1762, at the public expense, the debts of Sumarokov were liquidated, and he received the right to print all his new works at the expense of the Cabinet of Her Imperial Majesty ^[16] . In 1763, together with M. M. Kheraskov and F. G. Volkov, Sumarokov participated in the production of the “Triumphant Minerva” masquerade, dedicated to the coronation of the empress in Moscow. January 26, 1767 he was granted the Order of St. Anne and the rank of State Councilor , which became the pinnacle of Sumarokov’s bureaucratic and court career ^[3] .

In the second half of the 1760s, Sumarokov’s attempts to play an independent role in politics irritated the empress, several of his works were banned. In 1764, he planned to make a great European trip to Italy, France and Holland, mainly to get acquainted with the theatrical life of these countries; but he never received permission to leave. One of the most important reasons was the inconsistent amount of the trip - 12,000 rubles, which he requested from the treasury, stating with the inherent conceit that they would fully pay off after the publication of his travel notes ^[17] . In 1767, Sumarokov received the review “ Catherine II ’s Punishment ”, and the remarks made by him provoked the following reaction of the empress:

“Mr. Sumarokov is a good poet, but he thinks too soon to be a good legislator; he doesn’t have any connection in his thoughts in order to criticize the chain, and for this he is attached to the appearance of the rings that make up the components of the chain, and finds that there are errors here or there that he would have left flaws if he understood the connection. ”

Against this background, a big scandal unfolded in the family of Sumarokov himself: in 1766 he broke up with his wife and entered into an actual marriage with the daughter of his coachman Vera Prokhorova, from whom he had a son and daughter. They were married only in 1774, after the imperial decree, the children of Sumarokov were recognized as legal and received the nobility. At the same time, there was a division of property after the death of his father, because of which Alexander Petrovich quarreled with all relatives. The first stay in Moscow lasted until 1768. Mother - Praskovya Ivanovna - turned to the empress personally, and by the highest order Sumarokov was forced to ask for forgiveness from his relatives. In 1767, his son-in-law (husband of the late sister) A.I. Buturlin began a case against Sumarokov, against whom Alexander Petrovich himself submitted petition to Petersburg, clearly painted in satirical tones ^[18] . In 1769, Sumarokov finally moved to Moscow, the Empress granted him 3000 rubles for relocation ^[19] .

Recent years

In 1770, another scandal occurred: the previous year, the Moscow troupe of N. S. Titov broke up, and Sumarokov began to bother about transferring the theater to the Italians J. Chinti and J. Belmonty. At the same time, he appropriated the right to be the only director in the production of his own plays, one of his requirements was the “well-behaved” behavior of the public. On January 30, 1770, by the order of the Moscow commander in chief P. Saltykov , his play “Sinav and Truvor” was staged against the will of Sumarokov, booed by the audience. On February 15, Sumarokov received a written reprimand from the Empress, who was distributed around the city on the lists; in the polemic that had begun, G. Derzhavin opposed Alexander Petrovich. This led to a severe nervous breakdown; Sumarokov took refuge in the estate and recovered only in the fall ^[19] . His condition was somewhat improved by receiving a letter from Voltaire , sent on February 26, 1769, but reaching the addressee for more than a year (it was first sent to Petersburg). The reasons that prompted Sumarokov to turn directly to Voltaire are debated; in part, they were related to his quarrel with I.P. Elagin , the director of the Court Theater, who kept the production of new plays and censored compositions. A letter to Voltaire was transmitted through Prince F.A. Kozlovsky , whose path to Italy passed through Ferney . Apparently, the main plot of the correspondence was "a new and dirty kind of tear comedies." In his response, Voltaire reported that “the French nation, by its weakness,” allowed tearful comedies to take the place of the genre laid down by Moliere . In his letter, Voltaire regretted the impossibility of interfering in the theatrical life of Paris and wrote to Sumarokov: “... fortunately, you are still young and will serve your fatherland for a long time” ^[20] . Sumarokov tried to use the authority of the French enlightener in a theatrical conflict with P. Urusov and M. Groti, who regularly violated copyrights and deprived the playwright of the box in the theater ^[21] .

In August 1773, Sumarokov left for St. Petersburg, where he lived until January 1775. Mostly he was engaged in the publication of his works, including the complete arrangement of the Psalms, and the staging of his last plays in the Court Theater. Due to numerous conflicts and experiences Sumarokov constantly suffered from hypochondria and gradually began to go blind, since 1773 almost all of his manuscripts and letters belonged to Secretary L.I. Popov. Back in July 1773, P. A. Demidov began the process against Sumarokov because of debts, his house and property were described. In 1774, lenders did not release him from St. Petersburg. Repeated calls to G. A. Potemkin had no effect, and had to sell the library to cover the most urgent debts ^[22] .

On May 1, 1777, the second wife of the poet, Vera Prokhorova, died. Sumarokov was very worried, in one of the letters dated September 1777, he claimed that he "cried unceasingly for twelve weeks" ^[23] . In order not to deprive the inheritance rights of the children who had been accustomed to her, Sumarokov immediately got married to his wife’s niece Elena Gavrilovna ^[24] . September 29 was an auction at which the writer’s house and the remains of his library were sold. Forgotten by everyone, he died in a house that no longer belonged to him on October 1 ^[25] and was buried on the 3rd ^[26] . On October 6, in the Moskovskiye Vedomosti , an announcement was published about his death with Maykov’s epitaph, and a detailed obituary in the St. Petersburg Bulletin was not published until 1778 ^[27] . According to legend, only Moscow actors were at the funeral, due to which they buried the poet ^[28] ; Sumarokov’s grave at the Don cemetery was not marked by a monument, and the burial place was lost at the beginning of the XIX century ^[25] . The existing monument was erected only in 1951 ^[29] .

According to reviews and memoirs of contemporaries, A.P. Sumarokov was difficult in communication and unpleasant in personal terms. His appearance was described as follows: he was not tall, with red hair, a face with traces of smallpox; when worried, his features were distorted by a nervous tick . In speeches he was witty and could joke successfully. Until the end of his life, he followed fashion and dressed smartly, which, apparently, did not correspond to his manners and behavior and caused ridicule of D. I. Fonvizin ^[25] . Distinguished by his violent temperament, he extremely nervously reacted to all external stimuli of both a domestic and political plan; moreover, he was distinguished by extreme pride and quickly fell into a rage, reaching fury. Documents published by N. Tikhonravov relating to 1769 indicate that Sumarokov could afford to beat or flog someone else's servant who delivered him an unpleasant letter ^[30] . Due to temperament, Sumarokov quarreled decisively with all his relatives, his mother even betrayed him with a curse and did not let him go home; in a complaint addressed to the empress, she described her son as "depraved in temper and frantic" ^[31] .

In one of the private letters (dated May 1769) Sumarokov was described as follows:

... Is it possible to honor such a poet for a useful society, which he hates the whole human race for having composed some good tragedies? poet, in which truth and justice never happened; whom she has forwarded all her life in a rage, incessantly slanders others and tries to damage their honor; which scolds those whom they gave him life; who was separated from his wife and children only in order to enjoy his fury with his contemptible work; who now doesn’t allow this unfortunate wife to live in peace and in a strange house: driving through her windows, she screams at the top of her mouth, scolds her with dishonest words, sends her servants to her house to be scolded and, writing a filled letter to her, forces his daughters to sign up for it. And when the imaginary Evo friends spoke to him, he swore in a terrible way that he did not send letters and ministers to his wife, although he was a very worthy person when she received a vile letter from him. As a sign of his excuse, he will refer to his daughters as he did before. But can a daughter catch the eyes of such a rabid father? Can such a poet be called a man, a useful society, who, being 50 years old, is only a vile subject to vices, and whose virtue and nature with abstinence are not characteristic of virtue? ^{[32] [Note 1]}

Alexander Sumarokov was careless about the economy and income. Having gained high ranks, he received a large salary; his works were published at public expense. After dividing family property in 1766, he received 300 serf souls, not counting more than 2000 rubles of an annual pension ^[34] , but enjoyed a stable reputation as a squander. This was emphasized by constant complaints of lack of money in letters and constant requests for loans; as a result, debts led the poet to complete ruin ^[25] .

Traits of character and temperament Sumarokova superimposed on his estate and political views. In the cadet corps, he acquired idealized ideas about the status of a nobleman, which he adhered to until the end of his life. In his understanding, a nobleman is a person born to serve the fatherland, honor, culture, and virtue. The status of a writer in this context became the role of the leader of social thought. From this came his idea of ​​a state in which the wise and noble nobles prudently lead a happy, albeit illiterate people, and he probably sincerely considered it feasible. Sumarokov’s theatrical experiments were yet another attempt at influencing the minds of his contemporaries, but failed primarily due to the restraint of Alexander Petrovich, who demanded double respect for himself - as an aristocrat and a poet. According to G. Gukovsky, Sumarokov’s “hysteria and indomitability” were largely generated by powerlessness to realize his ideal. For example, being an opponent of the abolition of serfdom , Sumarokov once disassembled and fled when the landowner in his presence called the servants " boorish knee." All of the above led to the fact that towards the end of life Sumarokov washed down and sank ^[35] .

Odic works

In the first published works of the 1740s, Sumarokov fully followed the principles of Trediakovsky’s poetic reform. Congratulatory odes to the Empress Anna Ivanovna are written in eleven- and thirteen-complex verse ^[36] .

Almost immediately, Sumarokov became interested in the Lomonosov syllabonic system (which during this period left Kantemir and Trediakovsky indifferent). By his own admission, after the transition to a new system of versification, he burned all his early literary experiments ^[38] . The creative evolution of Alexander Petrovich was demonstrated by the sketches of "Ode, composed in the first summer of my life in the poem of an exercise," dating from 1740-1743 ^[39] . It is written in four- footed iambic with pyrrhicia (accent gaps: “In the Semiramid Garden”, “I went to the widest sea”), a ten-line stanza and demonstrates the complete assimilation of Lomonosov’s odic manner, saturated with geographical associations, historical parallels and images of ancient mythology ^[40] .

Sumarokov quickly politicized his work, including political passages in odes and giving advice to Elizaveta Petrovna on behalf of the Russian nobility. Even more civil pathos intensified in the first ode on the day of the accession to the throne of Catherine II on June 28, 1762. Sumarokov angrily described the disastrous state of the state, handed over to the power of the foreigners who ruled on behalf of the tsarina:

Having failed with the role of court poet and adviser to Ekaterina Alekseevna, already after moving to Moscow, in 1771 Sumarokov turned to Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich with a welcome ode in which he expressed hope that the future emperor would correctly understand the duties of the monarch. The second ode was dedicated to him in 1774; in the same year, the poet in the revised edition of “Ode solemn” edited the old texts, including removing a number of the most loyal passages in stanzas dedicated to Catherine II, in particular, removed the comparison with Astrea and other mythological comparisons ^[42] .

Literary and Political Program

Sumarokov's literary and political program, put forward and developed in his odes, was based on a peculiar philosophical base. According to P. Berkov , Sumarokov, according to his views, gravitated to sensualism ; this doctrine was devoted to the article "On the understanding of man according to Locke ." Denying the supernatural, Alexander Petrovich proclaimed the source of human knowledge a feeling. However, in accordance with the spirit of the Enlightenment, for the individual and public life of man, he assigned a large role to reason and reason and ultimately rejected Locke's doctrine of innate ideas. This led to the following conclusion: “nature does not explain the truth in our souls and, therefore, does not give any moral instruction” ^[43] . He felt a strong mistrust of metaphysics and the ultimate questions of being in general ^[44] . He considered the goal of human life to be good, but recognized that “intellects” and “actions” have a different nature and origin. To remove the contradictions, people invented morality and politics. At the same time, morality “cares” for the individual good, and politics - for the general. The clearer the minds of people, the more correct their morality and politics ^[45] .

Sumarokov believed that all people are by their nature united and equal, differing socially only in the degree of clarity of mind. Since everyone is equally impressed by the senses, and there is no innate truth (truth is comprehended by the efforts of the mind), people are equal at birth, because they are equally deprived of reason. The distinction between nobles and serfs arises as a result of the development of reason and education. The nobles who were educated, brought up in the spirit of a high culture and surrounded by educated and cultured people, rightfully stand above the common people - uneducated, ill-bred and surrounded by the same uncultured people. The nobles are the "sons of the Fatherland", "the first members of society." That is, Sumarokov, recognizing the equality of people by nature, justified their social inequality ^[46] . These views then appeared in a number of his satyrs and epistles.

The aesthetics of Sumarokov, most clearly represented in his lyrics, are closer to rationalism. He shared the thesis standard for French classicism that only that which was “reasonable” could be beautiful. Only that is moral that meets the requirements of "reason." Reason is not omnipotent, because it constantly confronts the passions generated by human nature that violate the rational harmony of the world. Of all the passions, the most harmful are the thirst for wealth and autocracy ^[47] . The main task of art is the suppression of passions and the fight against them. In accordance with the notions of classicism, politics is the care of the common good, therefore the task of the poet, as the highest representative of literature, is to strengthen the rational state principle. If in high genres - tragedy, epic and ode - the poet is obliged to promote the idea of ​​the state, then the lyrics should contribute to the upbringing of the noble consciousness ^[48] .

Epic

The creation of epic poems within the framework of classic aesthetics was the highest expression of national literature and culture and an indicator of its maturity. Trediakovsky, Lomonosov and Sumarokov equally addressed the solution to this problem. After the release of Telemachis in 1766, Sumarokov undertook the following experiment: he began the translation of the first part of the Fenelon Telemachus with a hexameter . P. N. Berkov suggested that this is not a translation of the original itself, but the text of Trediakovsky creatively edited for readability ^[49] . After the death in Sumarokov’s papers, a fragment of “Dimitriad” was discovered - his own attempt to create an epic poem. He saw the light in the first part of the collection of his works published by Novikov ^[50] . The failure to create the Sumarokov epic is usually explained by the fact that Alexander Petrovich felt a contradiction between the living needs of the time and the strictly regulated canon of the heroic epic. As a result, the task of creating a classicist epic was successfully solved by M. Kheraskov in the poem “ Rossiada ” ^[51] .

Lyrics

Sumarokov's poetic and linguistic program was declared in the epistle about poetry:

The themes of Sumarokov’s lyric works, as well as his dramatic works, are standard for classicism. The conflict between a person’s feeling and duty, between his duties and desires, was rationalized and was almost always expressed in precise formulations. At the same time, the description of the suffering of lovers from infidelity and separation is devoid of motivation, their reasons are not revealed, most often references are made to evil rock or to a bitter fate: “How did you get the cruel rock out of my eyes ...”, “How did the rock hit me and I parted angry with you ... ”,“ You then see that it’s not me - I blame the rock ... ”,“ The fate judged me like that ... ”,“ Rock thee in an evil fate ... ”,“ Rock doesn’t allow you to live there ... ”, and so further ^[52] . According to A. Zapadov , Sumarokov in this context directly continued the traditions of Old Russian literature: his “rock” is nothing but “grief-malignancy”, which brought the young people to monastic tonsure. Despite the political intentions that pervaded his odic work, the only reason for the lovers' misfortune is precisely evil fate, and not at all class or property inequality, the choice of the groom to the taste of the parents, leaving for war or something like that that appeared to his followers (like Kheraskova). Sumarokov had no need to note motivation, he was attracted to the image of feeling itself, but he omitted the causes of various states of the soul ^[53] .

Like Trediakovsky’s love lyrics in the 1730s, Sumarokov’s love poems in the 1750-1770s also spread widely and became the basis for fostering the way young people express their feelings. Sumarokov presented many models of lovers' behavior - acquaintance, discovery of feelings, the joy of his reciprocity, unexpected separation, infidelity, jealousy, reconciliation. The model often served as the love relationships of shepherds and shepherdesses, especially described in detail by Sumarokov in his idylls and eclogs. Pushkin condemningly wrote about Sumarokov's "cynical pipe"; on the contrary, Belinsky praised Alexander Petrovich for bothering in his lyric works on morality ^[55] .

Sumarokov’s figurative lyrical poem system is static: the landscape is only outlined, signs of the times are usually given in the listings, the palette of colors and sounds is relatively poor - all this diversity will be brought into Russian poetry by Derzhavin. The images of nature, without constituting an independent picture, served as an analogue of human behavior or an allegory of the state of the soul ^[56] . Active work in lyrical genres in the 1740s allowed Sumarokov to develop an easy poetic language and style; the verse, which P. Berkov called "musical," stands closer to the spoken language than even the prosaic language of that era. The main size in which he worked was the Russian form of the Alexandrian verse - a six-foot iambic with paired rhymes; all eclogs and elegy were written in it, as well as epistles, satires and tragedies ^[57] .

The lyrics of Sumarokov are extremely subjective and colored by the author's intonation, which sharply distinguishes him from the classic appeal to muses and heroes. However, Sumarokov-personality is twofold: he acts simultaneously as an individual author, but also as an exponent of the entire nobility class, which did not meet the high standards imposed by their origin. Even in the poems to the death of Fyodor Volkov , the first Russian professional actor, Sumarokov could not resist mentioning his personal merits: “I showed the theater to Rasinov , about Rossi, to you ...”. In the poem on the death of A. G. Razumovsky , the former boss and friend of Sumarokov, “he writes about his last meeting with him in St. Petersburg, about a gift received from Razumovsky, and without any offense speaks of“ Tsar’s favorites “who live“ in abundance and magnificent imaginary glory, “they destroy people, both simple and noble,“ not listening to conscience nor a slight fear ”. Razumovsky, the royal favorite, was not like that: he lived in the palace as an honest man, was not involved in tyranny, arrogance, and looked at contemptors with contempt. So Razumovsky really remained in the memory of his contemporaries, and the characteristic that Sumarokov gives him refers to this particular person. Before the reader is not a generalized image of the favorite, but a sketch of a personality about which there is something to remember ” ^[58] . The contrast will be the figurative system of dedication to Sumarokov’s sister - E. P. Buturlina. It is built almost exclusively on woeful exclamations; the author expresses confidence that the deceased will always abide in his memory, and only she said about herself that rock told her to die "in her youth", "in blooming days." There is not a word about the personal qualities of the deceased ^[58] .

Poetics of Sumarokov. Songs and Fables

Sumarokov was a consistent universalist and worked in all the poetic genres known in his time, starting from the established "solid" forms of sonnet , rondo , stanzas and ending with lyric miniatures - epigrams , epitaphs and madrigals . However, it was these forms, as well as ballads , that did not occupy a large place in his work, being exhausted by one or several texts, that is, being a creative experiment. His favorite genres, however, were songs, fables and parodies, which he, in fact, re-created in Russian literature ^[59] . The song - a lyric poem written on existing music or involving musical accompaniment - was a popular genre in the 18th century. Sumarokov’s innovation was to “legitimize” the song in the genre system of Russian lyrics, since the civic pathos of classicism rejected personality and chamber genres as “lower” ^[59] . For Sumarokov, the song genre was convenient for expressing immediate feelings and feelings of a private nature, as a result, over 40 years of his creative activity, he created about 160 song texts ^[60] .

Sumarokov’s song psychology is peculiar: in his songs there is always an independent lyrical subject, a bearer of passion, expressing it with direct speech. This subject, who did not allow the song to turn into a direct author’s emotional outpouring, can equally be a man and a woman. According to O. Lebedeva, "the personal pronoun" I "almost always belongs to him, and not to the author":

Sumarokov’s most common song situation is treason and separation, causing a psychological conflict in the soul of the lyrical subject. Love in his lyrics is the highest manifestation of the human principle in man and an ideal expression of his nature. In fact, the song genre is crossed with the dramatic one, since the same artistic techniques are used. Both in dramas and songs of Sumarokov there is upheaval (a change of position from better to worse), the lyrical subject is in a state of internal strife and a struggle of passions. According to O. Lebedeva, the mental state of the lyrical subject of the song is described by typically tragic antitheses (freedom - bondage, joy - sorrow, shame - passion). Similar antitheses unfold into a picture of the clash and struggle of opposing passions, which turn out to be completely not mutually exclusive, but closely interconnected and able to pass one into another ^[61] .

The rejection of the formal canon in the song genre gave him a huge metric variety. This distinguished Sumarokov from the background of his contemporaries who preferred a particular meter (for example, Lomonosov gravitated towards a four- and six-legged iamba ). For songs, Sumarokov, as a rule, chose a choreic rhythm, but widely varied his footsteps , and also widely used lightened ( pyrrhic ) and truncated (without an unstressed syllable) feet along with feet of complete education ^[62] :

Alexander Sumarokov also used folk rhythmic and poetic techniques in songwriting. Thematically, his songs were analogues of elegy, but their metric freedom served as an additional way of expressing emotions and meanings. Different shades of mood and feeling corresponded to different rhythms, rhyming methods and stanza forms. This “threw the bridge” from the Lomonosov theory of the odic iambic with ascending intonation to the lyrics of the late 18th century ^[61] .

According to O. Lebedeva, Sumarokov’s fables were a kind of antonymical pair for songwriting. In 1762-1769, Sumarokov published three collections of fables and published a large number in various periodicals. He called his fables "parables", emphasizing their didactic principle. D. Blagoy calculated that 378 fables were included in the Novikov collected works of Sumarokov ^[63] . Since the fable was least constrained by the requirements of the canon in the genre system of classicism, this predetermined the freedom of Sumarokov’s fable verse - a free (difference) iambic, which became the main size of the Russian fable ^[64] . The satirical principle in fables is presented in two ways: both as an attitude to being described, and as a moral and ethical edification and conviction. Compared to Sumarokov’s songs, the author’s beginning in fables is pronounced, which is emphasized by intonations, the use of a personal pronoun and attitude to the described events. The personality of the narrator and fabulist basically coincide here. The author’s beginning is openly introduced either at the beginning of the fable “Pribasku // I Fold // And a Tale // I Will Tell” (“Beetles and Bees”), or in a moral thesis that ends the fable story: “Reader! Do you know what my words are? // What is the Thorn bush, Satire is such "(" The Thorn bush "). In some cases, the author refers to the reader in the comments, which frame the fable story. This serves to engage the reader in the dialogue, which goes back to the dialogical construction of dramatic works - satire or comedy ^[65] . According to O. Lebedeva, “the author’s voice becomes the bearer of a laughable, ironic beginning in a fabulous narrative, partly foreshadowing the crafty-ironic intonations of the fables of Grandfather Krylov , in which a mask of imaginary innocence and short-rangeness hides a sharp, venomous mockery” ^[66] . Encountering within the same verse Slavism ("lost") and vulgarism ("freak"), rhyming "evil - goat", "open - wool", "sky - zherebo", "beetles - science", "ranks - ham", “Praise is an ox” and the like, Sumarokov quite consciously used the comic effect of stylistic disagreement, which was especially vivid against the background of Lomonosov’s differentiated style reform of high and low styles of the literary language ^[67] .

Horev

In the genre canon of classicism, the heroes of the tragedy should certainly be persons of royal blood, on whom the fate of states and peoples depended; the affairs and feelings of individuals did not affect the security of the Fatherland, and therefore seemed to be weightless and unworthy of a deep reflection. Such installations were cultivated in their plays by the literary teachers of Sumarokov - Cornel , Racine and Voltaire . According to A. Zapadov, Sumarokov’s real life experience, acquired in a closed educational institution for the highest elite of the state, and then in the Life Guards and at court, was fully consistent with the tasks of classicism; in addition, he “from within” saw the mechanisms of succession to the throne, “with whose hands crowns are obtained and how they pay for them” ^[68] . In accordance with the philosophical principles of the Enlightenment , Sumarokov considered human nature to be historically unchanged and believed that at all times people thought and felt the same way. The historical background of the events was therefore insignificant. The playwright conveyed the main, leading - the struggle of ideas, the clash between the human mind and his feelings, between his responsibilities to the state and personal inclinations ^[68] .

In total, Sumarokov wrote 9 tragedies, starting from the "Horev" in 1747. All of them were based on the genre and worldviews of French classicism. Apparently, Sumarokov gave his dramatic debut a programmatic character: at the same time the conceptual Epistle on Poem was published ^[69] . The conflict situation underlying the play is twofold, combining a love line with a political one. Osnelda, the daughter of the deposed and deprived of power of the Kiev prince Zavlokh, is held captive by the winner, the new prince Kiy . Osnelda loves his brother and heir Kiy, Khorev , and is loved by him. Osneldy’s father, Zavloh, stands under the walls of Kiev with an army and demands the liberation of Osneldy, not claiming to be taken away from his throne. Kiy suspects Zavlokh precisely in an attempt on power and forces Khorev, his commander, to oppose Zlavokh with the army. Thus, Khorev finds himself in a classic hopeless situation: he must not disobey his brother and ruler - and he cannot harm the father of his beloved: a sense of duty and love enter into a conflict ^[70] .

Osnelda asks her father for permission to marry Khorev in order to resolve the conflict, but Zavloh forbids her daughter to love Khorev, doubling the hopeless situation: she must obey her father, but this means abandoning her feelings. Thus, a duplicate line of conflict is formed between individual feeling and public debt. The third knot of the conflict is connected with Kiy: as a monarch, he must fulfill his public duty to contribute to the good and happiness of his subjects (that is, Osneldy and Khorev in the first place), but since the court Steelward accused Khorev, Osneld and Zavlokha of plotting and assassinating Kiy’s power, he seeks to save her at all costs. Cue sends Osnelda a goblet of poison; Having learned about the death of his beloved, Horev commits suicide ^[71] .

In accordance with the aesthetics of classicism, paired conflict situations are imaginary; both for virtuous and vicious characters, the choice is predetermined by the author, their position is unchanged throughout the action. The struggle of passions was not for Sumarokov the source of the tragedy. The driving force of the tragedy is not so much a personal conflict as an ideological conflict hidden under the opposition of virtue and vice. Its source is rooted in the same concept of power, which is central in both collisions, but is interpreted differently. The true interpretation belongs to Osnelda and Khorev, because in their speeches the concept of power is identical with reason and self-control ^[72] .

Sumarokov and Shakespeare

Sumarokov is a writer and translator who first introduced reading Russia to the work of Shakespeare ^[73] . The first mention of it is contained in the Epistle of Poetry of 1748 when enumerating the great writers: Milton and Shakespeare, although unenlightened. N. Zakharov noted that such definitions of Shakespeare's work are characteristic of French classicists. In the notes to the Epistole, Sumarokov clarified his personal attitude: “Shakespeare, the Aglinsky tragedian and comedian, in which there is a lot of very thin and extremely good” ^[73] .

Sumarokov's “Hamlet”, which was published in 1748, was, rather, an original work based on the Shakespearean tragedy, and not a translation in the true sense of the word. For a long time it was believed that Sumarokov used P.-A. de Laplace (the second book of the English Theater, published in 1746), because he did not speak English. However, the list of books that Alexander Petrovich wrote in the academic library in 1746-1748 was preserved, it follows that he took the Shakespeare edition in the original. As in the case of Pushkin, the question of the degree of English proficiency by Sumarokov remains open ^[74] . Nevertheless, Sumarokov’s “Hamlet” cannot be considered a complete translation: the poet created his own tragedy using separate motives and functions of Shakespeare’s heroes; accordingly, when publishing his play, he did not name Shakespeare in any way. He himself stated that he had followed the original source in only two episodes: “My hamlet, except for the monologue at the end of the third act and Klavdiev’s knees in the fall, is hardly like Shakespeiro’s tragedy” ^[75] . The monologue “ To be or not to be ” (act III, scene I) was well known to the French tradition: Voltaire in his letter “On Tragedy” (1733) cited him as a vivid example of English dramatic poetry. G. Gukovsky, comparing the text of Sumarokov and the French translations of that time, came to the conclusion that he used the Voltaire translation ^[76] . However, N. Zakharov claims that the composition of the monologue put by Sumarokov into action III, the appearance of his play VII, is closest to Shakespeare’s, which serves as one of the arguments for the playwright to get acquainted with the original language ^[75] .

Nevertheless, the most superficial comparison of the Sumarokov version with the original shows its independence: in accordance with the canon of classicism Sumarokov made an attempt to remake the drama of the “savage” Shakespeare according to French canons ^[77] . First of all, he removed all supernatural elements: the shadow of Hamlet's father turns out to be a trivial dream. Each of the main characters appears breastplate and breastplate. Fortinbras, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, actors, grave diggers did not become in the play ^[78] . The plot has been substantially changed: Claudius and Polonius are plotting to kill Gertrude and forcibly extradite Ophelia as the “illegal King of Denmark” - he has never been mentioned about his consanguinity with the late monarch ^[79] . The most important difference between Hamlet Sumarokov and Shakespeare's is that throughout the course of the action he appears as a person of strong will and decisive action. He reflects all attempts at assassination and wins a decisive victory in the final. The end of the play is completely redone: Gertrude repents and shears a nun, and Polonius commits suicide. Hamlet, with universal glee, receives the Danish crown and is about to get engaged to Ophelia ^[80] .

Sumarokov’s “Hamlet” is written in a grandiloquent syllable and carries the usual political message for him. In particular, in a conversation between Polonius and Gertrude, the question of royal power is discussed:

The translation of “Hamlet” became one of the main reasons for the literary war that began between Sumarokov, Trediakovsky and Lomonosov ^[82] . N. Zakharov noted the episode characteristic of the language of the time: in his epigram, Lomonosov ridiculed Sumarokov’s translation of the French word “ toucher ” as “touching” in Gertrude's accusatory speech about his fall. Nevertheless, this word in the indicated meaning has become freely used in poetic Russian language ^[83] .

Despite the shortcomings noted by critics, only in the 1780s did Hamlet Sumarokova endure six editions, and his numerous productions gradually accustomed Russian spectators and writers to the contemporary dramatic tradition and instilled European views on the theater. The first production took place back in 1750 in the First Cadet Corps by students, and the first public performance recorded in the documents took place in St. Petersburg on July 1, 1757. In the role of Hamlet - Ivan Dmitrevsky (1734-1821). However, after the coup of 1762, the productions ceased for a quarter of a century: censorship saw in the plot allusions to the murder of Peter III . Similar parallels were seen in Shakespeare’s drama even later: in an article by A. A. Bardovsky it was stated: “In the eyes of the whole society, for 34 years, the real, and not theatrical, tragedy of Prince Hamlet took place, the hero of which was the heir to Tsarevich Pavel the First ” ^{[ 84]} . Bardovsky in the person of Claudius saw Count Grigory Orlov , and in Gertrude, Catherine II . On the contrary, Pavel Petrovich praised Sumarokov’s translation, in Europe the heir was called the “Russian Hamlet” ^[85] .

As political priorities changed and literary tastes and preferences changed, Sumarokov’s translation began to be perceived as “anti-Shakespearean” and quasirusic. Pushkin called Sumarokov “the most unfortunate of imitators” because he followed the court “ Rasinova ” dramaturgy, and not the tragedy of the popular “Shakespeare” ^[85] . However, Pushkin did not like Sumarokov at all and made him the hero of several jokes ^[86] . Already in the XX century, a very harsh assessment of Shakespeare's studies of Sumarokov was given by priest Pavel Florensky . His assessment was twofold: on the one hand, Florensky described the translation as “mockery of Shakespeare” (especially because of the happy ending in the play, in which everything is determined by the tragedy before the start of the action). At the same time, he stated that “... he can explain many of the beauties of Hamlet’s present, he can reveal a lot in the tragic necessity and in the inner connectedness of the course of action, - he can release a lot from under the indefinite influx of confused feelings, dissolve in harmonic consciousness” ^[86] .

Poetics of the Sumarok tragedy: “Demetrius the Imposter”

G. A. Gukovsky noted the peculiarity of the tragic poetics of Sumarokov in its rapprochement with the comedy - due to the transformation of the typological denouement. He considered a typical example of the tragedy of 1770 “ Demetrius the Imposter ” - a later work that became one of the most popular on the stage of the XVIII century ^[87] . The alignment of forces in the conflict was given at the very beginning: in the image of Demetrius the Pretender, the author presented a tyrant whose personality essence is not derived from actions, but is directly declared by the character ^[88] :

Moreover, the continuous blackening of the character and the straightforwardness of his declarations do not indicate a lack of skill Sumarokova playwright. According to O. Lebedeva, a tyrant who is fully aware of his villainous essence and analyzes the false concept of power is necessary to identify the ideological nature of the conflict and turn tragedy into a debate about the nature of power ^[88] . Demetrius is opposed by Parmen, the boyar Shuisky, his daughter Ksenia and her lover, Prince George of Galitsky, who do not want to put up with tyranny. In their monologues, the concept of righteous authority is presented.

The refined aphorism of the verse of ideological declarations finally turns tragedy from action into analysis, from personal conflict to conceptual. And in this text of Sumarokov, the most active element is not man, but the concept embodied in his figure - the concept of power, which discusses and analyzes itself ^[88] .

O. Lebedeva noted that in the conflict structure of “Demetrius the Impostor” there is also a third party - transpersonal, namely the people. The word "people" is one of the most frequent in the tragedy, along with the words "rock" and "fate", which voiced the idea of ​​inevitable heavenly punishment. It is in relation to the people that the moral positions of vice and virtue are corrected. In other words, if the protagonists are plenipotentiaries of the opinion of the popular force, then the antagonist openly contrasts himself with the people. Then the tragedy of Demetrius the Imposter takes on an absolute character - he is one against everyone and everything ^[89] .

If the central character of Sumarokov had a mixed character, such a structure of the conflict would be impeccably tragic. But since Dimitri is a monochromatic image of vice that the viewer cannot sympathize with, one has to ascertain the fact: in the tragedy “Dimitry the Pretender”, the conflict gravitating towards a typological tragic structure is combined with a comedic type of denouement: the triumph of virtue and the punishment of vice. Thus, Sumarokov’s tragedy, which set the standard drama model of Russian drama of subsequent eras, becomes a kind of indicator of development trends of Russian drama in its deviations from pan-European dramatic canons ^[89] .

Sumarokov - Comedian

Over his life, Sumarokov created 12 comedies, which were written in three stages, marking a significant development of their substantial and genre features. The first three comedies, staged in 1750 - Tresotinius, Monsters, Empty Quarrel - were directed against specific people, the author's literary and public enemies. They are adjoined by two more comedies of the late 1750s: Narcissus and Dowry by Deception; in 1765-1768, the “Guardian”, “Likhoimets”, “Three Brothers Companions”, “Poisonous” were created, and in the first half of the 1770s - “Cuckold for Imagination”, “Mother - a Companion of the Daughter” and “Nonsense” . At the same time, early comedies gravitated to a pamphlet, comedies of the next decade were more sophisticated in their intrigue and presented characters, and by the 1770s Sumarokov “drifted” towards a pronounced comedy of morals ^[90] .

Since the natural literary background of the comedy (as O. V. Lebedeva puts it) is satire, Sumarokov turned to the genre as part of the “literary war” with Trediakovsky with the sole intention of ridiculing the enemy ^[90] . In addition to Tresotinius ^{[Note 2]} , two more imaginary scientists - pedants Bombembius and Xaxoximenius - were also shown in the first Sumarokov comedy. In their grammatical disputes Sumarokov parodied Trediakovsky’s discussions about Russian spelling, about the letter “t”, which was called “firmly” in Slavic. In the comedy “Likhoimets,” Sumarokov made fun of her sister’s husband, Buturlin, who stingily did not give firewood to his yard people and sent them to get fuel where they could — to break barges on the Moscow River or to steal. Sumarokov composed the comedy "Empty Quarrel" in the spirit of folk ideas. Here are the noblemen Fatuy and the dandy Dulizh, unsuccessfully but stubbornly imitating the French. Here Sumarokov spoiled the fashionable fashionable conversation sprinkled with French words:

“ Delamide . I do not have this panse, so that I really have an emblem in your eyes.

Dulizh . Tresamable, ma'am, you are like a day in my eyes.

Delamide . And I estimate you, but for that I’m for you too.

Dulizh . And for what, wouldn't you love me?

Delamide . Noble daughter to love her husband, ha! Ha! Ha! It’s decent for a posad woman! ” ^{[92] [Note 3]} .

From the late comedies of Sumarokov, G. Gukovsky singled out "Cuckold in the imagination." This play formally corresponded to the French classicist canon - it was staged in five acts, but the world described in it is not a Parisian secular salon, but the life of a seedy provincial, poor and uncultured landowner house ^[93] . The main characters are the elderly spouses Vikul and Khavronya - people are stupid and ignorant; the plot makes fun of their provincial barbarism, but at the same time they are “touching in their ridiculous affection for each other, they are a little old-world landowners ” ^[93] . A poor but virtuous and educated noblewoman Floriza, a dowager, lives in their house. On the way from the hunt, a neighbor gets into their house - the noble and wealthy Count Casander, whom old Vikul was jealous of his Khavronya. The action ends with Kasander and Florisa falling in love, everything ends with a wedding. At the same time, positive characters serve only as a frame of action and are located somewhere on the periphery; the comedy is based on the screening of two characters - Vykula and Khavronya with their way of life and the roughly-colorful language of the “non-metropolitan affliction” ^[94] . According to G. Gukovsky:

Sumarokov culminates in his desire to transmit everyday speech, vibrant, lively, quite conversational, sometimes close to the warehouse of a folk tale, sprinkled with proverbs and sayings. He conveys this speech naturally, without crystallizing its forms; he considers it an uncultured speech, serving to characterize his landlords as barbarians; but still genuine, real speech sounds in his play ... ^[94]

In general, researchers noted the duality of the comedy genre in the interpretation of Sumarokov. Just as his tragedies carried signs of a comic genre - gravitating towards a happy marriage in the finale, his comedies sometimes ended with the death of heroes, and in their finale there were references to death, hell and the Last Judgment (Tresotinius, Guardian, Cuckold by imagination ”). For the world drama tradition, this approach was completely atypical; in this, O. Lebedeva saw the national originality of Sumarokov’s comedy drama ^[95] . However, O. Lebedeva argued with D. Blagim, who saw in Sumarokov’s figurative comedy system an abundant Russian national element, rooted in everyday life. She believed that “Sumarokov’s comedy theater is clearly lacking in the vitality and recognition of national public life. This circumstance gave rise in the 1760s to an alternative to the Sumarokov Theater line of development of Russian comedyography - a comedy of morals , culminating in the Fonvizinsky “ Foreman ” ” ^[59] .

Other Drama Genres

Genre universalism was also characteristic of Sumarokov in his theatrical work. In 1755, he created the libretto of the mythological opera Tsefal and Prokris (based on the plot of the seventh book of Ovid 's Metamorphosis ), which was the first Russian opera. The music was written by Italian Francesco Araya . In 1759, Sumarokov staged the second opera Alcesta in his libretto. Building opera drama, he was based on the theories of the French theoretician of musical tragedy Philippe Cinema , which was mentioned in the Epistle of Poetry. He also wrote ballet libretto ^[96] .

History of the publication. Censorship

On December 14, 1758, the Chancellery of the Academy of Sciences received the “Report” by A. P. Sumarokov with a request to publish his own journal, “ Hardworking Bee ”. One of the first conditions stipulated in the “Reporting” was censorship boundaries - control over the journal should not “touch upon the syllable”. The answer came on January 7 of the following year, 1759, signed by I. I. Taubert : the professor of astronomy N. I. Popov was appointed censor, who was to look for “... what is contrary in the case, not in the syllable”, about which Sumarokov was obliged to inform . The circulation was to be 800 copies ^{[Note 4]} . The first conflict related to censorship ended in the victory of Sumarokov: the Office appointed new censors - professors of mathematics S. K. Kotelnikov and S. Ya. Rumovsky ^[98] .

Opponents of the publication at the Academy were M.V. Lomonosov and I.I. Taubert. Their most important arguments were the workload of academic printing houses and the Office, and the latter, acting as a censorship committee, was already overloaded with work and could not effectively control the contents of the journal. The president of the Academy, Count K. G. Razumovsky , took the side of Sumarokov in the conflict. Alexander Petrovich immediately greatly spoiled relations with censor Popov, accusing him of drunkenness and comparing his report from April 22, 1759 with Barkov :

“It’s not the first drunkard to offend me from learned drunkards. There is also the same Barkov and others about whom the Academy is no less known to me. I ask only the lowest of all the gentlemen present in the office, not excluding anyone for suspicion, to order me as a censor, and even then not in the warehouse, to identify not a drunkard; because the drunkenness of Professor Popov makes me stop in the publication of my journal, and so that the chancellery of the Academy of Sciences favors me to do mercy and appoint another censor without slowing down the time, because the journal for those rights, without any reason from me, without violating justice, should not be stopped should. And what he emphasized, then clearly proves his condition while looking at it ” ^[98] .

Kotelnikov and Rumovsky also could not find a common language with Sumarokov. This was also due to the fact that all three were henchmen of Lomonosov, the literary war with which Sumarokov entered a new phase. In the same period, Sumarokov even established relations with Trediakovsky, who, after being dismissed from the Academy, was left without a livelihood; the editor-in-chief published several of his works, including the article “On Mosaic”, in which Lomonosov's artwork was gently criticized. The Anti-Lomonosov “Odd Odes” were prepared in the same issue, but the corrector of the Barsov printing house did not allow their publication. As a result, Lomonosov complained to Count I. I. Shuvalov about an article by Trediakovsky, whom Sumarokov also addressed, accusing Mikhail Vasilievich of unauthorized censorship ^[98] .

The main target audience of Sumarokov’s publication was the “small court” of Grand Duchess Catherine Alekseevna - the future empress. The magazine opened with a dedication to Catherine; Sumarokov called her "Minerva" and requested patronage ^[99] . This led to the annoyance of Empress Elizabeth , the formal reason for the cessation of publication was Sumarokov's "A word of praise about the sovereign Emperor Peter the Great." The censor S. K. Kotelnikov did not miss an ode, but the publication was allowed by the president of the Academy, Count K. G. Razumovsky, under the personal responsibility of the author ^[98] . The result was another big scandal, after which, having existed a little more than a year, the publication was interrupted forever. A. A. Skabichevsky in "Essays on the History of Russian Censorship" summarized the history of the publication of the "Hardworking Bee":

“The government establishes a journal without any political goals, with the only, sincere desire to develop a love of reading and education in society, the pillars of literature and science not only distance themselves from this enterprise, but also oppose it in every possible way from grossly selfish impulses of the most base quality” ^{[ 100]} .

Journalism Sumarokova

According to A. Zapadov, although many authors were published in the Hardworking Bee, “the journal nevertheless remained the publication of one person - Sumarokov and kept the imprint of his strong and outstanding personality” ^[99] . The verses and notes placed in each issue constituted a kind of diary of the writer with extremely multifaceted content. Sumarokov was one of the first professional critics of Russia, developing the genre of feuilleton and satirical essay. Despite the fact that Sumarokov could not stand the genre of the novel and ridiculed their authors, his magazine played an important role in the formation of new Russian prose ^[99] .

The summons and articles of Sumarokov were deliberately paradoxical and could begin with a half-word - most often some original thesis, which was then explained in detail and received a logical continuation. Vivid examples were two articles that began with the following words: “The perception of other people's words, and especially unnecessarily, is not enrichment, but spoiling the language” (“On the extermination of other people's words from the Russian language”); “Freedom, idleness and love are the sources of poem” (“On the Kamchadal Poem”) ^[99] .

A lot of space on the pages of the “Hardworking Bee” was occupied by Sumarokov’s discussions about the nobility and the position of the peasants, as well as explanations of his own project of the noble utopia. Being a convinced monarchist who considered serfdom to be a natural and necessary state, Sumarokov could not stand the abuse of power in any form. “People should not be sold as cattle,” Sumarokov said. - Peasants are an element in the state necessary, their job is to work on the land. The duty of the nobility is to lead the country, protect it from enemies, and manage peasant labor. Sumarokov made great demands on the nobility, striving to cleanse him of vices and bring him closer to ideal ^[101] .

Comparing the social system to the human body, Sumarokov wrote: “The body needs a head, the health of all members and the soul; society needs supreme power. The farmer feeds all the posts and sciences, the soldier defends, the scientist enlightens ... All those who work for the good of the fatherland and the human race are worthy of encouragement. And only parasites are worthy of contempt ” ^[101] . At the same time, he put in the first place the personal merits of the nobles, and not just belonging to the estate: “Our honor does not consist in the titles, the more brilliant, who shines with his heart and mind, the more superior that surpasses other people with dignity, and that bolyarn who is ill about fatherland ” ^[101] . In a polemical fervor, he placed nobles and peasants near, announcing that “agriculture is not theft, not robbery, but a respectable exercise. Ancestor of the boyar was given to be eaten by worms and turned into dust. Ancestor of the peasant also ” ^[102] . In the article “Four Answers” ​​(1759, June) Sumarokov described with great venom the figures of merchants and officials (graders), who opposed the nobles by personal virtues, who care about the welfare of the Fatherland. On the contrary: bureaucracy is guilty of the fact that people from the “lower classes” are climbing to power ^[103] .

In the last - December - issue of the magazine Sumarokov placed the utopia "Dream. A happy society. ” This is an author's daydream about a “dreamy country” and its existence. At the head of the country is the “great man” and the “great sovereign”, whose actions proceed according to the program printed by Sumarokov in the note “What would I do ...” This sovereign “ dignity does not remain without correction. He himself has folk love, fear and reverence. There is no other way to receive his mercy than dignity . ” Alexander Petrovich spoke in detail about the situation of the clerical and military estates and described the judicial and bureaucratic apparatus, devoid of the usual shortcomings for Russia. A special place is devoted to the laws: “the book of their legalization is no more than our calendar and everyone has learned by heart, and everyone knows the letter there. This book begins this way: what you do not want, do not do both. And it ends: retribution for virtue, and execution for lawlessness ” ^[104] .

The editor-publisher finished the last issue of the magazine with the poem "Parting with the Muses":

Sumarokov continued to write, but no longer tried to publish his own journals ^[105] . However, since 1760 it was published in the journal “Idle time, in favor of consumed”, published by his students - graduates of the Cadet Corps. The magazine was neutral-well-intentioned according to the program, the bulk of published materials were translations. Sumarokov placed there many satyrs and epigrams in the former spirit, scourging the shortcomings of state institutions. The result was the closure of this magazine in December of the same 1760 ^[106] .

Hardworking Bee and Freemasonry

Judging by the surviving documents, Sumarokov joined the Masonic lodge in 1756 - it was based in the Shlyakheti cadet corps. In the work of V. I. Sakharov, “ Hieroglyphs of free masons ”, it was shown that early Russian Freemasonry was a closed esoteric structure, the ideology of which was based on the utopia of the earthly paradise. Since the lodges could not and did not seek to publicize their ideas, fiction became the most important channel of Masonic preaching ^[107] . There are a sufficient number of arguments in favor of the fact that the publication of the own journal “Hardworking Bee” was directly related to the Masonic interests and aspirations of Sumarokov. The first Russian Masons sought to comprehend the true laws of reason and, in accordance with them, to rebuild the life of mind and body. Their doctrine suggested that the original - true - hierarchy of spiritual values ​​was violated as civilization developed: the divine nectar of the natural mind under the influence of pride turned into the poison of false enlightenment. A model for a perfectly organized society, returned to the correct hierarchy, they represented a beehive . True Enlightenment, which will erect the building of a perfect social order, will be based on the basis of natural religion, natural law and natural language. The ideal man of Freemasonry must become a hardworking bee who comprehends the "science of seven posts." Metaphorically, it was designated as natural nectar - mythology, but honey - the philosophy of antiquity ( Epictetus , Socrates , Aeschines , Plato , Seneca , Marcus Aurelius , Lucian , Cicero ) and the new era (Mure, Holberg , Fontenel , Voltaire ) seemed more useful. However, in the Russian culture of that time there was a different attitude towards Christianity (in France it was considered as a relic of the dark Middle Ages and was pushed to the periphery of spiritual life in secular society), therefore, Elizabethan and Catherine freemasons felt themselves heirs to Russian holiness ^[107] . In part, they were associated with sectarianism . George Florovsky asserted that Russian Freemasonry cultivated psychological austerity and “gathering souls” ^[108] .

According to Yu. V. Slozhenikina, the publication of the journal reflected the religious and philosophical quest of Sumarokov, which required an articulated representation in a collective periodical. From this position, the 12 issues of the journal represented a single metatext, consciously oriented to the value system and the ideology of Freemasonry. The key to understanding this metatext is the utopian daydream “Dream. A happy society ” ^[108] . The choice of the motive of the dream, which takes the hero to the society he wants, reflected both the folklore, as well as the biblical and Masonic perceptions of sleep. The irreality of the image was determined by the ideological setting of Freemasonry, which claimed to be the storage and transfer of universal divine knowledge and truths of a universal nature. Divine truth is universal, it exists always, everywhere and for everyone. Therefore, the publications of the “Hardworking Bee” were supposed to give readers materials for the monthly exercise in the moral values ​​of Freemasonry - modesty, good nature, love for the fatherland and hard work ^[109] .

Poetic contest

Almost the entire middle of the 18th century for Russian literature was marked by a serious and extremely intense literary struggle, the main place in which was occupied by the conflict between Trediakovsky and Sumarokov. The results of this conflict were extremely productive, in the course of the struggle new literary genres arose - the first Russian comedies and parodies of an individual style, as well as literary criticism per se ^[110] . The personal and creative conflict of Trediakovsky and Sumarokov has been ripening gradually since the beginning of the 1740s and entered the open phase in 1748 ^[111] . The latter was associated with the publication of the tragedy "Horev", which meant the claim of Sumarokov to a completely independent position in Russian literature. Sumarokov thereby departed from the role of a fashionable secular poet - which Trediakovsky was at one time - and claimed to create a program work in one of the key genres of classicism. It is no accident that his contemporaries later called him "Russian Voltaire and Racine ." Although reviews of Lomonosov and Trediakovsky on Horev from the time of its creation and first publication did not reach us, there is no doubt that they were unfriendly; Sumarokov was confronted with the need to protect both his creation and stylistic and political claims ^[112] .

The first poetic dispute between Trediakovsky, Lomonosov and Sumarokov took place in 1743-1744, the main evidence of which was the small book “ Three odes of paraphrastic psalms 143, composed by three poets, of which each one was composed especially .” A. Kunik also drew attention to the fact that this dispute is unique in the history of Russian literature in that litigants appealed to the public for trial. The first poetic contest in Russia was a simultaneous discussion about the semantics of the poetic size in the conditions when the classicist tradition, which attached semantics to a certain size, was just being formed ^[113] . In the summer of 1743, three writers met and discussed the problem: Trediakovsky in his “Way ...” in 1735 argued that the heroic verse must be choreic , Lomonosov in the “Letter on the rules of Russian poetry” accepted the idea of ​​the correlation of meter, genre and semantics, but odic style associated with iambic ^[114] . Further, Trediakovsky said that the meter does not initially define semantics, and the odic or elegiac style depends on the system of images and vocabulary used. Lomonosov did not agree with him, for he believed that the meter was characterized by a special rhythmic intonation, Sumarokov joined him ^[115] .

Rational arguments did not suit both sides, so instead of exchanging counterarguments Sumarokov suggested that the poets compose an odic arrangement from the Psalter, and Sumarokov and Lomonosov himself should have made him iambic, and Trediakovsky a ferret. That is, if the individual aesthetic assessment of the poet is not enough, the judge should be “light”. The odes were printed anonymously, but Trediakovsky wrote a preface to the publication, in which he cited the essence of the argument and the Slavic text of the psalm. The circulation was 500 copies, of which 200 were printed at the expense of the Academy of Sciences for sale and 300 at the expense of the authors ^[116] . A. Shishkin noted that the book “Three Odes” was equipped with an epigraph from Horace 's “Science of Poetry”, which directly led a literary dispute to the dimension of European classicism, in which the poet’s main functions were imitation and competition, and in this particular dispute the poets competed not only with each other, but also with the biblical king David ^[117] . Their main task was to improve the aesthetic quality of verbal arrangement, as a result Trediakovsky applied amplification - that is, verbal distribution, his ode consisted of 130 lines; Lomonosov - 60, Sumarokov - 66 ^[118] . This dispute did not end in anything, since all three recognized each other as equal in “consent of reason” ^[119] .

Prediction with Trediakovsky

In 1748, Sumarokov published the tragedy “Hamlet” and two “Epistols”, the latter were saturated with personal attacks against both Trediakovsky and Lomonosov. Verses 21–44 of the Epistles explicitly stated that there were no good writers in Russia, and moreover, direct bullying was contained at the spelling reform of Trediakovsky. Taunts of Lomonosov were explained by his attempt to impose an alien tradition on Russian eloquence, and Trediakovsky’s translation activity was called unsuccessful, arrogant, empty and slurred ^[120] . The passage of “Hamlet” and “Epistol” through academic censorship brought to life a completely new peer review institute, which had no precedent in the then Russian culture. At the same time, Trediakovsky was given 24 hours to “examine” the manuscript of Sumarokov, after which he was obliged to transfer it to Lomonosov; both reviews were dated October 10, 1748 ^[121] . A couple of days later, the story repeated with “Two Epistles”, and Lomonosov’s reviews were evasive and ambiguous, he did not want to conflict with Sumarokov, who had high patrons. Trediakovsky, with his explosive temperament, thereby exposed himself to the blow of reciprocal criticism and bossy anger; Sumarokov clearly did not want to make reconciliation and even concluded a tactical agreement with Lomonosov ^[122] . In 1750, Two Epistles, with an added quatrain containing gross attacks against Trediakovsky, went out of print. Vasily Kirillovich was able to answer this with a series of attacks in the preface to the forthcoming translation of Barclay 's Argenida , and as a result was forced to remove them when typing ^[123] .

In the same 1750, Sumarokov published the first Russian comedy Tresotinius, which also had a clearly antidrediacal orientation, and Vasily Kirillovich was clearly recognized by his contemporaries in the image of a groom-pedant ^[124] . The text of the comedy scattered many hints at the creative manner of Trediakovsky, especially his style; many hidden quotes from "Drive to the Island of Love" and "Talk about Orthography" ^[125] . In response, in the spring of 1750, Trediakovsky created a lengthy “Letter from Friend to Friend” - the first example of Russian literary criticism ^[126] . A. S. Kurilov noted the fantastic variety of forms of criticism presented in Trediakovsky's “Letter”. Despite numerous personal attacks, this criticism is scientific, poetic, and literary in nature and concerns the entire work of Sumarokov. Actually, the criticism of “Tresotinius” began with a statement of a violation of the laws of the genre (classicism with a clear division and the presence of a plot, climax and denouement) and theatrical “regulations”, and therefore “this comedy is not worthy of the name of a comedy” ^[127] .

“... it was composed not only to be not a caustic tokmo, but also to honor the murderous satire, or better, a new, but accurate libel, which, however, doesn’t happen at the theater: for comedy is done to correct morals in society as a whole and not for honor killing in a certain person ” ^[128] .

Criticism of the inconsistency of the plot and genre inconsistencies leads Trediakovsky to a statement about the non-originality of Sumarokov’s works in general and his creative limitations. It is characteristic that all the judgments of Vasily Kirillovich are ascertaining, not evaluative, in other words, he actively and consciously used literary techniques. The most striking example of this approach was the analysis of the tragedy "Horev", placed later ^[129] . Since in those days special attention was paid to the grammatical criticism of literary works, Trediakovsky used the methods already used against him by Sumarokov. He convicted him of the misuse of cases and childbirth, most often resorting to semantic criticism, paying attention to the misuse of words ^[130] . The first researchers of the philological views of Vasily Kirillovich considered this a pointless criticism of the pedant, but it was shown in the works of V. M. Zhivov that Trediakovsky had by that time switched to the position of rationalistic purism in the language . Criticizing Sumarokov from a sociolinguistic standpoint, that is, accusing him of using “areal” expressions, he only used the methods and shortcuts he had learned from the French polemic. Not being a nobleman, Trediakovsky highlighted scholarship and historical knowledge and contrasted them with the aristocratic elite, for which Sumarokov advocated and which he even conceptualized as European chivalry ^[131] .

Sumarokov turned out to be the winner in the literary war of 1748-1750, Trediakovsky himself was again ridiculed in Sumarokov’s new comedy “The Beasts”, quickly written in the middle of 1750. It is characteristic that both comedies of Sumarokov were staged on the stage of the court theater in the presence of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, heir to the throne Pyotr Fedorovich and his wife - the future Empress Catherine . Trediakovsky turned into a laughing stock at the court, which played an extremely unfavorable role in his future life and career. It is quite possible that the attitude towards him and his Telemahide from Ekaterina Alekseevna was laid down already during the “literary war” and was largely determined by Sumarokov's ridicule. Trediakovsky was rejected by elitist society, his place in contemporary philology and criticism was taken by Lomonosov, and in poetry and dramaturgy by Sumarokov ^[132] .

Polemic with Lomonosov

The confrontation between Sumarokov and Lomonosov was multifaceted. The basis of their literary conflict was Sumarokov’s rejection of the Lomonosov’s aesthetics, which contradicted his rationalist attitude. In the controversy Sumarokov referred to Longin ’s treatise “ On the High ” (translated by Boileau ), using passages that condemn “pouting”, the desire “to surpass greatness”, “always say something extraordinary and radiant,” condemns “heat not in time”, excessive "figuredness" of speech, metaphorism, etc., in the name of "naturalness" ^[133] . In the article “On the Difference Between an Ardent and Sharp Mind,” Sumarokov announces that “a sharp mind consists in penetration.” This he opposed Lomonosov, who called wit the ability to quickly capture the imagination of a whole series of representations, a free flight of fantasy, complemented by "reasoning." According to Sumarokov, this is nothing more than a "passionate mind", in which even without a "sharp mind" the poet will "scorn" and "make nonsense to himself and senseless readers." Alexander Petrovich was even sharper in private letters, in which he directly referred to these passages of the Lomonosov “Rhetoric” as proof of the madness of Mikhail Vasilievich ^[134] .

Poetic disputes directly turned into philological disputes, since in the era of the formation of the Russian literary language, poetic norms were inseparable from grammatical ones. According to G. A. Gukovsky:

Both in poetics and in grammar, questions were raised of the formation of a literary language, questions about the norms of the language and the justification of these norms. Poets were the creators of the language, and linguists - critics and theorists of poetry. Both those and other questions joined in the problems of language policy and caused similar disputes. And Trediakovsky, and Lomonosov, and Sumarokov worked both in the field of literary studies, and in the field of linguistics. Sumarokov constantly closely and intertwines statements about language, as such, and about poetry. The bitterness with which Sumarokov attacks Lomonosov’s grammar is understandable given his whole struggle against the poetic and linguistic practice of his literary opponent ^[134] .

It is no accident that Sumarokov paid special attention to semantics and principles of word usage in the first analysis of Lomonosov’s ode from 1747. Sumarokov consistently condemned any deviation from the usual - in his opinion, the only admissible - meaning of words, individual metaphors or even metonymy . For Sumarokov, the word is a kind of scientific term; a change in its single meaning - even in the interests of expressiveness - was regarded by Sumarokov as a violation of the correctness of the grammatical character. He also denied comparisons that violate the principle of logical similarity of both elements being compared ^[136] . Later, the odes of Lomonosov became the subject of stinging ridicule in the parodies of Sumarokov ("Odes absurd") ^[137] . According to Shtelin , Sumarokov responded to Lomonosov’s death with one phrase: “The fool has calmed down and will no longer make noise” ^[138] . The desire to humiliate Lomonosov did not leave Sumarokov nine years after his death, in 1774. If a quarter of a century earlier Lomonosov was compared with Pindar , in the notes to the publication of the fourth Olympic ode, Sumarokov denies Lomonosov’s resemblance to Pindar, which is “impetuous, but always pleasant and smooth; his outbursts and tears are neither strange, nor rude, nor plump ... Many of our scribes do not remember what they sing, and instead speak, tell, and swell; exterminate, about the muse, this unbearable taste and let the writers know the true eloquence and instruct our pites to run away from swelling, polyphony, grave utterances ” ^[134] .