Diary of an extra person

According to contemporaries, I. S. Turgenev meticulously worked on this story for two years, being mainly outside Russia, living with his French beloved family Pauline Viardot . The Diary of an Extra Man was completed in January 1850, and was subsequently published in the popular literary edition Otechestvennye zapiski. The first chapters of the Diary were published in the April issue. In 1858, Turgenev noted about his story: "In this work a piece of real life is seized"; The author himself, later speaking about the “Diary”, believed that he had written a “good thing”. However, many censors agreed that this work was contrary to the norms of public morality, so it was first subjected to a cardinal censorship revision. Nevertheless, in 1856 a new edition was undertaken, in particular, as part of the collection “For easy reading”, where Turgenev managed to restore the original version without censored bills. The Diary of an Extra Man can be considered the product of a transitional period between Hunter ’s Notes , which brought I. Turgenev fame to a wide audience, and psychological stories that Turgenev addressed in the second half of the 50s of the XIX century. To some extent, the Diary develops motifs previously updated by Turgenev in the story Hamlet of Shchigrovsky Uezd .

Censorship workers have guessed the story camouflaged political meaning, so at the initial stage of publication, the author faced a number of difficulties. Some allusions from the story could indirectly indicate that Turgenev criticized the reality of the era of Nicholas I , showing discontent with the fact that the emperor sternly dealt with the bearers of the philosophical concept of " Decembrism ." Many contemporaries believed that in many ways the biographical traits of the author himself were reflected in the image of Chulkaturin's “extra person”; in particular, the permanent correspondent of I. S. Turgenev, Yevgeny Mikhailovich Feoktistov (an influential censor and editor of the Russian Speech magazine), noted: “you yourself are seen behind the witticisms of the city of Chulkaturin”.

Liberal criticism in the person of Alexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin initially opposed the “melancholy” beginning of the story. Druzhinin in Sovremennik noted that the satirical element in the psychological story should not prevail and that it contradicts the principles of elegant literature. However, Druzhinin subsequently changed his attitude towards the “Diary of an extra person.” In his critical analysis devoted to Turgenev's collection “ Stories and Stories ” (1856), Druzhinin spoke positively about how Turgenev presented the image of the main character of the epistolary story: “A sick and dull Chulkaturin is a type of a kind, belonging to a small but remarkable . He is truly an extra person, one of those extra people, without whom not a single young society exists. ” Apollon Alexandrovich Grigoriev called the “Diary” “a deep, sincere confession of the painfulness of the soul moment,” praising the depth of artistic expression and the ideological and thematic significance of the story. One of those who particularly noted the novel in the collection “For Easy Reading” (1857), along with Leo Tolstoy's “ Marker Notes, ” was Nikolai Chernyshevsky .

Protagonist, childhood

The main character and author of the “Diary of a Man in Extra” is Chulkaturin, a young man who has an incurable disease ( consumption ) and in his thirty years already says goodbye to life, telling his story to an old servant Terentyevna, because he no longer has any relatives, friends, and friends. . Chulkaturin, whose name is not called, comes up with the idea to start a suicide diary on March 20, 18 ... in the village of Ovichi Vody, the prototype of which is most likely the family estate of mother I. S. Turgenev Spasskoe-Lutovinovo . This village is the only thing left for Chulkaturin’s father, the once rich and flourishing landowner Alexei Mikhailovich, who, being a passionate player, had squandered everything and lost his fortune. Chulkaturin's “mother”, a proud woman, an enterprising landowner, suppressed her son with episodic manifestations of her virtue; she treated her son "equally, gently, but cold." One of the most obvious prototypes of Chulkaturin's mother was the mother of the author himself - the Oryol mistress Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova . By the admission of Chulkaturin himself, he grew "bad and sad."

Compositional and style features

After the death of his father, which Chulkaturin always missed, the family moved to Moscow , where the protagonist leads the life of a poor official (“clean poverty, humble classes, moderate desires”), which resembles the lives of many young, but insolvent Petersburgers who did not have high incomes and had no patrons among high-ranking dignitaries. Quite a lot Chulkaturin is engaged in emotional self-analysis - he sees himself as an “extra person”, calling himself this derogatory term, thereby emphasizing his smallness and uselessness for the surrounding society. At the same time, the story contains detailed lyrical descriptions of picturesque natural landscapes, which are often of an intimate and confessional nature.

Falling in love with Lisa

The start of the action begins with the fact that once Chulkaturin had to spend six months in one family estate in the county town of O. in the family of Kirill Ozhogin, one of the most prominent officials of the county. His daughter, Liza (Elizaveta Kirillovna) of a lively and meek disposition, immediately attracted Chulkaturina, who soon made attempts to care for her. According to his own confession, he immediately blossomed with his heart, seeing Lisa, although usually he treated women very awkwardly. Chulkaturina sincerely attracted the warmth and coziness of family relationships that were present in the Ozhozhins' house. He visited them regularly for three weeks, winning the favor of Elizaveta Kirillovna, who at first seemed ready to respond to her admirer with mutual sympathy. Soon the company consisting of Liza, her mother (spouse of Kirill Matveyevich), the petty official Bezmenkov and Chulkaturin himself went on a joint walk into a grove not far from the estate. The girl Lisa, who was only 17 years old, felt her willingness to open up to love. Sensing the fullness of being, she was fully enjoying the calm evening, the colorful sunset and the presence of a man completely in love with her. As a result, Lisa awakened "quiet fermentation, which precedes the transformation of the child into a woman." However, Chulkaturin, to his misfortune, perceived the pleasant change that occurred with Lisa, at his own expense. Feeling sincere love, he began to change, practically getting rid of obsessive painful experiences, almost losing his suspiciousness, feeling a willingness to love and desperately hoping for a reciprocal feeling.

The appearance of Prince N.

Soon the young, tall Prince N. was visiting the house of the Ozhogins, an attractive officer, self-confident and agile, probably experienced in love and possessing rich experience of amorous adventures. The timid Chulkaturin immediately felt a poorly disguised hostility towards the guest, who, nevertheless, was courted by Liza's parents, which further upset the poor Moscow official. The main goal of Prince N., who arrived in the county town of O., is the inspection of the recruitment set. One day, Chulkaturin was left alone in the main hall of the Burns estate and, meticulously examining his image in the mirror, he saw Lisa enter the back quietly. As soon as she saw her adorer, she slipped away unnoticed, which upset Chulkaturin, who began to be even more jealous of Lisa to the prince.

Decoupling

The next morning, Chulkaturin again came to the living room to Ozhozhin in a bad mood, depressed and again infected with painful suspiciousness. He watched the Ozhozhins family, whose members were in the best mood, including because they were expecting the arrival of Prince N. from minute to minute, who had become a welcome guest. The prince was joking, juggling, was gallant in relation to Lisa, who melted away from such attention; Chulkaturin, jealously watching the bright glitter of the girl’s eyes, her sensual vivification, the hot flush on her young cheeks, decided to play the wrong one to show the girl her dislike. The prince, in turn, fell in love with Lisa, most likely, out of habit, since he was a note-worker in loveseas, and this was understandable to Chulkaturin himself. The behavior of Chulkaturin, who was tormented by a sense of his own powerlessness, a sense of external and internal inferiority, and was deafly envious of a more successful and representative opponent, did not hide from the new lover Liza. Therefore, Prince N. showed mocking softness in his treatment of Chulkaturin, and the Ozhogins family treated the unfortunate Moscow official with condescending patience as if he were “sick”. As a result, Chulkaturin, realizing that he had no chance to conquer the heart of Lisa, who finally lost her head from the presence of a brilliant aristocrat. He himself was aware that his presence in the Ozhogins' house was becoming more and more unnatural and undesirable, because all attention was riveted on Prince N., whom everyone perceived as the only possible fiance of Lisa. He charmed everyone with his oratorical abilities, subtle and soulful playing the piano, sparkling humor, talent of the painter. In the summer, the Ozhogins estate was given a ball, during which the prince was at the center of what was happening, as if in the role of the sun, while Chulkaturin was all alone. Unnoticed by anybody and the neglected official decided to take a demarche and in the heat of passion called Prince N. an empty St. Petersburg upstart, followed by a natural challenge to a duel that took place in the same grove where Liza once met a romantic atmosphere in a company with Chulkaturin. Chulkaturin shot first and easily wounded the prince, who, in turn, deliberately mockingly shot in the air, causing the young official an even greater insult. After the exchange of fire, the Ozhozhins' house was closed to Chulkaturin forever, but the prince himself, who, it seemed, could offer Elizaveta Kirillovna an offer from day to day, suddenly stopped visiting their estate, deceiving the girl's expectations. However, Lisa suffered stoically this blow, noting in a private conversation with the official Bezmenkov, a family friend, that she was ready to live on with memories of the prince’s courtship, and that she was happy because she was loved and loved herself. This conversation was accidentally overheard by Chulkaturin, and he became fatal to his psychoemotional and physical condition. Two weeks later, Lisa marries Bezmenkov, finally burying Hope Chulkaturin, who soon fell ill with consumption.

In the story, Turgenev represents the true tragedy of a small “extra person”, insulted and humiliated, misunderstood by others and rejected by the high society. The problem of “extra people” in Russian classical literature was first named and described precisely in the prosaic works of I. S. Turgenev. Meanwhile, Chulkaturin is one of the stages of the evolution of an “extra person”, the first of which is Alexander Andreevich Chatsky , the main character of the comedy “S. Woe from Wit ” by A. S. Griboyedov .