Literary criticism arose simultaneously with literature itself, since the processes of creating a work of art and its professional evaluation are closely interconnected. For centuries, literary critics belonged to the cultural elite, because they had to have exceptional education, serious analytical skills and impressive experience.

Despite the fact that literary criticism appeared in antiquity, it took shape as an independent profession only in the 15th-16th centuries. Then the critic was considered an impartial "judge", who had to consider the literary value of the work, its compliance with genre canons, and the verbal and dramatic skill of the author. Gradually, however, literary criticism began to reach out to new level, since literary criticism itself developed at a rapid pace and was closely intertwined with other sciences of the humanities cycle.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, literary critics were, without exaggeration, "arbiters of fate", since the career of a writer often depended on their opinion. If today public opinion is formed in slightly different ways, then in those days it was criticism that had a paramount influence on the cultural environment.

Tasks of a literary critic

It was possible to become a literary critic only by understanding literature as deeply as possible. Nowadays, a journalist can write a review of a work of art, and even an author who is generally far from philology. However, during the heyday of literary criticism, this function could only be performed by a literary scholar who was no less well versed in philosophy, political science, sociology, and history. The minimum tasks of the critic were as follows:

1. Interpretation and literary analysis of a work of art;
2. Evaluation of the author from a social, political and historical point of view;
3. Revealing the deep meaning of the book, determining its place in world literature through comparison with other works.

The professional critic invariably influences society by broadcasting his own beliefs. That is why professional reviews are often distinguished by irony and a sharp presentation of the material.

The most famous literary critics

In the West, the strongest literary critics were originally philosophers, among them - G. Lessing, D. Diderot, G. Heine. Often, reviews of new and popular authors were also given by venerable contemporary writers, for example, V. Hugo and E. Zola.

In North America, literary criticism as a separate cultural sphere - according to historical reasons- developed much later, so its heyday falls on the beginning of the 20th century. During this period, V.V. Brooks and W.L. Parrington: It was they who had the strongest influence on the development of American literature.

The golden age of Russian literature was famous for its strongest critics, the most influential of which are:

• DI. Pisarev,
• N.G. Chernyshevsky,
• ON THE. Dobrolyubov
• A.V. Druzhinin,
• V.G. Belinsky.

Their works are still included in the school and university curriculum, along with the masterpieces of literature themselves, to which these reviews were devoted.

For example, Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky, who could not finish either the gymnasium or the university, became one of the most influential figures in literary criticism of the 19th century. He wrote hundreds of reviews and dozens of monographs on the works of the most famous Russian authors from Pushkin and Lermontov to Derzhavin and Maikov. In his works, Belinsky not only considered the artistic value of the work, but also determined its place in the socio-cultural paradigm of that era. The position of the legendary critic was sometimes very tough, destroying stereotypes, but his authority to this day is at a high level.

Development of literary criticism in Russia

Perhaps the most interesting situation literary criticism developed in Russia after 1917. No industry has ever been as politicized as it was in this era, and literature is no exception. Writers and critics have become an instrument of power, exerting a powerful influence on society. We can say that criticism no longer served lofty goals, but only solved the problems of power:

• hard screening of authors who did not fit into the political paradigm of the country;
• the formation of a "perverted" perception of literature;
• promotion of a galaxy of authors who created the "correct" samples of Soviet literature;
• maintaining the patriotism of the people.

Alas, from a cultural point of view, this was a “black” period in national literature, since any dissent was severely persecuted, and truly talented authors had no chance to create. That is why it is not at all surprising that representatives of the authorities acted as literary critics, among them - D.I. Bukharin, L.N. Trotsky, V.I. Lenin. Political figures had their own opinion about the most famous works of literature. Their critical articles were published in huge editions and were considered not only the primary source, but also the final authority in literary criticism.

For several decades Soviet history the profession of literary criticism became almost meaningless, and there were very few of its representatives still due to mass repressions and executions.

In such "painful" conditions, the emergence of opposition-minded writers was inevitable, who at the same time acted as critics. Of course, their work was classified as prohibited, so many authors (E. Zamyatin, M. Bulgakov) were forced to work in immigration. However, it is their works that reflect the real picture in the literature of that time.

A new era in literary criticism began during Khrushchev's "thaw". The gradual debunking of the personality cult and a relative return to freedom of expression revived Russian literature.

Of course, the restrictions and politicization of literature have not gone away, but articles by A. Kron, I. Ehrenburg, V. Kaverin and many others began to appear in philological periodicals, who were not afraid to express their opinions and turned the minds of readers.

A real surge of literary criticism occurred only in the early nineties. Huge upheavals for the people were accompanied by an impressive pool of "free" authors, who could finally be read without a threat to life. The works of V. Astafiev, V. Vysotsky, A. Solzhenitsyn, Ch. Aitmatov and dozens of other talented masters of the word were vigorously discussed both in the professional environment and by ordinary readers. One-sided criticism was replaced by controversy, when everyone could express their opinion about the book.

Literary criticism is a highly specialized field these days. Professional evaluation of literature is in demand only in scientific circles, and is really interesting to a small circle of connoisseurs of literature. Public opinion about a particular writer is formed by a whole range of marketing and social tools that have nothing to do with professional criticism. And this state of affairs is only one of the inalienable attributes of our time.

: "I read Dostoevsky as a native, as my own ...". And the point is not so much in the complete acceptance of the transmitted thoughts, but in the latent irrational feeling of something verified, real - something that you immediately give the right to life, to which you can then devote time to logically complete and "think out" - and, no matter how strangely, the stubborn mind always confirms the correctness of the first spontaneous feeling afterwards.

Despite the seeming unusualness of assessments or judgments, we will not find a single place in his book in regard to the numerous statements about the "controversial" or "erroneous" views of the critic that would be subject to disqualification for juggling facts or calling "black" - "white". Encyclopedic accuracy, speed of reaction, lack of descriptiveness, courage, a rare gift to call a spade a spade - without concealment and subtext - these are the characteristics of the "literary portrait" of Yu. Pavlov himself. It would not be superfluous to add that some of the features mentioned are considered bad manners today. So, before us is a real critic - a sober-minded, lively, not indifferent, sensitively responding to the phenomena of our time, thoughtfully analyzing the facts of the outgoing reality.

The merit of Yu. Pavlov is that many articles in his book tell about current writers - and it is always difficult to write “about the living”, about those who still create today and look you in the eye - ready to refute a careless word or an incorrect assessment, who has not yet put an end to who is actively developing.

The book opens with a most interesting and non-standard reflection on Vasily Rozanov, without which, according to Yu. Pavlov, "any serious conversation about literature, history, Russia is unthinkable." In connection with the name of the philosopher, the names of F. Dostoevsky, K. Leontiev, N. Strakhov sound. Semantic points that set the line of life and creative way the author of "Fallen Leaves", become religious and church culture, the perception of the individual through God, through the "cults" of the family, home, people, Motherland.

Adding your touches to the portrait V. Kozhinova , Yu. Pavlov mentions V. Rozanov and M. Bakhtina as thinkers who defined creative destiny Vadim Valerianovich, - thus, the logic of the arrangement of articles in the book becomes clear. Despite the fact that, according to Yu. Pavlov, the article about V. Kozhinov is based on a “patchwork quilt” of articles and sketches from previous years, we find an integral research layer. Attention is drawn to the details that reproduce the situation of hushing up the 60th anniversary of V. Kozhinov. Based on them, we can say with confidence that the author of the book was one of those who, already in the 80s, appreciated the scale of V. Kozhinov's personality, and moreover, confirmed this by deed, even then writing the first article about him. Considering the stages of the formation of V. Kozhinov the thinker, Yu. Pavlov tries to approach the facts of the critic's biography with an open mind, touching on "forbidden" topics, for example, the issue of Russian-Jewish relations. Against the background of the portrait of the protagonist - V. Kozhinov - assessments and characteristics are given to many phenomena of literature, history and philosophy.

The article about Mikhail Lobanov overturned the opinion that in modern criticism there are no true heroes, people who have the same word and deed. The leading ideologist of the “Russian Party”, M. Lobanov, through his personal creative destiny, carried a sense of belonging to the fate of the people, religious and spiritual perception of the world. This is clearly seen in comparisons with contemporaries. For example, the living conditions of many Russian critics left much to be desired - in the case of V. Kozhinov and M. Lobanov, these were apartments in which 13-15 people lived. And it is no coincidence that parallels arise with the well-known essay “One and a half rooms”, with the historical facts of the “conquest of Moscow” in the 1920s and 1930s, including the settlement of those who would later complain of unjust oppression in Arbat apartments. The spiritual autobiography of M. Lobanov is also placed in the context of the memoirs of the "sixties", for example, St. Rassadina. Let's not get ahead of events and let future readers of this book see for themselves the "otherness" of opinions, judgments and the way of life of people who lived in the same era, but as if in different dimensions. The measure by which events, people, and their own lives are measured by M. Lobanov and St. Rassadin is different, and for everyone, to one degree or another, it determines their personal destiny. This is easy to verify. The principle of “writing with love” was embodied in all the works of M. Lobanov, who “did not leave the cutting edge” of domestic literature - it is no coincidence that Yu. Pavlov’s article continues this principle, only in relation to M. Lobanov himself.

An example of a principled approach to the facts of literature is Yu. Pavlov's article, which analyzes the reflections of one "aesthetic intellectual" about V. Mayakovsky. Those same Rozanov's "little things" that make up the whole, allow the reader to form "a general idea of ​​time, Mayakovsky, of many, many". Yu. Pavlov opposes the Khlestakov's approach to the assessment of Russian literature, "Sarnov's" noodles ", by the works of V. Dyadichev and other honest and unbiased researchers.

Tracing the creative path of "one of the best critics of the second half of the 20th century", I. Zolotussky, Yu. Pavlov simultaneously touches on the problems of the essence of criticism, its varieties, freedom and independence of thought. Noting the colossal efficiency and significant contribution of I. Zolotussky to the history of Russian criticism, Yu. Pavlov credits the work of the thinker with time, noting the undoubted merits of the author of the book about N. Gogol, his bold, accurate statements about literature in numerous articles, however, he also cites some judgments of the critic about political and cultural figures of the 20th century, causing fundamental disagreement. Yu. Pavlov gives his own reasoned answers to the questions posed, foreseeing, however, that they will cause disagreement both with I. Zolotussky and many others.

Through the conversation about the 20th century, voices from the 19th century emerge in the book: K. Aksakov, A. Khomyakov, N. Strakhov and others, whose “heardness” Y. Pavlov seeks to strengthen. So, for example, V. Lakshin's judgments about will and captivity, in relation to "camp prose", are "tested" by the thoughts of K. Aksakov, set forth in the article "Slavery and Freedom", and in general, the work of A. Tvardovsky's potential successor as the main editor of Novy Mir - attitude to the people, Russian literature and history. Unlike those for whom V. Lakshin remained forever "leftist", Yu. Pavlov was able to see evidence of the critic's "correction" at the edge of earthly life. It is interesting to compare the creative path of V. Lakshin with the line of development of the worldview of V. Belinsky, whom Western friends reproached for "secret Slavophilism" before his death. Such sensitivity to your work is a rare gift, not given to every literary critic. In connection with the above, I would like to cite one of the confessions of the author of the book: “For 20 years I have been writing mainly “on the table” ...” Will Yu. Pavlov, a critic and literary critic, so attentive to other people's books, be read?

The personality of the “Kostroma critic” I. Dedkov emerges against the background of the oppositions “Moscow - province”, “personality - mass”, “family - childlessness”, “statehood - hostility to the state”, built by Yu. Pavlov. "Disciplined" (according to V. Bondarenko) I. Dedkov immediately receives many characteristics - Russian, Soviet, liberal. The critic himself divided literary activity into "dry residue" - written - and what does not count: "the struggle for positions, vanity, speeches, meetings." Yu. Pavlov draws attention to something else: the facts of the biography of I. Dedkov, his attitude to his father, to his wife, children, province, venality, betrayal, and, analyzing the path traveled by the critic, comes to the conclusion, which may sound unexpected for many: “... And . I see Dedkov as a father and husband much more significant as a person than I. Dedkov the critic. In the first capacity, he is to the end a "provincial", "moral conservative", a Russian person.

In an article about Yu. Seleznev, one of the most prominent critics of the 70s and 80s. XX century - Yu. Pavlov highlights the "imperceptible" or distorted pages of his creative biography, firstly, emphasizing that even during the years of study at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Krasnodar Pedagogical Institute, Yuri Ivanovich “stands out among students with the most extensive and versatile knowledge, a polemical gift”; secondly, noting that all subsequent literary activity could only arise on “Krasnodar soil”; thirdly, denoting the great positive role of V. Kozhinov in the fate of the critic; fourthly (and in terms of semantic content - firstly), rightly stating that in critical articles, books, as editor of the ZHZL series, on the way to understanding F. Dostoevsky and all Russian literature, Yu. Seleznev was a real ascetic, a man of principled honesty and colossal capacity for work. Considering the attitude towards Yu. Seleznev, expressed in the memoirs and articles of his contemporaries, Yu. Pavlov singles out the statements of Yu. S. Vikulova.

Creating literary-critical portraits, Yu. Pavlov always refers to "the origins" of the personality - he reveals the hidden or obvious reasons that forced the critic to embark on one path or another. According to the same principle, the image of V. Bondarenko, a “critical worker” was created. The critic, beaten by his own and others for the breadth of his views, for turning to seditious names from the “foreign” camp, was shrewdly called the “healer of love” for trying to find kindred spirits and a craving for light in those who have long been credited as “literary trolls”. And let Y. Pavlov speak with irony about the need for literary “flogging”, “smearing”, “killing” - in fact, he does the opposite: he revives, protects and whitewashes the undeservedly vilified.

The literary portrait of A. Kazintsev reflects numerous facets of the inner world of this outstanding thinker, who called criticism "the art of understanding", and is not only a response to A. Nemzer, S. Chuprinin and others "fundamentally inadequate" in A. Kazintsev's assessment, but also another accurate a stroke in the study of the literary process, affirming artistry, not clouded by sociality, not distorted by a bias towards formalism. Comprehending the various arguments of A. Kazintsev about certain authors, Yu. Pavlov singles out a single natural criterion applicable to Russian literature - the "Russian matrix". Outside it are the national egocentrism of V. Grossman, who sees in the history of the first half of the 20th century, overflowing with the tragedies of different peoples, an exclusively Jewish tragedy; "playing for a fall" and the artificiality of V. Makanin's work in recent decades; "new mythology" of A. Voznesensky, E. Yevtushenko, A. Rybakov, V. Voinovich, V. Aksyonov, I. Brodsky, A. Dementiev and others. , perhaps, the hero of his article will not disregard.

The portrait of Sergei Kunyaev, who dedicated his literary destiny to restoring the true history of Russian literature of the 20th century, pervades respect for talent and devotion to the Russian cause. Serious work in the archives formed the basis of unique materials that turn over the stamped versions of the events of the 1920s and 30s. Discovery of the names of Pavel Vasiliev, Alexei Ganin, Pimen Karpov, Vasily Nasedkin and others, the story of the life and death of S. Yesenin as close as possible to reality, accurate assessments of the work of N. Tryapkin, V. Krupin, L. Borodin, V. Galaktionova, immediate responses on the phenomena of modernity - this and much more, coming out from the pen of Sergei Kunyaev, contained the pages of "Our Contemporary" and other publications. The figure of S. Kunyaev grows before us as a faithful servant of Russian literature, the "Russian cause" with "a rare belief in the Word and Man" for our time. And the inevitability of the changes caused by his ascetic activity becomes obvious.

Yu. Pavlov speaks about the catastrophic state of modern Yesenin studies, ideological distortions, negligence and deliberate distortions of the creative path of one of the most beloved Russian poets in the article “Yesenin Studies Today”. Despite all the absurdity of the parodic and derogatory Gippius formula “Drank, fought - got bored - hanged himself”, numerous “memoirs” and literary delights reproduce precisely this mocking scheme, multiplying by zero the heritage of the Russian genius. Considering the questions of the mystery of the death of S. Yesenin, about the attitude of the poet to Russia, politics, to the existing government, the critic gives examples of a different - philosophical, metaphysical, Orthodox approach, implemented in the works of St. and S. Kunyaevs, Yu. Mamleev, M. Nikyo, Yu. Sokhryakov, N. Zuev, A. Gulin and others, who can serve as an example of the best traditions of Russian thought.

The article “Dmitry Bykov: Chichikov and Korobochka in one bottle” emphasizes the “sixties” of the author of the book about Pasternak. Yu. Pavlov gives exhaustively accurate descriptions of both the "mirrors" of Boris Pasternak - M. Tsvetaeva, A. Blok, V. Mayakovsky, A. Voznesensky, and his heroes - Yuri Zhivago, in the first place.

Using the examples of numerous factual, logical and other errors, Yu. Pavlov reveals the "fantasy basis" of Dmitry Bykov's judgments and his "vocational level" of knowledge of literature. The critic defends against Bykov's comments "one of the most worthy statesmen Russia XIX century” - Konstantin Pobedonostsev, recalling that during his reign the number of church schools in Russia increased from 73 to 43,696, and the number of students in them increased 136 times; Yu. Pavlov points to what is forgotten today, namely, that the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod already at one time precisely defined the essence of liberal democracy.

I must say that, unlike other critics who received in the book "Criticism of the XX-XXI centuries." according to one literary portrait, the award-winning "workaholic" Dmitry Bykov, probably in accordance with the volume of "bricks" written by him in a fairly short period, dedicated to the idols of the intelligentsia - B. Pasternak and B. Okudzhava - is at the center of two articles by Yu. Pavlov at once. It is easy to understand that the impetus for the creation of these works was the indignant “I cannot be silent” as a reaction to the distortion of the values ​​of Russian literature, to the distortion of the facts of Russian history.

In the article “Discussion “Classics and Us”: Thirty Years Later”, Yu. Pavlov calls to see in the classics not “critical-critical” realism, but “spiritual reality”, recalling the precept of M. Lobanov to comprehend literature through the highest aspirations of the soul, to seek “ not a denunciation, but (...) the depth of spiritual and moral quest, the thirst for truth and eternal values. On eloquent examples of the work of E. Bagritsky, V. Mayakovsky, Vs. Meyerhold, D. Samoilov, the author of the article suggests that, more than thirty years later, the statements of St. Kunyaev, M. Lobanova, S. Lominadze, I. Rodnyanskaya; that, having formally ended on December 21, 1977, the discussion about the classics and Russian literature continues and cannot be ended, since peace between the “conquerors”, “marketers” and defenders of the spiritual heritage of national culture is impossible.

The triple personality of A. Tvardovsky grows through the prism of the realities of that time, in the refraction of the memories of V.A. and O.A. Tvardovskikh, articles by V. Ohryzko - Yu. Pavlov comments on discrepancies and gives answers to controversial questions that arise when referring to the figure of the former editor of Novy Mir. The author of "Country of Ants", placed on a par with the creators of "Pogorelshchina", "Pit", "History of the Fool" noticeably loses in the courage that V.A. insists on. and O.A. Tvardovsky, and in objectivity, as evidenced at the end of his life by A.T. Tvardovsky. Other layers of rouge are also being removed, “high tongue twisters” addressed to the editor of the Novomirovo patrimony. This is where A. Tvardovsky's "Workbooks" and the testimonies of contemporaries verified by various sources come to the rescue.

Yu. Pavlov's response to V. Pietsukh's book "Russian Theme" is subtitled "Collection of Vile Anecdotes". The book is seen by critics as another link in the discussion about the classics, which has flared up again in the last decade, another salvo that discredits the best representatives of Russian literature. The pathos of Yu. Pavlov's review of V. Pietsukh resembles the pathos of I. Ilyin, who defends A. Pushkin from those who want to see his "smallness and abomination", to reduce the life of a genius to a series of anecdotes. And I also remember the response word to A. Sinyavsky R. Gul “Walks of a boor with Pushkin” - the same protest word to those in whom the indomitable craving to see in Russian life is not poetry, but ugliness, an object for ridicule, “Egyptian darkness”. In a sense, Pietsukh's book is "a boor's walk through the gardens of Russian literature", a boor trying to plant myths about a general dislike for Dostoevsky, about Yesenin's passion for suicide, about the underground anti-Soviet "kolobok" - Prishvin. And again, as in the cases of B. Sarnov, D. Bykov, Yu. Pavlov uncovered predictable Russophobic schemes, flagrant inaccuracies, free interpretations presented “stupidly, dishonestly, unprofessionally”, without any serious appeal to literary texts. Not without irony, the critic notes that there is absolutely no difference between the conditional “wretched”, playing, pretending to be Pietsukh in a mask and Pietsukh, the “enlightened” author.

A. Razumikhin, who published a memoir article dedicated to contemporaries known to him personally, closes a number of "anti-heroes" from the book "Criticism of the XX-XXI centuries". Yu. Pavlov draws attention to the fact that in the work of A. Razumikhin there is a fictitious, but very colorfully described car by M. Lobanov, fictitious characteristics of Kabanikha and Katerina, which never existed and could not be in the book "Ostrovsky" (ZhZL), fictitious "unclaimed" D. Asanov, V. Korobov, V. Kalugin, fictitious criteria for evaluating creative destinies, fictional situations that are impossible, based on the chronology of events, from published and unpublished facts; fictional absurd language constructs by a former professional editor. The critic considers such an “eclipse of the mind and conscience” of the “literary alien” A. Razumikhin to be nothing more than a self-exposure of a person who considers himself to be a “Russian patriot”.

A controversial attitude towards M. Golubkov's textbook "The History of Russian Literary Criticism of the 20th Century" was expressed by Yu. Pavlov in a review with the subtitle "A Successful Failure". Voicing the only relative success of this unsuccessful book, Pavlov makes an attempt to “correct” the literary process of the 1960s–1970s reconstructed by M. Golubkov, adding the missing strokes and lines, missing names, eliminating factual errors, obvious alogisms, and refuses to further analyze the textbook in detail. due to its inconsistency neither with the declared section of literary criticism (taking into account the differences between the history of criticism and the history of literature), nor with the necessary scientific condition.

The heroes of the book, "living" in different articles, seem to be connected by invisible threads. Here and there, V. Rozanov, V. Kozhinov, St. Kunyaev, S. Kunyaev, M. Lobanov, V. Bondarenko and others in connection with this or that phenomenon, with this or that figure. This speaks of the integrity of the literary layer of Russian criticism, taken by Yu. Pavlov and placed under one cover. In fact, he himself is one of those who define the literary process today. Using links to various articles, books, and other sources cited by Yu. Pavlov as illustrations for various topics, one can study not only the history of criticism, but also the history of Russian literature of the 20th century. This reading fills with energy, gives a spiritual charge, enlightens the soul and puts thoughts in order, teaches the culture of literary critical thinking and inspires criticism.

Each article by Yu. Pavlov is a miniature dissertation, a well-founded and fact-intensive full-fledged study, in a concise form representing the result of a great work - a deep and serious insight into the topic. Now such systematic and qualitative studies are not found in any dissertations. Such a book is a verdict on those critics who build their evidence on a single quote and catching "verbal fleas" in the texts of colleagues. If we use the classification of I. Zolotussky, then Yu. Pavlov's metacriticism can be classified as philosophical. Those who speak of criticism as secondary manifestations emanating from failed writers can be presented with the book “Criticism of the XX-XXI centuries”, which contains genuine philosophy, genuine literature, answers to the most important questions and requirements of modern Russian life.

V. Kozhinov and A. Tvardovsky, mentioned in the book, considered the critical gift to be rarer than the writer's. And today, when the proportion of books devoted to Russian criticism, in relation to the colossal flow of prose, is incredibly small, we celebrate the publication of Y. Pavlov's book "Criticism of the 20th - 21st centuries: Literary portraits, articles, reviews" as a significant milestone in the modern literary process. This book is an answer to the question: what happens if you are a professional critic and in applying your principles are guided not by half-measures and considerations of momentary convenience, not by fear of misunderstanding or habitual stereotypes, but by being honest and consistent to the end, remaining yourself.

Exam tickets. Faculty of Philology, Moscow State University. Lecturer Kormilov S.I. Modern ideas about the essence and functions of literary criticism. Correlation between criticism and literary criticism. Disciplines of modern literary criticism. Disciplines of modern literary criticism and their analogues in criticism.
Varieties of literary criticism in the first post-revolutionary years (1917-1921).
Literary-critical articles by A. Blok and V. Bryusov: problems and poetics.
"Writer's" criticism of the 20s (E. Zamyatin, M. Kuzmin, O. Mandelstam).
Theoretical and organizational principles of Proletcult and its literary-critical practice. Associations of proletarian writers and their platforms. RAPP and Rapp's criticism.
The relation of art to reality in the platforms of literary groups.
Formalism in literary criticism and its influence on criticism. Literary-critical works by Yu. Tynyanov, B. Eikhenbaum, V. Shklovsky.
Futurism and Lef. The theory of "art-life-building" and the concept of social order. "Formalist Sociologists".
Platforms of the Imagists, Constructivists and the Serapion Brothers. Their evolution.
"Vulgar sociologism" in literary criticism and criticism. Its varieties. Actions against vulgar sociologism in the 1920s and 1930s.
Party and state policy in the field of fiction in 1917-1932. Speeches by V. Lenin, L. Trotsky, N. Bukharin, J. Stalin on issues of literature and culture.
A. Lunacharsky is a critic and methodologist in the field of literary criticism and criticism.
Vyach. Polonsky as a journalist and critic.
Theoretical views and literary-critical practice of A. Voronsky.
Platform "Pass". Literary-critical works by A. Lezhnev and D. Gorbov. Attitude towards "Pass" in the criticism of the 20s - early 30s.
The concept of personality and the concept of realism in Soviet criticism of the 20s and early 30s.
The role of M. Gorky in Russian culture of the 20-30s. His critical and publicistic speeches.
The main issues discussed at the First Congress Soviet writers. Characteristic features of the congress and its role in the history of literature.
The problem of the "face" of Soviet periodicals in the 1930s. Journal "Literary Critic" and supplement to it - "Literary Review".
A. Platonov-critic.
The main trends in Soviet criticism of the 1930s (methodology, themes, assessments, the nature of the argument, typical phraseology). Evolution " literary newspaper» in the 30s.
Discussions of the 1930s about method and worldview, about language and about "formalism" in literature.
The concept of personality in totalitarian culture and the problem of the hero in Soviet criticism of the 1930s.
Prose writers and poets of the "first wave" of emigration as literary critics.
Literary criticism of V. Khodasevich.
Professional literary and philosophical criticism in the Russian diaspora (20-30s).
Methodological principles, themes, problems, genres and authors of literary criticism during the Great Patriotic War.
Post-war cultural policy and its impact on criticism. Theoretical installations in criticism of 1946-1955 and its "exposing" activity.
Criticism of criticism and literary criticism in the first post-war decade. Second Congress of Soviet Writers on Criticism and Literary Studies.
The first attempts at adogmatic judgments about literature in the 50s. The second congress of writers on the results and prospects of Soviet literature.
Articles by M. Shcheglov.
The influence of the exposure of the "cult of personality" on literary criticism. Contradictory processes in the criticism of the second half of the 50s. N. Khrushchev's policy in the field of culture.
Creativity A. Makarov.
Literary struggle and the emergence of trends in criticism of the 60s. official line. Conservative-official direction. "Sixties". The emergence of the "national-soil" direction.
"Novomirskaya" criticism of the 60s. The controversy of the "Novomirites" with their ideological and literary opponents.
Theoretical problems in the criticism of the 60s - the first half of the 80s. 27. Organizational measures of the 70s in relation to literary and artistic criticism and the main trends in its evolution during the period of "stagnation".
Genres, composition and style of critical works. The evolution of the genre structure of Soviet criticism in the 70s
Russian classical literature and literary criticism of the 19th century. in the interpretations of criticism and "popular literary criticism" of the 70-90s.
Estimation of the level of current literature and attempts to predict its development in the criticism of the 70s - the first half of the 80s.
Directions in criticism of the 70s - the first half of the 80s. Methodological orientations and the nature of the controversy of those years.
tic and axiological preferences of well-known critics of the 70-90s. Genres and styles of their literary-critical works.
Stages of development of literary criticism in the period of "perestroika". Features of literary-critical controversy of the second half
x years.
Criticism of democratic orientation in the period of "perestroika".
Criticism of the "national-soil" orientation in the period of "perestroika". The problem of literary-critical "centrism".
Positions of literary and artistic publications in the 90s and the main features of "post-perestroika" criticism in Russia.
Theoretical and literary problems in criticism of the second half of the 80-90s.
Late literary-critical works of emigrants of the "first wave" (40-70s).
Writers of the "third wave" of emigration as critics and their controversy
between themselves.
Strengths and weaknesses of existing manuals and research
on the history of Russian criticism of the XX century. (after 1917).
The outlook and evolution of the literary-critical creativity of D.P. Svyatopolk-Mirsky.
Literary criticism of Georgy Adamovich.
M. Lobanov and V. Kozhinov as critics-publicists.
The main features of Russian literary criticism in the 2000s.

Terminological minimum Keywords: periodization, Soviet period, literary criticism, literary process, party ideology, censorship, polycentrism, monism, socialist realism, conflict-free theory, "thick" magazines.

Plan

1. General characteristics of the literary-critical process of the Soviet period. Periodization of Soviet criticism.

2. The formation of Soviet criticism in the era of literary groups in Russia.

3. Formation of the institution of Soviet literary criticism in the 1930s.

4. Literary-critical atmosphere of the 1950s–1980s: the brightness of literary-critical individuals.

Literature

Texts to study

1. Ivanova, N. B. Between: On the place of criticism in the press and literature.

2. Lunacharsky, A. V. Theses on the policy of the RCP in the field of literature.

3. Pomerantsev, V. M. On sincerity in literature.

4. Decree of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of August 14, 1946 (On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad).

5. Decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations” of April 23, 1932

6. Decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) "On the policy of the party in the field of fiction" of June 18, 1925

Main

1. Golubkov, M. M. History of Russian literary criticism of the XX century (1920–1990s): textbook. allowance for students. philol. facts of high fur boots and universities / M. M. Golubkov. - M. : Academy, 2010. - 368 p.

2. Gromova, N. A. Decay. The fate of the Soviet critic: 40-50s. / N. A. Gromova. - M. : ELLIS LACK, 2009. - 496 p.

3. Koksheneva, K. A. Russian criticism / K. A. Koksheneva. – M. : POROG, 2011.
– 496 p.

4. Kornienko, N. V. “Nepovskaya thaw”: the formation of the institute of Soviet literary criticism / N. V. Kornienko. - M. : IMLI RAN, 2010. - 504 p.

Additional

1. Bogachkov, E. There is something to build on. To the origins of Soviet and post-Soviet literary criticism / E. Bogachkov // Literary Russia. - 2012. - June 8
(No. 23). – P. 12–13.

2. Zeldovich, M. G. In search of patterns. On literary criticism and ways of studying it / M. G. Zeldovich. - Kharkov: Publishing house at the Kharkov state. un-te, 2009. - 160 p.

3. Krupchanov, L. M. History of Russian literary criticism of the 19th century: textbook. allowance / L. M. Krupchanov. - M .: Higher. school, 2010. - 383 p.

4.Russian literature of the twentieth century in the mirror of criticism: a reader for students. philol. faculty of higher education textbook establishments / comp. S. I. Timina, M. A. Chernyak, N. N. Kyakshto. - M. : Academy, 2010. - 646 p.

5. Rurikov, B. S. The main problems of Soviet literary criticism /
B. S. Ryurikov // Second All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers: verbatim report. – M.: Sov. pis., 1956. - S. 52-53.

1. The circumstances of the socio-political plan for the beginning of the organization of the young Soviet country, due to the new nature of the relationship between literature and the state, expressed in the latter's desire to turn literature into an instrument for shaping the consciousness of a new person as part of society, made literature an object of party-state transformation.

Already in the 1920s. ideas about the functions of literature and, as a result, criticism change dramatically. Criticism is gradually turning into a tool for the formation of human ideological material, the main function of which is the construction of a new formation. Unique claims to the only correct explanation of current events, an adequate reflection of the main processes both in literature and in society as a whole leads to an intra-literary struggle, to the formation of literary groups and, as a result, to a split in the literary process, which finally took root by the mid-1930s. gg.

Literary criticism in Russia acquired new functions for itself in 1940 – 1950s: became an instrument of political and ideological influence on the writer and reader. Criticism has become a powerful lever of political leadership of social processes in the Soviet Union, as a result of which it has acquired political functions that are not characteristic of it as a conductor of a party position, a political controller, giving the writer a residence permit in literature or denying it. At this time, the concept that originated in the mid-1920s was updated. a genre that combines the features of a devastating critical article and a political denunciation that lasted until the end of the Soviet era. M. Bulgakov, E. Zamyatin, A. Platonov,
B. Pilnyak in 1929, A. Akhmatova and M. Zoshchenko – in 1946, B. Pasternak – in the 1950s, mid 1960s. – A. Sinyavsky and Y. Daniel, a few years later, in the late 1960s – 1970s – A. Solzhenitsyn.

Given the traditional mood of Russian culture for the last three centuries, the authorities sought to use literature as a powerful and, perhaps, the main tool for the formation of socio-political views. After all, literature late XVIII century, built nationally significant archetypes of Russian self-consciousness, created cultural heroes, demiurges, designated a system of value orientations, the sphere of the ideal and non-ideal, i.e., had the ability to form national picture peace. Maintaining this function throughout the 20th century, literature (and, above all, criticism) became the object of close attention and intense influence on the part of the party and the state. This role of literature intensified in a situation of cultural vacuum resulting from the crisis of traditional religious, existential, philosophical, cultural guidelines that followed the events of 1914. – 1920, which led to the collapse of the old world.

In these circumstances, criticism became the very institution through which the authorities formulated the corresponding literary tasks and carried them out.

Criticism, being specific form literary self-reflection developed in direct connection with the fundamentally new literary situation of the twentieth century, which predetermined not only the criteria for the formation of critical thought, but also its functioning.

The literary-critical process of the 20th century is determined by the intense interaction of two tendencies: internal, artistic nature characterizing the aesthetic trends of literary development, and external in relation to literature. These circumstances are both political and socio-cultural.

In the textbook "The History of Russian Literary Criticism of the 20th Century" (1920 – 1990s)" M. M. Golubkov proposes the periodization of literary criticism in its correlation with the periodization of the history of literature. The textbook highlights three major periods:

1) 1920s – mid-1950s;

2) the second half of the 1950s – milestone 1980 – 1990s;

3) turn XX – 21st century

This periodization of the history of literary criticism coincides with the periodization of literary history adopted in modern literary criticism. However, these periods are not integral, therefore it is advisable to single out several stages within each of them.

First period includes:

– 20s (1917) – turn of 1920 – 1930s);

– 30– 50s (early 1930s – mid 1950s).

Inside second period stand out:

– mid 1950s – 1960s;

– 1970s – first half of the 1980s

Third period opens in the second half of the 1980s. The literary phenomena that characterize him culminate at the turn of the 1980s. – early 1990s

The contemporary literary situation dictates new conditions for the development of critical thought. This period in the history of criticism, which has not been completed to date, in our opinion, should be considered separately.

Such a periodization of the literary process is based on the principle that allows one to take into account the interaction of both internal, inherent laws of development, and external socio-political, socio-cultural and economic factors that have the most direct impact on criticism and determine its functions. This is what became the key for us in the process of considering the development of literary criticism of the Soviet period.

2. Historical events of 1910 – 1920s (imperialist war, revolutions, civil war, the victory of the Bolsheviks and the subsequent political repression) led to a dramatic change in the "reader – publisher – writer – critic". The former reader, brought up on the Russian classics of the 19th century and shaped his artistic tastes at the turn of the century, in the era of symbolism and avant-garde, is forced to adapt to new conditions – the emergence and then the dominance of the victorious class in the literary arena. A sophisticated, educated reader is being replaced by a new reader, a person previously cut off from culture and literature, but now joining it. It was his appearance that was welcomed by A. Blok in a series of philosophical and literary-critical articles in 1918 – 1919 (“The collapse of humanism”, “Intelligentsia and Revolution”, etc.), seeing in him fresh forces for creating a new culture. However, such views showed their illusory nature quite soon.

Literary struggle of the 1920s was not so much a confrontation between reading and writing practices, consisting in different ideas about the possibilities and purpose artistic samples how much a system of views on what literature should be. Occupying a leading position in shaping the activities of one or another literary group, criticism was aimed at protecting the interests of the formation, ensuring its survival in the confrontation with others.

Thus, the Forge, Iron Flowers, etc., are distinguished by an aggressive policy regarding the activities of other literary groups.

At this stage, criticism, in addition to its traditional function of forming dialogic communication between the reader and the writer, acquired new ones: it actively inspired the contemporary reader with the idea of ​​his undoubted right to demand art on his shoulder and the idea of ​​the unconditional superiority of this art over any other (theories of Proletcult, LEF ), “squeezed out” the old writer from the literature, organized slanderous campaigns (unconditional primacy belongs to the Russian Association proletarian writers- RAPP).

The role and social significance of the judgments of critics are at an unprecedented height until then. But most often this is not used for good: the word "criticism" is interpreted as a weapon of political struggle, and representatives of the dominant groups confuse the genre of a critical article with a court verdict.

1920s characterized as a polycentric period of literary life. It is marked primarily by the abundance of groupings, which become an organizational form of expression of various aesthetic and ideological views present in literature, from traditionalist to radical and most avant-garde. Literary polycentrism is possible because two tendencies counteract during this period: free dialogue, natural for the development of critical thought, on the one hand; on the other hand, gradually increasing pressure from the state in order to monologue literature and give it an ideological and propaganda role. The tendency to monologize literary life is present, but does not dominate.

In 1921, the party was determined to lead all regions cultural life- Literature, theatre, education, social and human sciences. The resolution adopted by the 10th Party Congress "On the Main Political Education and Agitation and Propaganda Tasks of the Party" spoke of this without any ambiguity. The fulfillment of the planned tasks was entrusted to the former ones (Glavpolitprosvet of the NKP, the press department and Agitprop of the Central Committee, the literary commission and the department of political control of the GPU - OGPU) and the newly created state institutions.
On June 6, 1922, the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) approved the "Regulations on the Main Directorate for Literature and Publishing (Glavlit)". Glavlit, as the censorship department of the country, which united all types of censorship, was called upon to: 1) engage in a preview of all works intended for publication or consideration, both handwritten and printed; 2) issue permits for the right to publish individual works, as well as periodicals and other publications; 3) draw up lists of works prohibited for sale and distribution; 4) issue rules, orders and instructions for the press. It was forbidden to publish and distribute works: a) containing agitation against the Soviet regime; b) disclosing the military secrets of the Republic; c) arousing public opinion by reporting false information;
d) inciting nationalistic and religious fanaticism; e) of a pornographic nature. The Chekist status of the institution is fixed by paragraph 6 of the resolution: one of the two deputies of the head of Glavlit is appointed in agreement with the GPU. The GPU becomes one of the organizational centers of literary-critical, publishing and writing life. Following the adoption of the regulation on Glavlit, a number of fundamental government documents governing the literary life of the country. On June 12, 1921, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopts a resolution "On the procedure for permitting congresses and meetings", instructing the NKVD to register and control all organizations. On August 3, 1921, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars "On the procedure for approving and registering societies and unions that do not pursue the goal of making a profit, and the procedure for supervising them" is dated. On August 10 of the same year, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issues instructions for registering associations. According to the adopted documents, in order to be registered (permitted), any association must submit a charter, lists of members of the board and society to the management department of the Gubernia Executive Committee, receive a resolution here and then submit all documents for final approval to the NKVD. Thus, the executive and punitive authorities were empowered to open, control (through annual reports on activities, composition of societies and boards) and close publications, both large associations and small groups. Issues of the press under the conditions of the New Economic Policy were under constant control in the Central Committee.

The main parameters of the ideology of proletarian culture were approved by the VIII Party Congress (1919) and were not called into question during the NEP period. The book of N. Bukharin and E. Preobrazhensky, The ABC of Communism, published since 1920 in mass editions, gave a popular exposition of the party’s program in the field of ideology, and this “original textbook of communist literacy” is a condensed expression of the main programs of cultural policy aimed at destroying traditional society and approval of the international communist ideology. This ideology was actively developed in the 1920s by various state institutions: Narkompros and its subordinate institutions (GAKhN); Communist Academy, Communist University. Ya. Sverdlov in Moscow and similar to the name of G. Zinoviev in Petrograd - Leningrad, the Institute of Red Professors, Soviet party schools of various levels, etc.

The broad front of the cultural revolution included in its program the destruction of the old institutions of Russia (church, family and marriage, schools, rituals, song culture, old place names, etc.). Russia was supposed to become the "head detachment of the world revolution", approaching which or, on the contrary, moving away from it, dictated the choice of the tactical party line in the field of literature and literary criticism.

In the defeat of Petrograd literary criticism in 1922, one tendency of the emerging ideology of the management of literature manifested itself - distrust of literary criticism. If in 1921 the articles
A. Blok, E. Zamyatin, O. Mandelstam, at the end of the decade, St. Petersburg literary criticism will be pushed to the sidelines of the literary process and appears to be a kind of marginal. This was explained in the following way: the writer is weak in the field of literary theory and Marxist methodology; is not able to give the work the right aesthetic and political assessments, and therefore may incorrectly orient the reader.

Occupied with the construction of a new literary process, critics-organizers might not even read the work at all (there were many such cases) in order to speak about the writer. They did not burden themselves with reading the broadly understood "White Guard" literature of external and internal emigrants, written off as a scrap of philosophical and aesthetic criticism.

After the expulsion of the Russian intelligentsia, the main strategic task of the party on the literary front becomes the conquest of non-proletarian writers' groups, vacillating, politically unformed, for whose souls a real war is going on between the emigration camps and us. The choice of this strategy is first determined by Lenin (criticism of futurism; the departure of M. Gorky, the invitation of A. Voronsky), but the main figure, who in the summer of 1922 is nominated by the party for the humanitarian and literary direction, becomes a member of the Politburo, chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, people's commissar for military and maritime affairs L. Trotsky, whose name in those years was associated with victory in the Civil War. L. Trotsky turns to literary affairs after the approval in February - March 1922 of the state program for the fight against Russian Orthodox Church adopted on the basis of instructions and directives prepared by him.

On the cultural front, the state in 1922 needed not only commissars, whose role in the years civil war were performed by proletarians, but also by competent managers of culture and organizers of the literary process. These functions, according to Trotsky, must be assigned to criticism. Therefore, it is no coincidence that in the literary concerns of the People's Commissar in the summer of 1922, criticism, and not literature, comes first. Concern about the lack of specialist critics who can be trusted and who can give a qualified assessment of a literary work runs through a variety of party documents in 1921-1922.

Members of the Politburo, the Central Committee of the government, the Comintern write prefaces to published books and reviews them, answer questions from literary questionnaires, take part in literary discussions, constantly meet with creative intelligentsia and writers, etc. "Kremlin Criticism" acts as the highest arbitration .

The first results of the stormy organizational work of the summer of 1922 will be summed up in a series of literary articles by L. Trotsky, published in Pravda from September 1922. The articles are devoted to the analysis of two detachments of the literary intelligentsia - "non-October intelligentsia" (Russian emigration, internal emigrants) and "literary fellow travelers of the revolution".

The concept of "fellow traveler" entered the language of literary criticism, party resolutions, and became in fact the key in the literary struggle of the 1920s. Trotsky himself more than once clarified it, rejected any attempts to broaden its interpretation, and protested against the inclusion of representatives of non-October literature in the number of "literary fellow travelers".

He criticized and at the same time supported the LEF and the Futurists: three days after the critical article "Futurism" (September 25, 1923), Pravda publishes the People's Commissar's Futurist essay "The Art of Revolution and Socialist Art (Undoubted and Supposed)" (September 29), opening a huge field of activity for the ideologists of "life building".

In the discussion about proletarian literature and fellow travelers, and at the same time about the classics, at the end of 1923, the internal party component began to prevail: the struggle began for Lenin's legacy and leadership in the party (Lenin was seriously ill and no longer participated in the real government of the country) and for a new party strategy.

After the death of V. Lenin (January 21, 1924), the inner-party struggle for power takes on a new breath. The literary Leniniana of 1924 (from Poor, Mayakovsky to Yesenin) owes its themes, motives and plots, and in general the direction of myth-making, to L. Trotsky's book "On Lenin", published in the State Publishing House two months after the death of the leader with a circulation of 30 thousand.

The struggle on the literary-critical front continued throughout 1924. A certain ambiguity of the party-critical passions of early May 1924 was soon introduced into a clear ideological channel by the resolution "On the Press" adopted by the 13th Party Congress (May 23-31), which determined that in the field of fiction the party would be guided by the work of workers and peasants becoming workers and peasant writers in the process of cultural upsurge populace Soviet Union. Workers' and peasants' correspondents should be regarded as reserves from which new workers' and peasants' writers will come forward, and party literary criticism should become the main conductor of this line. On March 13, 1925, a special resolution was adopted by the secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks on criticism and bibliography, suggesting that all periodicals establish departments of criticism and bibliography as permanent and politically important departments. The resolution “On the Party’s Policy in the Sphere of Fiction” (June 18, 1925), adopted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks, formulated the basic principles of relations between the Party and literature: the Party assumed leadership of literature as a whole, spoke out about all groupings and factions of literature and claims of any of them for a monopoly, criticism was endowed with the rights of the highest supervisory body that monitored the activities of a particular writer.

In October 1926, at a joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, L. Trotsky was relieved of his duties as a member of the Politburo "for factional activity", he loses his leading position in the literary field. This is evidenced by the numerous petitions of writers and critics to the Central Committee, addressed since 1925 to the main critics of the Trotskyist opposition - N. Bukharin and I. Stalin.

Never again in the Soviet era were writers allowed to speak publicly of criticism in such a way as in 1926. the actual head of the second capital and chairman of the executive committee of the Comintern G. Zinoviev and the head of the Moscow Council L. Kamenev), turned out to be very productive for the literature of Soviet Russia. During these years, the pinnacle works of Russian literature of this decade were created: “The Secret of the Secret” by Vs. Ivanova, “Sentimental Tales” by M. Zoshchenko, “Meetings with Liz” by L. Dobychin, “The Secret Man” and “Chevengur” by A. Platonov, “The Thief” by L. Leonov, “Brothers” by K. Fedin, “Russia washed with blood » A. Vesely, 1 and 2 book « Quiet Don"M. Sholokhov, "Envy" by Y. Olesha, "Twelve Chairs" by I. Ilf and E. Petrov, " dog's heart» M. Bulgakov and others. Much in these works was born from the political context of the struggle against the legendary people's commissar - the main ideologist of the "world revolution" and the program of struggle for the "new way of life".

However, it is precisely at this time that all critics write about the loss of the reader by literature. It turned out that the real mass reader of Soviet Russia is almost not interested in contemporary literature; the old workers do not like it at all, preferring the old Russian classics to it; young poets read Pushkin, Nikitin, Lermontov, Yesenin. And readers are completely indifferent to the literary-critical struggle.

The information received by 1927 on the mood in the writers' environment and the program for studying the reader's interests, of course, served as the reason for the decision to publish the weekly "Reader and Writer", the first issue of which appeared in December 1927. It was supposed to radically correct the prevailing in the first Soviet decade of the situation in the relationship of new literature and criticism, writer and mass reader. The new "mass organ" set the following tasks: 1) to bring the writer closer to the reader; 2) to help the masses understand the life phenomena displayed by literature; 3) to put any political and social ugliness in literature under the fire of the most severe criticism; 4) give accessible, concise, but sensible reviews of new literature.

3. Of fundamental importance is the gradual transition from the literary polycentrism of the 1920s. to the literary monism of the 1930s–1950s. It is difficult to determine the chronological boundary separating one stage from another with an accuracy of a year; it is only possible to name several milestones that form a kind of boundary between the two stages within the first period and subsequently indicate the strengthening of literary monism.

These milestones are:

- removal from the literary battlefield (M. Gorky) A.K. Voronsky, editor-in-chief of the Krasnaya Nov magazine. The reason for this was the defeat of the Trotskyist opposition (1927). Voronsky partly shared Trotsky's views on proletarian culture, which were qualified by his political opponents as capitulatory;

- unleashing in 1929 inspired persecution of four writers (B. Pilnyak, E. Zamyatina, M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov);

- the economic ruin of Russian foreign publishing houses, where both Soviet writers and authors of Russian abroad were widely published;

- the defeat of the academic school of V. F. Pereverzev and V. M. Friche, declared vulgar sociological (November 1929 - January 1930);

- a discussion about the "Pass" school, held under the slogan "Against bourgeois liberalism in fiction" (1930);

- arrests (1929) and expulsions (1930) of members of the OBERIU group (D. Kharms, K. Vaginov, A. Vvedensky, N. Zabolotsky and others);

- the dissolution of all literary groups (1932);

- the creation of the Union of Writers of the USSR, a kind of "collectivization" of literature (1934);

- formation of the concept of a new creative method - socialist realism, which became the theoretical justification for the monistic concept of Soviet literature;

- a discussion about language (1934), as a result of which the skaz forms of narration and the ornamental style were put under suspicion;

- the discussion on formalism (1936), which formed the life-like poetics of socialist realism and cast suspicion on the grotesque and any form of conventional imagery;

- "Zhdanov" resolutions of 1946-1948, which completed the formation of a totalitarian state and literature; writers of the front generation;

- a campaign to persecute B. Pasternak for the novel "Doctor Zhivago" as the last act, completing the period of the 1920-1950s.

Thus, criticism of the second half of the 1940s - the first half of the 1950s. was in stagnation, forming endless lists of new achievements in the literature of socialist realism.

Socialist realist criticism of this period includes two opposing attitudes: the idealization of reality, the creation of its ideal model (the slogan of V. V. Ermilov “The beautiful is our life”, the theory of non-conflict) and confrontationalism, the perception of literature as a weapon of class struggle (the slogan of searching for and exposing enemies , which flared up from time to time campaigns against the theory of non-conflict). Their interaction continues until the mid-1950s, while criticism is included in the party-state political actions of the late Stalinist period: the fight against cosmopolitanism, the destruction of everything alien in literature, etc.

At the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, it was decided to hold writers' congresses every four years. Nevertheless, the Second Congress did not take place until December 1954. Stalin died in March 1953, and although the congress honored his memory at the very beginning, it was already a writers' meeting of a fundamentally new type. The most striking at the Second Congress of Writers was the speech of B. Ryurikov. He focused on issues that seemed to have been forgotten by Soviet literature. He spoke out against the calm, impassive tone characteristic of criticism. recent years, and said that criticism should be born in a free struggle of opinions. What was new was the talk about the artistic skill of literary criticism itself. Rurikov spoke about the importance of publishing a literary-critical journal (shortly after the writers' congress, new literary journals began to appear - Questions of Literature and Russian Literature).

The congress participants allowed themselves previously unthinkable remarks and jokes, answers to opponents and polemics. The participants' reports spoke of the need for change, the speedy overcoming of the theory of non-conflict, and the involvement of new literary forces in the work.

The socio-political situation, which changed dramatically after the 20th Party Congress (February 1956) and the publication on July 2, 1956 of the resolution of the Party Central Committee on overcoming the personality cult and its consequences, also contributed to the implementation of these plans and aspirations.

4. From the mid-1950s to the second half of the 1980s, the forms of literary life, the nature of relations between literature and the state, as well as the functions and role of criticism, change. The events of the socio-political life of the country (the death of Stalin, the execution of Beria, the approval of Khrushchev as a party and state leader, the first rehabilitation, the 20th and 22nd Congresses of the CPSU) led to Khrushchev's "thaw", the expression of the spirit of which in literary criticism was " New world"under the leadership of A. T. Tvardovsky. He was opposed by Oktyabr, whose editor-in-chief was V. A. Kochetov, who strove for political and literary restoration. The literary-critical struggle of these two journals forms one of the main trends of the 1960s.

In May 1956, A. Fadeev committed suicide, in whose suicide letter it was noted: “I don’t see the opportunity to continue to live, since the art to which I gave my life has been ruined by the self-confidently ignorant leadership of the party and now can no longer be corrected. The best cadres of literature, including those that the tsarist satraps never even dreamed of, were physically exterminated or perished thanks to the criminal connivance of those in power; the best people literature died at a premature age; everything else, more or less capable of creating true values, died before reaching 40-50 years. The suicide letter was not published in those years, but Fadeev's act, which caused conflicting rumors due to lack of information, became in the eyes of people an act of disobedience to the authorities.

literary life 1950s–1960s was so diverse and colorful that it is difficult to imagine it as a chain of successive events. The main qualities of both literary policy and literary criticism became inconsistency and unpredictability. This was largely due to the figure of N. S. Khrushchev.

Like his predecessors, party leaders, Khrushchev paid close attention to literature and art. A poorly educated man, authoritarian, quick to speak and make decisions, Khrushchev either helped writers feel the air of freedom, or harshly reprimanded them. He was convinced that the party and the state had the right to interfere in questions of culture, and therefore very often and for a long time spoke to the creative intelligentsia, to writers. On the initiative of Khrushchev, in 1957, a series of reader discussions of V. Dudintsev's novel "Not by Bread Alone" took place.

A shameful page in Khrushchev's leadership of literature was the expulsion of B. Pasternak from the Writers' Union in October 1958. The reason for this was the publication of the novel Doctor Zhivago by a Milanese publishing house. It was at this time that one of the formulas of Soviet literary life was born: "I have not read the novel, but I think ...". At factories and collective farms, in universities and writers' organizations, people who did not read the novel supported the methods of persecution, which eventually led to a serious illness and Pasternak's death in 1960.

In March 1963, Khrushchev spoke out for the simplicity and accessibility of works of art. In July 1963, at the Party Plenum, he declared that the Party should evaluate literary works.

The name of Khrushchev is associated with the expulsion of B. Pasternak from the Writers' Union in 1958, the arrest in February 1961 of the manuscript of V. Grossman's novel "Life and Fate", etc. All this coexisted with the return of the illegally repressed from the camps. The entire period of literary life associated with the name of Khrushchev turned out to be contradictory.

From 1964, when L. I. Brezhnev became General Secretary of the Central Committee, the literary situation would become more predictable.

After the Second Congress of Writers, the work of the writers' union is getting better, and the congresses are held regularly. Each of them talks about the state and tasks of literary criticism. Since 1958, congresses of writers will also be added to the union congresses Russian Federation(founding took place in 1958). At all party congresses, starting from the 20th century, special paragraphs devoted to literature invariably appeared in the reports. After all, Article VI of the Soviet Constitution (which was repealed only in 1990) spoke of the leading role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in all spheres of social and political life. Party leadership of literature was, in essence, fixed constitutionally.

At the turn of the 1950s-1960s. Literary life revived due to the publication of regional (regional) literary and artistic magazines Don, Rise, Sever, Volga, etc. Since 1966, the Children's Literature magazine has been published again. Literary criticism was also revived as a special sphere of scientific and artistic creativity. Writer's literary criticism became more active. Literary life in the 1950s–1960s in all its contradictory complexity cannot be presented without A. T. Tvardovsky's journal Novy Mir, without its literary-critical department, that community of literary critics who worked in the journal or collaborated with it.

A. T. Tvardovsky twice started editing the journal Novy Mir and was twice removed from this activity. After Tvardovsky's reappointment as editor in 1958, Novy Mir became a constant target for literary critics and party ideologues. Despite the public posts of A. T. Tvardovsky (deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU), personal acquaintance with Khrushchev, angry speeches directed against the "New World" appeared in the press of those years.

The publication of A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in the journal of Tvardovsky’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in 1962 had a tremendous public outcry. The situation in literature was also heating up. In 1964, I. Brodsky was convicted of parasitism. In September 1965, A. Sinyavsky and Y. Daniel, participants in the Great Patriotic War, who were accused of treason, were arrested for publishing their works abroad. In Soviet publications, they were called anti-Soviet and renegades. The trial ended in February 1966, after which the writers went through prison and a camp. Unlike the trials of Stalin's time, this trial was remembered for the fact that many literary figures stood up for Sinyavsky and Daniel. Letters in their defense were signed by K. Chukovsky, K. Paustovsky, A. Akhmatova, B. Okudzhava, A. Tarkovsky
and many others. etc. A Vyach. Ivanov conducted a brilliant philological analysis and examination and proved that the works of Sinyavsky and Daniel do not contain a criminally punishable act, but are a tale form with a conditional narrator.

Literary-critical and journalistic judgments began to appear in manuscripts, typewritten copies, on films for overhead projectors, in tape recordings - all these forms of existence of literary works will be called "samizdat". Literary-critical works that appeared in "samizdat" were distinguished by dissident moods and were dedicated to writers or books persecuted by the authorities.

Despite the fact that A. T. Tvardovsky always stood on party positions, the authorities saw features of free-thinking in his editorial actions and the policy of Novy Mir. This confluence of the general spirit of the times and the position of the journal led to open persecution of Tvardovsky and his staff. The journal Oktyabr under the leadership of V. Kochetov declared especially loudly about its rejection of the New World policy. Journalistic controversy between these two publications continued with varying degrees of intensity almost until the end of the 1960s. The situation of the journal became even more aggravated after the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968, when political censorship intensified.

In February 1970, Tvardovsky was fired from his post as editor, and his entire editorial staff left the magazine in protest. A year and a half later, Tvardovsky died.

A. T. Tvardovsky managed to gather the best literary and critical forces of the 1960s as permanent collaborators or authors.
A. Dementiev and A. Kondratovich, I. Vinogradov and V. Lakshin, Yu. Burtin and B. Sarnov, V. Kardin and A. Lebedev, F. Svetov and N. Ilyina, I. Rodnyanskaya, A. Sinyavsky, A. Turkov, A. Chudakov, and M. Chudakova, authors who appeared in Novy Mir at various times, deservedly entered the history of our criticism and journalism. Tvardovsky was convinced that critics are the soul of the magazine. Socio-political circumstances changed, and general program magazine remained unchanged. This fidelity to democratic convictions, consistency in upholding anti-Stalinist positions caused aggressive attacks by opponents.

Literary critics of Novy Mir remained free and independent in evaluating a work of art, relying on their own literary tastes, and not on established literary reputations and stereotypes. The magazine printed a lot of negative reviews - especially for those books where Stalinist propaganda was felt. They opposed dullness, mediocrity, loyalty.

Criticism of the "New World" of the 1960s develops aesthetic ("real criticism") and ideological (Leninism, loyalty to the cause of "Great October", sharp criticism of Stalin's personality cult) provisions proposed by M. Shcheglov.

Early 1970s It was marked by the forced departure of A. T. Tvardovsky from Novy Mir (1970), which made it possible for Nashe Sovremennik, which holds views opposite to Novy Mir, to take a leading position. The idea of ​​democracy, the aesthetic principles of “real criticism”, the traditions of Dobrolyubov and, in general, the revolutionary democratic criticism of the 50s and 60s of the 19th century are being replaced by a “soil” ideology, expressed in the desire to acquire the criteria of national self-identification. For all its ambiguity and complexity, this was a strong idea that found deep and professional justification in the articles of V. Kozhinov, M. Lobanov, I. Zolotussky, Yu. Loshchits, V. Chalmaev and others.

In the early 1970s the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU “On Literary and Artistic Criticism” was adopted, the positive role of which was, first of all, that criticism became the object of close public attention: there were departments of criticism in all “thick” journals, courses in the history of criticism were introduced in universities, magazines were revived , which arose in the 1930s and ceased to exist during the war: Literary Review (in the 1930s - an appendix to the Literary Critic) and Literary Study. The expansion of the printed platforms where critics spoke led to the revival of literary-critical controversy, the expansion of the genre system of criticism.

The first half of the 1980s, which completes the stage preceding modernity, may seem the most “stagnant”: it is characterized by the absence of bright magazines of the Novy Mir scale and other significant phenomena. During this period, the most striking phenomenon was the discussion about the prose of "forty-year-olds" (V. Makanin, A. Kim, R. Kireev, A. Kurchatkin,
V. Kurnosenko). It was the “forty-year-olds” who expressed the specific worldview of stagnation, which collapsed during perestroika.

The state of literary criticism in the 1970s - early 1980s. was hopeless. A powerful branch of literary criticism was represented by officialdom, serving the writers' generals, defining the ideological pathos of Soviet literature and at the same time quite indifferent to the fate of writers and their writings.

Literary-critical officialdom was opposed by criticism, which absorbed prompt responses to new books, assessments of the current literary situation, and propaganda of one or another creative individuality. Literary criticism of officialdom created "indestructible", "imperishable" writers' reputations: writers who found themselves in the leadership of the Writers' Unions of the USSR and the RSFSR could only be praised, regardless of the level of their works. L. Brezhnev's trilogy ("Little Earth", "Virgin Soil", "Renaissance"), which appeared, was seriously evaluated as a work of art.

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Literary mores of the 1970s - early 1980s distinguished by imperious cruelty towards dissident writers. In the 1970s V. Maksimov, V. Voinovich, G. Vladimov, L. Chukovskaya and others left the Writers' Union or were expelled from it.

Literary criticism of the journalistic direction was represented by the magazine "Our Contemporary". From the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s. the magazine is inspired by the search for moral life pillars, which were most often associated with the characters of the so-called "village prose". Since 1968, the journal has clearly manifested tendencies towards “clear ideological and aesthetic assessments, towards the demand for a deep depiction of labor affairs Soviet man. In articles and reviews, criticism of writers who gravitate towards universal human issues is increasingly heard. The magazine writes about Yesenin, Bunin, Kuprin, Tvardovsky, Isakovsky, refers to the names of Dostoevsky and Nekrasov.

Since the early 1970s "Our contemporary" in the absence of the former "New World" is aware of himself as the leader of domestic journalism. His trademark of this time are analytical articles on Russian classical literature in its relation to the current literary process. In the 1980s literary-critical articles of the journal, addressed to the Russian national consciousness, dated back to the ideology of Russian pochvennichestvo and were often perceived in opposition to the moral and ethical standards of the “developed socialist society”. The entry of a new reader under the vaults of literature turned out to be an ambivalent phenomenon: on the one hand, people who had previously been cut off not only from culture, but also from elementary literacy, now gained access to the treasury of literature and all national culture, which was a positive development on a historic scale. On the other hand, it was this reader, who did not have a sufficient cultural level, who felt like a hegemon in literature and, due to a number of circumstances, arrogated to himself the unconditional right to dictate his tastes to the writer, to educate him, which led to sad consequences and made it possible for the authorities to easily manipulate the ideas of such a reader. for your purposes. Thus, for example, the genre of reader's writing becomes one of the tools of ideological pressure on literature in criticism and remains in this capacity until the mid-1980s.

As a result, the composition of the literary environment of both writers and critics is changing. The new reader "creates" a new writer, who has a completely different cultural background.

The situation changed radically only by the mid-1990s. The stage of development of literary criticism from now on has its own characteristics and is considered as a modern stage in the development of domestic criticism.

Questions and tasks for self-control

1. List character traits Literary Criticism in the Thaw.

2. Describe the position of the "New World" in the literary and social situation of the 1960s.

3. How did relations develop between literature and power in the 1920s–1930s?

4. What is the role of the II Congress of Writers of the USSR for the development of domestic criticism?

5. Make an oral portrait of A. T. Tvardovsky - editor, critic, a man of his time?

CONCLUSION

It is known that in the last decade, the literary text has been the object of research in a number of humanities, among which literary criticism has been put forward as a fundamental one. It is this postulate that the team of authors put into the lecture material addressed to bachelors of philological education.

The proposed lecture material demonstrates the multidimensionality of studying the history of Russian literature of the Soviet period. At the same time, the priority for us remains that the teacher should be creative in the content of lectures, not allow them to be mechanically spoken, systematically expand the lecture material offered to students, and involve them in conversation by posing problematic questions in the course of lectures. The presentation of the material of the lectures should contribute to the development of students' skills in classroom independent work. To do this, it is recommended to familiarize students with the lesson plan, to identify the main problems of the lecture.

The training manual provides both interactive lectures (visualization lecture), and including the use of interactive technologies as components (lecture 5 - brainstorming, lecture 8 - individual design, lecture 9 - scientific discussion), which, in our opinion, , contributes to the assimilation of the material and causes a special interest of students in the subject. As before, we pay special attention to the list of pre-lecture tasks necessary for a correct and complete understanding of the material, the use of interactive technologies in the process of conducting such a lesson (it is planned to spend 40% of the hours allocated by the Federal State Educational Standard of Higher Professional Education for independent work of students to prepare for lecture classes).

The goal of the teacher who provides the study of this course is to train a specialist who owns modern achievements in the field of literary criticism, the history of Russian literature, who knows how to put into practice and increase the knowledge, skills, abilities, who have flexibility of thinking, a creative approach, who is responsible for the results of their own activities focused on effective self-education. This is due to the fact that the lecture course is only part of the general complex that provides the study of the discipline, and should be used in conjunction with a practical course for the discipline.

Represented tutorial is an attempt to systematize knowledge about the specifics of the literary process in Russia in the era of socialism, the forms of their theoretical presentation of the process of creating artistic samples of the designated period.

Of course, the authors did not set themselves the task of generalizing the entire experience of literary science in terms of the methods used to analyze specific literary phenomena and interpret artistic samples. Outside of this edition, there are many research technologies in related disciplines, where the object of consideration is the literary text. This mainly concerns cultural studies, psychology, history, philosophy and other disciplines.

The main attention was paid to the description of the literary process of the designated period as a whole, and the evolution of specific themes, creative finds of a number of authors. The most significant result of the work done is the development of one of the variants of the methodological approach in the study of the literature of the twentieth century, as an innovative and, from our point of view, justified, is the presentation of a set of methodological provisions relating to both the periodization of the literary process of the twentieth century and the delineation of the literary impulses of the era the meaning and significance of which are not well understood. The need is

History of Russian literature of the XX century. Soviet classic. New look: textbook. allowance / ed. L. P. Egorova, P. K. Chekalova. - M. - Stavropol, 1998.
– 302 p.

Mayakovsky, V. V. Favorites / V. V. Mayakovsky. - M .: Education, 1998.
– 298 p.

The data are given according to the publication: The First All-Russian Congress of Soviet Writers: a verbatim report. - M .: Hood. lit., 1934. - S. 498.

Quotations from the speech are from the publication of the First All-Russian Congress of Soviet Writers: Verbatim Report. - M .: Hood. lit., 1934. - S. 595.

Quotations from the speech are from the publication of the First All-Russian Congress of Soviet Writers: Verbatim Report. - M .: Hood. lit., 1934. - S. 987.

Quoted from the work of Vinogradov VV The problem of authorship and the theory of styles.
– [Electronic resource] / VV Vinogradov. – Access mode: http://www. Sbiblio.com / BIBLIO / active / vinogradov / problemi / 03. apx (accessed 04.06.2014)

First All-Russian Congress of Soviet Writers: verbatim report. - M .: Hood. lit., 1934. - 1164 p.

Decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) "On the policy of the party in the field of fiction" of June 18, 1925 // Introduction to literary criticism: a reader. - M .: Education, 1990. - S. 86.

Chantsev, A. Dystopia Factory: Dystopian Discourse in Russian literature mid-2000s / A. Chantsev // UFO. - 2006. - No. 86. - P. 209.

Pasternak, B. L. Doctor Zhivago / B. L. Pasternak. - M .: Hood. lit., 2000.
– 497 p.

7 War lyrics great war. - M .: Hood. lit., 1989. - 314 p.

Grossman, V. S. Life and fate / V. S. Grossman. – M.: Hood. lit., 1999. - S. 408.

Cit. by: Ostanina, E. A. Tragic suicides [Electronic resource] /
E. A. Ostanina. – Access mode: http://www.TheLib.ru›books/leksandrovna/

Rybakov, A. N. Heavy sand / A. N. Rybakov. - M. : EKSMO, 2008.
- S. 286.

Rybakov, A. N. Roman-recollection / A. N. Rybakov. - M. : EKSMO, 2010.
- S. 149.

Brodsky, I. A. Favorites / I. A. Brodsky. - M. : Phoenix, 2010. - S. 68.

Aryev, A. Yu. The story of the storyteller / A. Yu. Aryev // Dovlatov S. Sobr. op. : in 4 volumes. T. 1 / comp. A. Yu. Ariev. - St. Petersburg. : Azbuka, 2000. - S. 5–32.

Used materials of the book: Russian literature of the twentieth century. Prose writers, poets, playwrights. Bibliographic dictionary. T. 3. - Yaroslavl, 2010. - S. 332–334.

Newspapers:Vestnik Evropy - liberal

« Russian wealth "- populist.

"New way" - symbolists.

- Symbolists have less circulation.

The main "thick magazine" monthly. Criticism occupied an important position after journalism. Trinity. Ideas in thick magazines. Journals: liberal and conservative. Mikhailovsky. The newspaper becomes popular, which means that the critic can make a name for himself.

- Brief newspaper criticism (compressed operational response).

- Chukovsky, Pilsky.

- Criticism subjected to infringement by the authorities.

-a class of bureaucrats - writers.

The bureaucratization of literature hindered its development. Zinaida Gippius. Fight against critics of conservatives and liberals.

- the desire of critics to get away from mandatory opinions. Gronfeld.

- the critic tried to understand and describe.

- to understand the writer is more important than to evaluate, to pass judgment.

-Gronfeld: own aesthetic taste.

The End: New Ideas for Revisiting Criticism.

Voronsky is a literary critic.

Voronsky was expelled from the seminary.

He believed that the re-creation of real reality into aesthetic reality.

Reliance on the values ​​of classical literature is the foundation of a new approach to art.

The class struggle does not contribute to the development of mankind.

Defended the old canons of literature.

He explored the birth of the art form and how it relates to reality. central theme his articles.

He relied on the work of Plekhanov (the dominance of everyday life, craving for realism, naturalism, the strength artistic generalization: place, setting).

He called writers to that realism, which would be able to combine everyday life with fiction.

His position was attacked.

His materials were aggressive.

Was for fellow travelers writers.

He raised the issue of the problem of objective truth contained in the artistic image.

Offered to write the truth.

Developed the idea of ​​real criticism. He asserted that there is no proletarian literature. Almost expelled from the party. He advocated the involvement of the intelligentsia in Soviet literature. Was a Bolshevik. Editor of the first thick Soviet magazine Krasnaya Nov. Defended realistic principles in literature.

Literary criticism of the Soviet period.

In Soviet criticism special meaning acquires a party orientation in critical speeches, the thoroughness of the Marxist-Leninist training of the critic, who is guided in his activities by the method of socialist realism (See Socialist realism) - the main creative method all Soviet literature. The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On Literary and Artistic Criticism" (1972) stated that the duty of criticism, by deeply analyzing the patterns of the modern artistic process, to contribute in every possible way to strengthening the Leninist principles of party spirit and nationality, to fight for the high ideological and aesthetic level of Soviet art, to consistently oppose the bourgeois ideologies

Soviet literature, in alliance with the literature of other countries of the socialist community and the Marxist literature of the capitalist countries, actively participates in the international ideological struggle and opposes bourgeois-aesthetic, formalist concepts that attempt to exclude literature from public life and cultivating elite art for the few; against the revisionist concepts of "realism without shores" (R. Garaudy, E. Fischer), calling for peaceful ideological coexistence, i.e., for the surrender of realistic currents to bourgeois modernism; against the leftist-nihilistic attempts to "liquidate" cultural heritage and cross out the cognitive value of realistic literature. In the 2nd half of the 20th century. in the progressive press of different countries, the study of V. I. Lenin's views on literature intensified.

One of the topical issues of modern literary literature is the attitude towards the literature of socialist realism. This method in foreign criticism has both defenders and implacable enemies. The speeches of the "Sovietologists" (G. Struve, G. Ermolaev, M. Hayward, Yu. its origin and development.

M. Gorky, A. Fadeev, and other writers once substantiated and defended the principles of socialist realism in Soviet criticism. An active struggle for the establishment of socialist realism in literature is waged by Soviet literary criticism, which is called upon to combine the accuracy of ideological assessments and the depth of social analysis with aesthetic exactingness. careful attitude to talent, to fruitful creative searches. Evidence-based and convincing L. to. gets the opportunity to influence the course of development of literature, the course of the literary process as a whole, consistently supporting the advanced and rejecting alien tendencies. Marxist criticism, based on scientific methods of objective research and a lively public interest, opposes impressionistic, subjectivist criticism, which considers itself free from consistent concepts, a holistic view of things, a conscious point of view.

Soviet literary criticism is waging a struggle against dogmatic criticism, which proceeds from preconceived, a priori judgments about art and therefore cannot grasp the very essence of art, its poetic thought, characters, and conflicts. In the fight against subjectivism and dogmatism, criticism is gaining authority - public in nature, scientific and creative in method, analytical in terms of research methods, connected with a vast readership.

In connection with the responsible role of criticism in literary process, in the fate of the book and the author, great importance raises the question of its moral obligations. The profession imposes significant moral obligations on the critic, presupposes fundamental honesty of argumentation, understanding and tact in relation to the writer. Any kind of exaggeration, arbitrary quoting, labeling, unfounded conclusions are incompatible with the very essence of L. k. Directness and harshness in judgments about handicraft literature are a quality inherent in progressive Russian criticism since the time of Belinsky. There should be no place in criticism, the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU “On Literary and Artistic Criticism” indicated, a conciliatory attitude towards ideological and artistic marriage, subjectivism, friendly and group preferences. The situation is intolerable when articles or reviews “...are one-sided, contain unfounded compliments, are reduced to a cursory retelling of the content of the work, do not give an idea of ​​its real meaning and value” (“Pravda”, 1972, January 25, p. 1 ).

The scientific persuasiveness of argumentation, combined with the Party's certainty of judgment, ideological adherence to principles, and impeccable artistic taste, is the basis of the moral authority of Soviet literary criticism and its influence on literature.

About literary literature in individual countries, see the sections Literature and Literary Studies in articles about these countries.

- October Revolution.

- the process of nationalization of literature.

- proletarian writer, peasant writer, fellow traveler (group struggle).

- repression of independent criticism.

- substitution of artistry in literature. (relevance).

- striving for a holistic analysis.

- approval of the political criteria in evaluating the book.

- creation of a literary ministry.

- the predominance of genres: lit. Portrait, problematic article, review.

- the first attempts at a historical and literary review.

- publication of a book of critical articles.

- discussion as a form of influence of critical thought.

- the problem of the hero of time. (the problem of personality and the principles of the image of a person).

Voronsky's struggle for free criticism. Mandelstam, Bryusov.

The period of thaw and post-thaw in literary criticism.

Thaw period.

period after Stalin's death.

Weakening of totalitarian power

Relative freedom of speech

Condemnation of the cult of personality

Weakened censorship

Mandelstam and Balmont

They began to print Blok and Yesenin relatively

Magazine "New World" Tvardovsky

Officer's prose - the truth about the war.

Completion of the thaw Brezhnev came to power.

Reality blocking

All art forms are undergoing a renaissance.

The critic has the right to make mistakes, and he justifies his right to make mistakes.

Khrushchev (simplicity of critical judgment)

Litas must be evaluated by the Party.

Critical strategy: identifying a lack of text, ways to correct it. Forecast further way author

hacky texts

Fiction of continuous well-being (showing life through dumplings)

Failure to depict the shortcomings of modern reality

Arbitrary selection of facts of modern reality

Different positions of magazines:

Writers and readers disagree

post-thaw period.

- atmosphere of pessimism

- the problem of alcoholism

- restoration trend

- image of Stalin

- censorship is getting stronger

- the concept of talking in the kitchen appears

- lack of scientific developments in the theory of criticism

- the bulk of the criticism is official

Style: criticism is not political, assessments are vague, the genre of laudatory reviews dominates. Kozhekov is a critic and ideologist. Subtract the national-cultural viability in the text. Critic-expert: there is no arguing about tastes. Judgment cannot be final. Astafiev.

16. Literary criticism at the turn of the 20th-21st century.

The emergence of metacriticism

Liberal Thick Magazines

Identity Crisis in Criticism

The fall in the circulation of thick magazines

The critic asks the question: who am I?

Metacriticism (negative)

Independence of thinking (propoganda)

Analytical criticism: the image of authority, the omniscient critic is rejected. The task of the critic is to analyze the components of the literary process.

Reader as co-investigator.

Kostyrko: criticism depends on literature.

Rodnyanskaya: the critic must go from his convictions.

3 strategies: restoration, corrective, analytical.