For the first time in a separate book, the most famous work of Chernyshevsky - the novel "What is to be done?" - published in 1867 in Geneva. The initiators of the publication of the book were Russian emigrants, in Russia the novel had by that time been banned by censorship. In 1863, the work was still published in the Sovremennik magazine, but those issues where its individual chapters were printed were soon banned. Summary of "What to do?" Chernyshevsky, the youth of those years passed on to each other by word of mouth, and the novel itself - in handwritten copies, so the work made an indelible impression on them.

Is it possible to do something

The author wrote his sensational novel in the winter of 1862-1863, while in the dungeons of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The dates of writing are December 14-April 4. From January 1863, censors began to work with individual chapters of the manuscript, but, seeing only a love line in the plot, they allowed the novel to be published. Soon, the deep meaning of the work reaches the officials of Tsarist Russia, the censor is removed from office, but the job is done - a rare youth circle of those years did not discuss the summary of “What to do?”. Chernyshevsky, with his work, wanted not only to tell the Russians about the "new people", but also to arouse in them a desire to imitate them. And his bold appeal echoed in the hearts of many of the author's contemporaries.

The youth of the late 19th century turned Chernyshevsky's ideas into their own lives. Stories about numerous noble deeds of those years began to appear so often that for some time they became almost commonplace in everyday life. Many have suddenly realized that they are capable of an Act.

Having a question and a clear answer to it

The main idea of ​​the work, and it is twice revolutionary in its essence, is the freedom of the individual, regardless of gender. That is why the main character of the novel is a woman, since at that time the supremacy of women did not go beyond their own living room. Looking back at the life of her mother and close acquaintances, Vera Pavlovna early realizes the absolute mistake of inaction, and decides that her life will be based on work: honest, useful, giving the opportunity to exist with dignity. Hence morality - the freedom of the individual comes from the freedom to perform actions that correspond to both thoughts and possibilities. This is what Chernyshevsky tried to express through the life of Vera Pavlovna. "What to do?" chapter by chapter draws readers a colorful picture of the phased construction of "real life". Here Vera Pavlovna leaves her mother and decides to open her own business, now she realizes that only equality between all members of her artel will correspond to her ideals of freedom, now her absolute happiness with Kirsanov depends on Lopukhov’s personal happiness. interconnected with high moral principles - this is the whole of Chernyshevsky.

Characterization of the author's personality through his characters

Both writers and readers, as well as omniscient critics, have an opinion that the main characters of the work are a kind of literary copies of their creators. Even if not exact copies, then very close in spirit to the author. Narration of the novel "What to do?" is conducted from the first person, and the author is an acting character. He enters into a conversation with other characters, even argues with them and, like a “voice-over”, explains to both the characters and the readers many points that are incomprehensible to them.

At the same time, the author conveys to the reader doubts about his writing abilities, says that “even he speaks the language poorly,” and certainly there is not a drop of “artistic talent” in him. But for the reader, his doubts are unconvincing, this is also refuted by the novel that Chernyshevsky himself created, What Is To Be Done? Vera Pavlovna and the rest of the characters are so accurately and versatilely written out, endowed with such unique individual qualities that an author who does not have true talent would be unable to create.

New but so different

The heroes of Chernyshevsky, these positive "new people", according to the author, from the category of unreal, non-existent, one fine time should by themselves firmly enter our lives. Enter, dissolve in the crowd of ordinary people, push them out, regenerate someone, convince someone, completely push the rest - unyielding - from the general mass, ridding society of them, like a field from weeds. An artistic utopia, which Chernyshevsky himself was clearly aware of and tried to define through the name, is “What is to be done?”. A special person, according to his deep conviction, is able to radically change the world around him, but how to do this, he must determine for himself.

Chernyshevsky created his novel in opposition to Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons", his "new people" are not at all like the cynical and irritating nihilist Bazarov. The cardinality of these images is in the fulfillment of their main task: the hero of Turgenev wanted around him to “clear a place”, that is, to destroy, from everything old that had outlived its own, while Chernyshevsky’s characters tried more to build something, create something, before destroying it.

The formation of the "new man" in the middle of the XIX century

These two works of great Russian writers became a kind of beacon for readers and the near-literary public of the second half of the 19th century - a ray of light in a dark kingdom. Both Chernyshevsky and Turgenev loudly declared the existence of a "new man", his need to form a special mood in society, capable of implementing cardinal changes in the country.

If you reread and translate the summary of “What to do?” Chernyshevsky into the plane of revolutionary ideas that deeply struck the minds of a separate part of the population of those years, then many of the allegorical features of the work will become easily explainable. The image of the "bride of her suitors", seen by Vera Pavlovna in her second dream, is nothing but "Revolution" - this is the conclusion made by writers who lived in different years, who studied and analyzed the novel from all sides. Allegoricalness marks the rest of the images about which the story is told in the novel, regardless of whether they are animated or not.

A little about the theory of reasonable egoism

The desire for change, not only for yourself, not only for your loved ones, but for everyone else, runs like a red thread through the entire novel. This is completely different from the theory of calculating one's own benefit, which Turgenev reveals in Fathers and Sons. In many respects, Chernyshevsky agrees with his fellow writer, believing that any person not only can, but must reasonably calculate and determine his individual path to his own happiness. But at the same time, he says that you can enjoy it only surrounded by the same happy people. This is the fundamental difference between the plots of the two novels: in Chernyshevsky, the heroes forge well-being for everyone, in Turgenev, Bazarov creates his own happiness without regard to others. The closer we are through his novel Chernyshevsky.

“What is to be done?”, the analysis of which we give in our review, is, as a result, much closer to the reader of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.

Briefly about the plot

As the reader, who has never picked up Chernyshevsky's novel, has already been able to determine, the main character of the work is Vera Pavlovna. Through her life, the formation of her personality, her relationships with others, including men, the author reveals the main idea of ​​his novel. Summary of "What to do?" Chernyshevsky without listing the characteristics of the main characters and the details of their lives can be conveyed in a few sentences.

Vera Rozalskaya (aka Vera Pavlovna) lives in a rather wealthy family, but everything in her home disgusts her: her mother with her dubious activities, and acquaintances who think one thing, but say and do something completely different. Having decided to leave her parents, our heroine tries to find a job, but only with Dmitry Lopukhov, who is close to her in spirit, gives the girl the freedom and the lifestyle that she dreams of. Vera Pavlovna creates a sewing workshop with equal rights to her income for all seamstresses - a rather progressive undertaking for that time. Even her suddenly flared love for her husband's close friend Alexander Kirsanov, which she became convinced of while caring for the sick Lopukhov together with Kirsanov, does not deprive her of sanity and nobility: she does not leave her husband, she does not leave the workshop. Seeing the mutual love of his wife and close friend, Lopukhov, staging suicide, releases Vera Pavlovna from any obligations to him. Vera Pavlovna and Kirsanov get married and are quite happy with it, and a few years later Lopukhov appears again in their lives. But only under a different name and with a new wife. Both families settle in the neighborhood, spend quite a lot of time together and are quite satisfied with the circumstances that have developed in this way.

Existence determines consciousness?

The formation of the personality of Vera Pavlovna is far from the regularity of the character traits of those of her peers who grew up and were brought up in conditions similar to hers. Despite her youth, lack of experience and connections, the heroine clearly knows what she wants in life. Successfully marrying and becoming an ordinary mother of a family is not for her, especially since by the age of 14 the girl knew and understood a lot. She sewed beautifully and provided the whole family with clothes, at the age of 16 she began to earn money by giving private piano lessons. The desire of the mother to marry her meets with a firm refusal and creates her own business - a sewing workshop. About broken stereotypes, about bold deeds of a strong character, the work “What is to be done?”. Chernyshevsky, in his own way, explains the well-established assertion that consciousness determines the being in which a person is. He determines, but only in the way he decides for himself - either following a path not chosen by him, or he finds his own. Vera Pavlovna left the path prepared for her by her mother and the environment in which she lived, and created her own path.

Between realms of dreams and reality

Finding your path does not mean finding it and following it. There is a huge gap between dreams and their realization. Someone does not dare to jump over it, and someone gathers all his will into a fist and takes a decisive step. This is how Chernyshevsky answers the problem raised in his novel What Is To Be Done? The analysis of the stages of the formation of the personality of Vera Pavlovna, instead of the reader, is carried out by the author himself. He leads him through the embodiment of the heroine of her dreams of her own freedom in reality through vigorous activity. Let this be a difficult, but direct and quite passable path. And according to him, Chernyshevsky not only directs his heroine, but also allows her to achieve what she wants, letting the reader understand that only activity can achieve the cherished goal. Unfortunately, the author emphasizes that not everyone chooses this path. Not every.

Reflection of reality through dreams

In a rather unusual form, he wrote his novel What Is To Be Done? Chernyshevsky. Vera's dreams - there are four of them in the novel - reveal the depth and originality of those thoughts that real events evoke in her. In her first dream, she sees herself freed from the basement. This is a kind of symbolism of leaving her own home, where she was destined for an unacceptable fate for her. Through the idea of ​​freeing girls like her, Vera Pavlovna creates her own workshop, in which each seamstress receives an equal share of her total income.

The second and third dreams explain to the reader through real and fantastic dirt, reading Verochka's diary (which, by the way, she never kept), what thoughts about the existence of various people seize the heroine at different periods of her life, what she thinks about her second marriage and about the very necessity of this marriage. Explanation through dreams is a convenient form of presentation of the work, which Chernyshevsky chose. "What to do?" - content of the novel , reflected through dreams, the characters of the main characters in dreams are a worthy example of Chernyshevsky's application of this new form.

Ideals of a Bright Future, or Vera Pavlovna's Fourth Dream

If the first three dreams of the heroine reflected her attitude to the fait accompli, then her fourth dream is dreams of the future. It suffices to recall it in more detail. So, Vera Pavlovna dreams of a completely different world, improbable and beautiful. She sees many happy people living in a wonderful house: luxurious, spacious, surrounded by amazing views, decorated with gushing fountains. In it, no one feels disadvantaged, for everyone there is one common joy, one common well-being, everyone is equal in it.

Such are the dreams of Vera Pavlovna, and Chernyshevsky would like to see reality like this (“What is to be done?”). Dreams, and they, as we remember, are about the relationship between reality and the world of dreams, reveal not so much the spiritual world of the heroine as the author of the novel himself. And his full awareness of the impossibility of creating such a reality, a utopia that will not come true, but for which it is still necessary to live and work. And this is also the fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna.

Utopia and its predictable ending

As everyone knows, his main work is the novel What Is To Be Done? - Nikolai Chernyshevsky wrote while in prison. Deprived of family, society, freedom, seeing reality in the dungeons in a completely new way, dreaming of a different reality, the writer put it on paper, not believing in its implementation. Chernyshevsky had no doubt that the "new people" were capable of changing the world. But the fact that not everyone will stand under the power of circumstances, and not everyone will be worthy of a better life - he also understood this.

How does the novel end? The idyllic coexistence of two congenial families: the Kirsanovs and the Lopukhovs-Beaumonts. A small world created by active people full of nobility of thoughts and deeds. Are there many such happy communities around? Not! Is this not an answer to Chernyshevsky's dreams of the future? Those who want to create their own prosperous and happy world will create it, those who do not want to will go with the flow.

Features of the genre of the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky "What to do?"

I. Introduction

The novel as a leading genre in Russian literature of the mid-19th century. (Turgenev, Goncharov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy). Features of the Russian novel: attention to the problem of personality, focus on moral and ethical issues, a wide social background, developed psychologism.

II. main part

1. All of the above features are inherent in the novel "What is to be done?". In the center of the novel are the images of "new people", primarily the image of Vera Pavlovna. The author traces the formation and development of Vera Pavlovna's personality, the formation of her self-awareness, the search and acquisition of personal happiness. The main problematic of the novel is ideological and moral, connected with the approval of the philosophy and ethics of the “new people”. The novel quite fully presents the social and everyday way of life (especially in the chapters "Vera Pavlovna's Life in the Parental Family" and "First Love and Legal Marriage"). The characters of the main characters, especially Vera Pavlovna, are revealed by the author through the depiction of their inner world, that is, psychologically.

2. Genre originality of the novel "What is to be done?":

so what to do?" - First of all, a social novel, for him the problem of the relationship between the individual and society is extremely significant. Outwardly, it is built as a love novel, but, firstly, in the love story of Vera Pavlovna, it is precisely the connection between the individual and living conditions that is emphasized, and secondly, the very problem of love is for Chernyshevsky part of a wider problem - the position of women in society: what it was what it is now and what it should and can be;

b) in the novel "What is to be done?" there are also features of a family-household novel: it traces in detail the domestic arrangement of the family life of the Lopukhovs, Kirsanovs, and Beaumonts, right down to the location of the rooms, the nature of everyday activities, food, etc. This side of life was important to Chernyshevsky because the family way of life plays a very significant role in the problem of the emancipation of a woman: only with its change can a woman feel equal and free;

c) Chernyshevsky introduces elements of a utopian novel into his work. Utopia is a depiction of a happy and devoid of internal contradictions in the life of people, as a rule, in a more or less distant future. Such a utopian picture is presented by a large part of Vera Pavlovna's Fourth Dream, in which Chernyshevsky paints a picture of the future happy life of mankind in detail, down to the smallest details (palaces made of glass and aluminum, furniture, utensils, winter gardens, the nature of work and leisure). Utopian paintings of this kind are important for Chernyshevsky from two points of view: firstly, they give him the opportunity to express his social and moral ideal in a visual form, and secondly, they are designed to convince the reader that new social relations are really possible and achievable;

d) Chernyshevsky's novel can also be described as a journalistic one, since, firstly, it is devoted to topical problems of our time (“women's question”, the formation and development of the raznochintsy intelligentsia, the problem of reorganizing the social system in Russia), and secondly, in it the author does not once directly speaks out about these topical problems, appeals to the reader with appeals, etc.

III. Conclusion

So, the genre originality of Chernyshevsky's novel is determined both by the general features of the Russian novel (psychologism, ideological and moral problems, etc.), and by the original combination in one work of genre features inherent in different types of novel.

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The novel "What to do?" written by one of the most famous writers and literary critics. Being included in the school curriculum, this great work is read by many. And in Soviet times, when Chernyshevsky was given the status of a great democratic revolutionary, the novel What Is To Be Done? was one of the most famous Of course, today the name of Chernyshevsky has lost its former greatness and glory, but interest in the novel has not weakened. The history of the creation of the novel "What is to be done?" is noteworthy.

Nikolai Gavrilovich wrote his masterpiece, being imprisoned in the solitary confinement of the Alekseevsky ravelin, located in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The novel was written for almost a year, and then, having passed through the investigative commission that dealt with the Chernyshevsky case, it was handed over to writers in parts. Of course, the censors and the commission considered only a love story in the novel, so they allowed it to be published in the Sovremennik magazine. Later, when the novel "What to do?" was published, the error, of course, was discovered, and everyone who had anything to do with the publication of the novel was removed from office. All issues of Sovremennik, in which the novel was published, were banned. The history of the creation of the novel What Is to Be Done?, as you can see, is not at all simple. And if we also take into account the fact that the novel was lost on the way from the Peter and Paul Fortress to the editorial office of Sovremennik and picked up by some peasant on the street, it becomes clear by what miracle it has survived to this day.

At first glance, it seems that "What to do?" love story. However, the novel reflects philosophical, aesthetic, economic, social allusions to the future. In essence, this is the first utopian novel in Russian literature. And the history of the creation of the novel "What to do?" was dictated by the needs of the times. But, at the same time, Chernyshevsky was able to predict the revolution, to which the tsar's reforms were quietly leading, as well as some details, for example, aluminum in the novel is called a metal that will be used in the future. In addition, some of the characters in What Is to Be Done? autobiographical. So, the Lady in mourning from the last chapter is the writer's wife, Olga Chernyshevskaya, who personifies virtue and love.

The main character of the novel is Vera Rozalskaya, who is not like her surroundings and family. She suffers greatly from this until her brother's teacher, Dmitry Lopukhov, comes up with a plan to save her. It consists in the fact that the girl concluded with him, which will allow her to get rid of parental oppression and become an independent person. She begins to study, opens her own sewing shop, which became a new word in the then economy, because the profit was divided equally between all workers. At the end of the novel, Vera becomes the first female physician.

The novel "What to do?" It also has a love story, unusual for that time. After several years of marriage, Dmitry and Vera begin to love each other for real. And after a while, the love of two turns into a triangle. The third is Alexander Kirsanov, who loves Vera. Further, the plot develops in an unpredictable way, and how exactly, you can find out by reading the novel.

Chernyshevsky also brings into the novel a special person named Rakhmetov. In the work, he does not play a big role, but his biography and actions make it possible to single him out as a special type of person. Which? Find out if you read the novel. In addition to Rakhmetov, the rest of the main characters also make up the type of new people (but not special), who live and think outside the box, and act in a new way, going against the established traditions.

How does the novel end? This is what readers of the brilliant work of Nikolai Chernyshevsky will have to find out. It is not for nothing that many generations of interesting and great people have grown up in his works.

More than a hundred years ago, in the mighty and eternal garden of world literature, an amazing creation of a human genius grew - Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky's novel What Is To Be Done?

Many times the compositor bent over the typesetting of this unique book, the letters of dozens of languages ​​of the world again and again made up the pages of the novel, which had, has today and will always have a considerable influence on the spiritual life of people and entire nations.

Knowing how to love a person and humanity, deeply understanding the needs and hardships of the life of his native people, N. G. Chernyshevsky looked for new ways of developing Russia, dreamed of her wonderful socialist future. The enormous talent of Chernyshevsky - a thinker, philologist and historian, publicist and organizer, critic and writer - was directed to the realization of this dream.

The novel "What to do?" - an amazing document of the human spirit, the personal courage of the author, his unshakable conviction in the rightness of the cause to which his life is given, in the historical inevitability of social progress.

In the original version of "What to do?" Chernyshevsky introduced a dialogue in the chapter “New faces and denouement”, which explains the reason for the appearance among the “new people” of a “special person” - Rakhmetov.

This dialogue was not included in the journal text of Sovremennik, apparently for censorship reasons. The professional revolutionary Rakhmetov - a hero who stepped into literature, undoubtedly from life - according to the author, was born of historical necessity, the situation of the then revolutionary reality.

Here is this restrained, covered with a veil of conspiratorial considerations, but still quite clear to the reader of any degree of insight, a dialogue in which Rakhmetov, who is abroad, is discussed:

"It's time for him to come back!

Yes, it's time.

I. Don't worry, don't miss your time.

Yes, but what if it doesn't come back?

So what? (You know, a holy place is never empty.) There is never a stop for people if they care; - there is another, - there would be bread, but there will be teeth.

II. And the mill grinds, grinds hard! - Cooking bread!

Yes, the revolutionary mill in the 50s and 60s of the 19th century grinded hard and tirelessly in Russia. The horizons of Russian history continuously blazed either with an unceasing wave of peasant riots, or with a red rooster of fires in estates with indomitable and merciless reprisals against their owners, or with magmatic shocks of the ideology of the “godless Voltairians”, grouped around Petrashevsky, or with the rebelliousness of excited students, or with the voice of Herzen’s “Bell” , invitingly calling from the foggy distance of London, then a heavy defeat in the Crimean War, in which the ridiculous rattletrap of tsarism showed its creaky worthlessness and backwardness. It seemed that history longed for change and rushed to them. In response, revolutionary Russia first put forward Belinsky and Herzen, and then gave birth from its depths to a gigantic figure - Chernyshevsky.

The handing over of the revolutionary baton, a kind of baton in the field of literary critical thought from Belinsky to Chernyshevsky, I would like to compare with that amazing fact in the history of Russian literature, when the poetic pen, knocked out of the hands of the great Pushkin, was picked up on the fly by the young genius of Lermontov.

A few years after the death of the “furious Vissarion”, N. G. Chernyshevsky, paying tribute to the great significance of his work in Russian criticism and history, wrote in “Essays on the Gogol period of Russian literature”: “Who will delve into the circumstances, among which the criticism of Gogol’s period, will clearly understand that its character completely depended on our historical situation; and if Belinsky was the representative of criticism at that time, it was only because his personality was exactly what historical necessity demanded. If he were not like this, this inexorable historical necessity would find itself another servant, with a different surname, with different facial features, but not with a different character: historical need calls people to activity and gives strength to their activity, but itself does not obey anyone, does not change to please anyone. "Time requires its servant," in the profound saying of one of these servants.

Time required the appearance of Chernyshevsky, and he came to accomplish his amazing feat of life, which is forever inscribed in the history of Russia, the revolutionary movement, in the history of literature.

Updated: 2012-02-17

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As you know, the novel "What to do?" was written by Nikolai Chernyshevsky within the walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The writer was arrested by the authorities in July 1862 for fear of open rebellion. This happened after Herzen's letter, in which he openly stated that he planned, together with Chernyshevsky, to publish The Bell abroad. In December of the same year, the writer began work on his largest novel. It was written in 112 days and published in the Sovremennik magazine. The political subtext of the work was not immediately noticed. At first, only the love line of the novel was visible.

The oversight of censorship was noticed a little later. As a result, the responsible censor Beketov was even removed from work. Despite the ban imposed on those issues of the magazine where the novel What Is to Be Done was published, the text has already spread throughout the country and caused a resonance in society. The youth considered Chernyshevsky's work a kind of banner and program for the future. In 1867, the novel was published as a separate book in Geneva and quickly spread among Russian emigrants. Subsequently, it was translated into many European languages, and in Russia the ban on its printing lasted until 1905. The work appeared in a separate edition in the homeland after the death of the writer, in 1906.

In the process of working on his novel, Chernyshevsky raised many problems of concern to society, in particular, the spiritual problems of the Russian intelligentsia that existed at that time in the country.He was perhaps the first Russian writer to raise the issue of psychology in the behavior of a single individual. At first glance, the holistic structure of the work was divided in its own way into several separate plots, which were organically intertwined with each other. The author understood that it was much more difficult for a woman to rise from the "bottom" to a socially significant activity. For this reason, Vera Pavlovna Rozalskaya, an independent, sane and mature person, became the central character of the novel.

Just like Vera Pavlovna, all the other main characters of the work are puzzled by the thought of the happiness of a “decent person”. All of them are united by conscientiousness and honesty. These people are full of interesting ideas and goals, they know how to achieve what they want, and they are convinced of the power of truth. They are well aware that it is impossible to achieve personal happiness at the expense of another person and therefore pave their way on their own. These are rationalistic people, convinced of the limitless possibilities of the mind and the power of introspection. According to Chernyshevsky, true love for humanity could develop only through the depth of personal attachments. This kind of psychological reflections, moral rules and thoughtful analysis entered the plot of the novel What Is To Be Done?.

The family-psychological theme can be called a cross-cutting and frankly stated in the work. In addition, there was a secret plot in the novel, which can be observed in the chapter "A Special Person". Drawing the image of the young Rakhmetov, Chernyshevsky showed what a budding revolutionary and a man of the "new generation" should be like. Despite all the modifications, reprinting and censorship imposed on the novel, decisively all the episodes reached the society and affected the wide circles of readers of that time.