Is it possible to be free among slaves?

And it is clear that on the long journey, one way or another, we talked about the nobility (young officers are always not indifferent to this topic, it seems to them that their golden shoulder straps somehow bring them closer to the noble estate), about the merits of the nobility, about whether it is possible in modern times, the revival of the aristocracy ...

Is it possible to credit the nobility with all those cultural achievements that are called Golden and silver age countries? Don't know. Perhaps it is as natural for the ruling class to create culture as it is to breathe. There doesn't seem to be much merit here. But on the other hand, where efforts were needed, perhaps even a moral and political feat, the Russian nobility was not up to par. I believe that it was the nobles who led to the collapse of monarchical Russia. The responsibility for the revolution lies with them. Like the ruling class.

Let us recall the sugary formula of relations between landlords and serfs: "You are our fathers, we are your children..." But if children in one historical moment cut, killed, shot fathers, a paternal estates were plundered, polluted and burned, then who is to blame? So these were fathers?

Russia is the only country in the world where official slave system official slavery existed until the second half of XIX century! Four hundred years!

And slavery, in my opinion, led monarchist Russia to a terrible revolutionary explosion.

Think about it, in London in 1860 the underground was already being built. And we tore babies from their parents, we lost whole villages in cards, we exchanged human children for greyhound puppies, we used the right of the first night. At the same time, enlightenment was portrayed, with one hand they tried to write historical treatises, and with the other hand they poured molten lead into the throats of serfs.

It is ridiculous to think that the Russian peasant in 1917 raised the tsarist government with bayonets, because he was imbued with the ideas of Marx-Engels-Lenin. No, the man instinctively felt that finally came the sweet opportunity to avenge centuries of humiliation.

And fiercely avenged! Including himself. But that's another conversation...

Now many write that there were no special prerequisites for a revolution, that life was getting better and Russia was getting richer. And they write correctly. There were no prerequisites. And this only confirms my idea that not because of direct, today's oppression broke out a revolution. The past exploded, the burning hatred accumulated over the centuries of slavery exploded.

After all, they read Pushkin! That our people are kind, they will pull a cat out of a burning house, risking themselves. And at the same time, he burns the landowner in the same house, laughing evilly. Read ... But it seems that no one understood anything. Didn't want to understand. Not sometime in dark times, but already in the 20th century, in 1907, the last emperor of Russia wrote about himself: "The owner of the Russian land." In the 20th century, humanity received everything that it lives today. Atomic energy, television, electronics, computers. But in the same century, in Russia, one person said about himself: "The owner of the Russian land." And not jokingly and half-jokingly, but in an official document, during the census, he wrote this in the column “occupation” ...

That's why it was late. Although the industrial revolution has already won in the country. Although political freedoms were already granted. Although Stolypin led the peasants to cut off, to free management.

But it was too late.

Even half a century ago, in 1860, it was too late to abolish shameful slavery. The boiler has overheated. Not children, so the grandchildren of serfs became the so-called raznochintsy. That is, they became gentlemen. So they could not forgive the power of slavery of their fathers and grandfathers. It was they, educated, who called Russia to the axe. The cup of hatred overflowed. And the country moved inexorably towards the Seventeenth Year.

And when she came, she shuddered from herself, from her appearance. Let's remember " cursed days» Bunina.

I can testify: when for the first time in the Soviet Union in 1990 Ivan Bunin's Cursed Days came out on a wave of glasnost, my reaction was ... not easy. No matter how much I deny the communist idea, no matter how critically I treat the events of 1917 in Russia, after reading the book, I felt somehow ... hard. Not a single enemy of the revolution has ever written like this about the people. How much horror is there in half with disgust, physical disgust and heavy hatred for all these soldiers, sailors, "these animals", "these convict gorillas", peasants, boors who suddenly became masters of life and death, for all revolutionary cattle:

“I’ll close my eyes and see as if alive: ribbons on the back of a sailor cap, pants with huge flares, ballroom slippers from Weiss on my feet, my teeth are tightly clenched, playing with the jaws of my jaws ... I’ll never forget now, I’ll turn over in the grave!”

And here's another snippet:

“How many faces ... with strikingly asymmetrical features among these Red Army soldiers and among the Russian common people in general - how many of them, these atavistic individuals ... And just from them, from these very Russians, from ancient times glorious for their anti-sociality, who gave so many “daring robbers”, so many vagabonds , runners, and then cunning, tramps, it was from them that we recruited the beauty, pride and hope of the Russian social revolution. Why marvel at the results? .. "

“In peacetime, we forget that the world is teeming with these geeks; in peacetime, they sit in prisons, in yellow houses. But now the time is coming when the “sovereign people” have triumphed. The doors of prisons and yellow houses open, the archives of the detective departments are burned - the bacchanalia begins.

And Ivan Alekseevich thinks about where they came from, and does not find an answer. Except all the same - born criminals, from the same breed born, where did they come from folk hero Stenka Razin.

And throughout the book, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin never once thinks about his role, over the role of their ancestors in this bloody Russian bacchanalia. But these born criminals, Ivan Alekseevich, came from the serf villages of your grandfathers and great-grandfathers. From slavery. And frighteningly, and for a long time, they changed the whole fate of Russia, because they could not do otherwise. Because a slave is not a man.

When a person becomes a slave, everything human falls from above him like a husk, and from the inside, from the soul, is burned to ashes.

A slave is a cattle, that is, cattle. And since cattle, then everything is allowed, nothing to fear and nothing to be ashamed of. That is, there is nothing at all. No foundations. Speaking in the current language of criminals - complete chaos. And so children grew up and were brought up, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren ... Four hundred years of slavery. Nearly twenty generations, born and raised in a yoke, knowing nothing in their upbringing but the vile science of servile survival.

So if only four hundred years! And the previous six hundred years - did they pass under the Declaration of Human Rights? According to Russkaya Pravda by Yaroslav the Wise, a few hryvnias as a punishment for killing a smerd - is this freedom? Of course, freedom. Freedom to kill men with virtually impunity, according to the law ...

So what did we expect then from our people, Ivan Alekseevich!? You yourself write: “Their satanic strength lies in the fact that they managed to step over all the redistributions, all the boundaries of what is permitted, to make every amazement, every indignant cry naive, stupid.”

So they were not, limits. In centuries, in ancestors.

It is no coincidence that in ancient times in the East it was believed that after the slave was set free, seven generations of his descendants should grow up in freedom, and only then the blood of the slave would be cleansed ...

That is why it was already too late in Russia...

Perhaps it should have started in 1825. Together with Ryleev, Pestel and their comrades.

These nobles, having defeated Napoleon, having passed through the whole of Europe with weapons in their hands, suddenly saw how simple peasants live there. And their hearts were filled with shame and pain for their own, dear. And they went to the Senate Square.

Yes, the path was chosen bloody. But in that era, society did not know, did not yet develop other forms of protest. There were none.

But why did the other nobles, having gathered and one by one, not turn to the tsar, did not tell him that the Decembrists were not against the tsar, but against slavery? Not convinced. Finally, they did not put him before public opinion.

The nobles did not. They watched how the executioner hangs their best comrades on the Kronverk Curtain...

Probably, the nobles understood what the Decembrists encroached on. To the holy! For the right of each of them to be king and god in their hunger strikes and burnouts, for the right to execute and pardon, rape serf girls, drag them from under the crown to their bed in front of the serf suitors.

And they, the nobles, did not want to part with these vile rights for anything!

That is why the nobles were silent then.

Slavery corrupts both slaves and slave owners. The nation is deteriorating. Country in this case Russia is being destroyed from two sides at once. What the people did, we know. And where did the nobles look? After all, the sparks were already flying! The atmosphere of Russia at that time was literally electrified by a premonition of catastrophe. This was especially felt by the marginalized. AT modern language this word has acquired a negative meaning: homeless, lumpen, asocial element ... In a broad sense, it means something that goes beyond the edge of the field ("margo" - the edge, hence the "marginals" - marginal notes). Any person who has gone beyond the edge of his field - ethnic, class, professional, etc. - is already marginalized. And in this sense, the biggest outcasts are probably poets. Not nobles, not raznochintsy, not workers and not manufacturers, not military servants and not civil servants, and not even mere mortals, but poets ... They, marginal poets, perceived with particular sensitivity the condition of millions of marginal masses, what Blok later called music of the revolution. He, Alexander Blok, warned everyone long before the events in a poem, prophetically called "Retribution". Following him, Mayakovsky, with an accuracy of a year, indicated: “The sixteenth year is coming in the crown of thorns of revolutions ...” Velimir Khlebnikov in public speaking wrote on the sheets: "Someone 1916 ..."

Alas. None of those who were obliged did not listen and did not understand ... The king, day after day, noted in his diaries how he ate well and took a walk ... ruling classes they didn’t think or tried not to think, confident that in an extreme case the Cossacks would come, disperse and beat the rebellious cattle with whips, as it was in 1905 ...

How did the gentlemen of the intelligentsia behave? They giggled, slandered, called for a riot! Did they not understand how dangerous it was to rock the boat during the war? But what can I say, when in the very first days of the February Revolution, none other than one of the great princes of the Romanov family put on a red armband on his sleeve and took to the streets of St. Petersburg! Is this not degradation?

I will grit my teeth and try to understand and explain the behavior of the Grand Duke and the Raznochinsk intelligentsia. Explain irresponsibility. When there is no direct responsibility for the editorial office, team, enterprise, organization, state, country, people on your shoulders, then thoughts soar with extraordinary ease. It's a kind of adolescent consciousness syndrome. Destructive Syndrome.

But here is a group of people who were obliged and could not but realize at that time the grave responsibility that lay on their shoulders. These are the generals in command of the fronts.

Already they, the military people, understood, could not help but understand that during the war, during the hostilities, the emperor and the commander-in-chief are not overthrown. Horses are not changed at the crossing. They, the commanders of the fronts, should have nipped in the bud any, even the weakest attempt to do so.

What did the commanders of the fronts do?

They all, as one, sent telegrams to the Sovereign-Emperor demanding to abdicate the throne!

What is this if not degradation?

And that's why I'm sad when people talk all the time about the revival of the nobility, all the time there are descendants, and so on and so forth. (To ward off reproach in class dislikes I will inform you: on the paternal side I am in eighteenth generation a direct descendant of the ancient Karakesek family, and my maternal ancestor is mentioned in Nikon chronicle for 1424) I I don't know if it's possible to step into the same river a second time. Aren't all these attempts funny, don't they irritate people! But the saddest thing is that, speaking of the revival best traditions of the departed nobility, none of the current descendants has ever spoken of the monstrous guilt of the nobility before the country and people, no one has spoken of repentance.

Quote:

“Power is a profession like any other. If the coachman gets drunk and does not fulfill his duties, they drive him away ... We drank and sang too much. We've been kicked out."

(V. V. Shulgin. "Three Capitals")

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Douglas Smith

The provisional government proved unable to stop the country's slide into disorder and lawlessness; disrespect for the authorities that replaced the autocracy continued to grow. In the first days of May, Kerensky replaced the War Minister Guchkov. In an effort to turn the tide at the front, he asked: “Is the Russian free state really a state of rebellious slaves? Our army performed feats under the monarch: will it really turn out to be a herd of sheep under the republic? Meanwhile, General Brusilov argued that "the soldiers wanted only one thing: peace, in order to go home, rob the landowners and live freely, without paying any taxes and not recognizing any authority."

On March 26, Novoye Vremya published a letter from Prince Yevgeny Trubetskoy from Kaluga: “The village exists without trial, without management, by the grace of Nikolai Ugodnik. They say that we will be saved by deep snows and mudslides. But how long will it last? Soon the evil elements will realize what benefits can be derived from disorder.

On March 17, the Den newspaper reported that near Bezhetsk, peasants locked up a local landowner and burned him in a manor house.

Reports of pogroms and riots began to come from the provinces one after another. On May 3, Novoye Vremya published a story about a rebellion that engulfed the city of Mtsensk, Oryol province. For three days, about five thousand soldiers and peasants staged drunken brawls and burned several nearby estates. The rampage began when a group of soldiers looking for weapons on the Sheremetev estate found a huge wine cellar. Having drunk, they destroyed the manor house, and when rumors about what was happening spread, peasants and soldiers of the garrison joined them.

Troops and even some officers sent to put an end to the unrest joined the rioters. The inhabitants of the city did not dare to leave their homes in the evening, because crowds of people armed with rifles and knives were shouting, singing and drinking in the streets.

“Back in the summer of 1717…,” Ivan Bunin later wrote, “Satan of Cain’s malice, bloodthirstiness, and the wildest arbitrariness breathed on Russia precisely in those days when brotherhood, equality, and freedom were proclaimed.” Chernigov peasant Anton Kazakov argued that freedom means the right to "do what you want." In June, a landowner who lived near the village of Buerak in the Saratov province was shot dead in his estate, and his servants were strangled. All things from the house were stolen.

A month later, the eighty-year-old son of Ivan Kireevsky, the founder of Slavophilism, was killed along with his wife on his estate by a group of deserters who were about to take possession of his collection of books and antiquities. In Kamenka, the estate of Countess Edita Sologub, rebellious soldiers stole the library for cigarette rolls.

In the spring and summer, the province was full of "tourists," visiting deserter agitators. Even Soviet historians recognize their decisive role in inciting the peasants to attack the landowners.

“In the estate of Veselaya, the changes were subtle, it was difficult to describe them, but they undoubtedly gloomy approached,” recalled Maria Kashchenko. - Two old coachmen, kissing our hands with their usual sincere respect, felt awkward and looked around, as if they were afraid that someone would see them. Things began to disappear in the house - a scarf, a blouse, a bottle of cologne; the servants began to whisper in groups and fell silent when one of us approached.

Alexey Tatishchev told how a deputation of peasants came to the Tashan family estate in the Poltava province to talk with his aunt. The peasants waited on the open marble terrace, spitting contemptuously at her. And one peasant woman, when she was asked not to let the cows into the garden, went up to the terrace, pulled up her skirt and defecated right in front of Tatishchev’s aunt, after which she ordered the mistress to graze her cows herself.

Bunin left Petrograd for the Glotovo family estate in May 1917. One night, a barn caught fire in a neighboring estate, then another. The peasants accused the landlord of arson and beat him mercilessly. Bunin went to intercede for him, but the crowd shouted that Bunin was defending the "old regime" and did not listen to him; one woman called Bunin and all his breed "sons of bitches" who "should be thrown into the fire." Bunin felt a deep sense of spiritual connection with the family estate, but by mid-October the situation had become too dangerous, and he could no longer remain in the village.

The Golitsyns spent their summers at the Buchalki estate. Servant Anton, who never dared to speak while working, now became talkative. He recounted the village rumors that the deserters were beginning to return, stirring up the people and inciting them to seize the land.

One day a group of peasants came to talk to Mikhail about the land. He replied that the land did not belong to him, but to his uncle, but he promised to convey their request to allocate part of the land to them. He persuaded them to wait for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, when the land question would be considered. There was a soldier in the group who tried to turn the men against Mikhail, but they did not give in, saying that they believed their masters. It was last summer, which the Golitsyns held in the family estate. Buchalki were wiped off the face of the earth as a result of several devastating cataclysms, starting with the revolution and ending with the German invasion in 1941.

After moving from Petrograd to Moscow in April 1917, the Count and Countess Sheremetevs settled in the Kuskovo estate on the outskirts of the city. Here they were joined by children, including Dmitry and Ira with their children, the Saburovs and other members of the extended family.

At first, everyone hoped to move to Mikhailovskoye, but the manager's reports forced them to abandon this intention. Initially, the Saburovs wanted to live in their Voronovo estate, but a local teacher informed them of unrest in nearby villages. Maria Gudovich left Kutaisi with her children and moved to her husband in Tiflis, from there they returned to Russia to be with the rest of the family.

As summer approached and unrest intensified, the nobles began to gather in the Crimea and the Caucasus. In early May, Ira's mother left for the waters in the North Caucasus. Dmitry and Ira stayed, but soon moved to Kislovodsk. The weather was fine, Ira was undergoing treatment, and the local Cossacks did not show the slightest sign of aggression. They decided to spend the winter here and rented a dacha for the family. There were many metropolitan friends and acquaintances in the city, and Dmitry wrote to his mother that if things got worse, she and the rest of the family should join them in Kislovodsk.

Georgy Aleksandrovich Sheremetev with his family

Among the aristocracy gathered in Kislovodsk were Dmitry's cousins ​​George, Elizabeth, Alexandra and Dmitry. Their parents (Alexander and Maria Sheremetev) remained in Petrograd, but when life in the capital became unbearable, they moved to their estate in Finland. Alexander invited his half-brother Sergei to join them, but he refused to leave Russia. When Finland declared independence on December 6 (New Style), 1917, they unexpectedly found themselves in exile.

For some time life was prosperous, but soon the money ran out. Alexander and Maria sold their lands in Finland and left for Belgium, then France; in Paris they lived in deep poverty until they were taken in by a charitable organization in Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois.

Alexander and Maria found their eternal rest in the same place, in the Russian cemetery. All their property was nationalized, including a luxurious house in Petrograd; the situation was distributed to museums, the archive was put into waste paper. In the 1930s, the House of Writers was located in their house, after the collapse of the USSR - an expensive hotel.

Archpriest Georgy Sheremetev

The four children of Alexander and Maria left Russia at the end civil war and settled in Western Europe. George fought on the side of the whites and left the south of Russia for Europe with his wife and three small children. He later worked as a secretary to Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, the Tsar's uncle, and a farm manager in Normandy. Fellow emigrant Alexandrov met George in the 1920s at the Grand Duke's house in Choigny near Paris.

Alexandrov noted that Georgy did not grumble at fate, considering the revolution and the terrible loss of his family "God's punishment for all the sins, injustices and lawlessness that the privileged classes did over their" smaller brothers and declaring that it is the Christian's duty to devote the rest of his life to atonement for these sins.

George was ordained Orthodox priest and served in London, where he spent the last years of his life.

The financial affairs of the Sheremetevs were shaken two months after the February Revolution. At the end of April, the manager of the main office in Petrograd warned Count Sergei that the income from the estates had ceased to flow. Meanwhile, 75,000 rubles a month were required to support the family's expenses. Count Sergei ordered that all the remaining liquidity be transferred from Petrograd to Moscow, where it seemed to be safer at the time, but in the long run this half-measure did not solve the problem.

With the outbreak of the First World War, many nobles transferred capital from Western Europe to Russia as a sign of readiness to support the country's economy in war time. The withdrawal of capital from the country in these years was considered an unpatriotic act.

By the beginning of the revolution, only a very few nobles had foreign capital on which they could count. Their wealth, like life, was connected with the fate of the country.

In the spring, the peasants, who did not want to wait for the Constituent Assembly, took matters into their own hands and began to seize the Sheremetev lands. In April, the Sheremetevs were forced to hand over to the peasants more than seven hundred acres in the Volsky district. In May, the poorest peasants seized the Sheremetev estate at Novo-Pebalga in the Baltic. In July, a rebellious mob caused serious damage to their possessions in Ivanovo-Voznesensk.

By October, estates in the Tambov province were looted and destroyed. In December, the peasants of the village of Ozerki in the Saratov province demanded at a gathering the immediate confiscation of the lands of the “former count”. At the end of June, the manager of the Moscow office of the Sheremetevs reported on the growing difficulties in buying food. Essentuki's mineral water disappeared, as did chocolate, Dutch cheese was sold at a pound per person, and Count Sergei's favorite French wine was no longer available. In May, the Moscow servants of the Sheremetevs went on strike. During the July crisis tenement house on Liteiny in Petrograd was destroyed, and the apartments were looted.

In Petrograd the Soviet intended to requisition fountain house for offices and meeting places. Count Sergei handed over part of the house to the Red Cross (whose flags were hung over all the entrances in the hope of protecting property), and the manager lied to those who came that the organization had already taken possession of the building and there were no free premises. The fountain house and the Sheremetevs' neighboring properties were under special protection, but this did not prevent frequent intrusions and thefts.

With difficulty getting gasoline for cars, the Sheremetevs finally left Kuskovo and moved to Mikhailovskoye. For many decades the family lived in this estate in the summer, and Count Sergei was determined not to break the tradition. Paul recovering from nervous disease joined the family. They had not lived there even a week when the news came that a gang of soldiers had killed the entire family of the neighboring landowners and four other people in the nearest district.

The servants of the Sheremetevs armed themselves with guns and set up night guards at the house. Elena Sheremeteva learned how to milk cows and bake bread; the peasants took Elena and her mother into the field to teach them how to mow, but both of them cut their fingers so much that they had to return home. One peasant took pity on them and began to supply his family with his own buckwheat, he continued this good deed even in the hungry years of 1918-1919. When the wine cellar was looted, a peasant woman came to say that it was better for them to leave before they were thrown out of the estate. The family packed their things and quietly left. No one then knew that they were leaving forever.

Lies and truth of Russian history Baimukhametov Sergey Temirbulatovich

The degradation of the nobility Is it possible to be free among slaves?

Degradation of the nobility

Is it possible to be free among slaves?

And it is clear that on a long journey, one way or another, we talked about the nobility (young officers are always not indifferent to this topic, it seems to them that their golden shoulder straps somehow bring them closer to the noble estate), about the merits of the nobility, about whether it is possible in modern times, the revival of the aristocracy ...

Is it possible to credit the nobility with all those cultural achievements that are called the Golden and Silver Age of the country? Don't know. Perhaps it is as natural for the ruling class to create culture as it is to breathe. There doesn't seem to be much merit here. But on the other hand, where efforts were needed, perhaps even a moral and political feat, the Russian nobility was not up to par. I believe that it was the nobles who led to the collapse of monarchical Russia. The responsibility for the revolution lies with them. Like the ruling class.

Let us recall the sugary formula of relations between landowners and serfs: “You are our fathers, we are your children…” But if children in one historical moment cut, killed, shot their fathers, and plundered, defiled and burned their father’s estates, then who is to blame? So those were the fathers?

Russia is the only country in the world where official slave system, official slavery existed until the second half of the 19th century! Four hundred years!

And slavery, in my opinion, led monarchist Russia to a terrible revolutionary explosion.

Think about it, in London in 1860 the underground was already being built. And we tore babies from their parents, we lost whole villages in cards, we exchanged human children for greyhound puppies, we used the right of the first night. At the same time, enlightenment was portrayed, with one hand they tried to write historical treatises, and with the other hand they poured molten lead into the throats of serfs.

It is ridiculous to think that the Russian peasant in 1917 raised the tsarist government with bayonets, because he was imbued with the ideas of Marx - Engels - Lenin. No, the man instinctively felt that finally came the sweet opportunity to avenge centuries of humiliation. And fiercely avenged! Including himself. But that's another conversation...

Now many write that there were no special prerequisites for a revolution, that life was getting better and Russia was getting richer. And they write correctly. There were no prerequisites. And this only confirms my idea that the revolution broke out not because of direct, today's oppression. The past exploded, the burning hatred accumulated over the centuries of slavery exploded.

After all, they read Pushkin! That our kind people will pull a cat out of a burning house, risking themselves. And at the same time, he burns the landowner in the same house, laughing evilly. Read ... But it seems that no one understood anything. Didn't want to understand. Not sometime in dark times, but already in the 20th century, in 1907, the last emperor of Russia wrote about himself: "The owner of the Russian land." In the 20th century, humanity received everything that it lives today. Atomic energy, television, electronics, computers. But in the same century, in Russia, one person said about himself: "The owner of the Russian land." And not jokingly and half-jokingly, but in an official document, during the census, he wrote this in the column “occupation” ...

That's why it was late. Although the industrial revolution has already won in the country. Although political freedoms were already granted. Although Stolypin led the peasants to cut off, to free management.

But it was too late.

Even half a century ago, in 1860, it was too late to abolish shameful slavery. The boiler has overheated. Not children, so the grandchildren of serfs became the so-called raznochintsy. That is, they became gentlemen. So they could not forgive the power of slavery of their fathers and grandfathers. It was they, educated, who called Russia to the axe. The cup of hatred overflowed. And the country moved inexorably towards the Seventeenth Year.

And when she came, she shuddered from herself, from her appearance. Recall Bunin's Cursed Days.

I can testify: when for the first time in the Soviet Union in 1990 Ivan Bunin's Cursed Days came out on a wave of glasnost, my reaction was ... not easy. No matter how much I deny the communist idea, no matter how critically I treat the events of 1917 in Russia, after reading the book, I felt somehow ... hard. Not a single enemy, revolution, has ever written about the people like that. How much horror is there in half with disgust, physical disgust and heavy hatred for all these soldiers, sailors, "these animals", "these convict gorillas", peasants, boors who suddenly became masters of life and death, for all revolutionary cattle:

“I’ll close my eyes and see as if alive: ribbons on the back of a sailor cap, pants with huge flares, ballroom shoes from Weiss on my feet, my teeth are tightly clenched, playing with the jaws of my jaws ... I’ll never forget now, I’ll turn over in the grave! »

And here's another snippet:

“How many faces ... with strikingly asymmetrical features among these Red Army soldiers and in general among the Russian common people - how many of them, these atavistic individuals ... And just from them, from these very Russians, from ancient times glorious for their antisocial who gave so many "remote robbers", so many vagabonds, runners, and then tricksters, tramps, it was from them that we recruited the beauty, pride and hope of the Russian social revolution. Why marvel at the results? .. "

“In peacetime, we forget that the world is teeming with these geeks; in peacetime, they sit in prisons, in yellow houses. But now the time is coming when the “sovereign people” have triumphed. The doors of prisons and yellow houses open, the archives of the detective departments are burned - the bacchanalia begins.

And Ivan Alekseevich thinks about where they came from, and does not find an answer. In addition to all the same, they are born criminals, from the same breed of born criminals, where their national hero Stenka Razin came from.

And throughout the entire book, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin never once thinks about his role, the role of his ancestors in this bloody Russian bacchanalia. But these born criminals, Ivan Alekseevich, came from the serf villages of your grandfathers and great-grandfathers. From slavery. And frighteningly, and for a long time, they changed the whole fate of Russia, because they could not do otherwise. Because a slave is not a man.

When a person becomes a slave, everything human falls from above him like a husk, and from the inside, from the soul, is burned to ashes.

A slave is a cattle, that is, cattle. And since you are a beast, then everything is possible, nothing is scary and nothing is ashamed. That is, there is nothing at all. No foundations. Speaking in the current language of criminals - complete chaos. And so children grew up and were brought up, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren ... Four hundred years of slavery. Nearly twenty generations, born and raised in a yoke, knowing nothing in their upbringing but the vile science of servile survival.

So if only four hundred years! And the previous six hundred years - did they pass under the Declaration of Human Rights? According to Russkaya Pravda by Yaroslav the Wise, a few hryvnias as a punishment for killing a smerd - is this freedom? Of course, freedom. Freedom to kill men with virtually impunity, according to the law ...

So what did we expect then from our people, Ivan Alekseevich?! You yourself write: “Their satanic strength lies in the fact that they managed to step over all the limits, all the boundaries of what is permitted, to make every amazement, every indignant cry naive, stupid.”

So they were not, limits. In centuries, in ancestors.

It is no coincidence that in ancient times in the East it was believed that after the slave was set free, seven generations of his descendants should grow up in freedom, and only then the blood of the slave would be cleansed ...

That is why it was already too late in Russia...

Perhaps it should have started in 1825. Together with Ryleev, Pestel and their comrades.

These nobles, having defeated Napoleon, having passed through the whole of Europe with weapons in their hands, suddenly saw how simple peasants live there. And their hearts were filled with shame and pain for their own, dear. And they went to the Senate Square.

Yes, the path was chosen bloody. But in that era, society did not know, did not develop other forms of protest. There were none.

But why did the other nobles, having gathered and one by one, not turn to the tsar, did not tell him that the Decembrists were not against the tsar, but against slavery? Not convinced. Finally, they did not put him before public opinion.

The nobles did not. They watched how the executioner hangs their best comrades on the Kronverk Curtain...

Probably, the nobles understood what the Decembrists encroached on. To the holy! For the right of each of them to be king and god in their hunger strikes and burnouts, for the right to execute and pardon, rape serf girls, drag them from under the crown to their bed in front of the serf suitors.

And they, the nobles, did not want to part with these vile rights for anything!

That is why the nobles were silent then.

Slavery corrupts both slaves and slave owners. The nation is deteriorating. The country, in this case Russia, is being destroyed from two sides at once. What the people did, we know. And where did the nobles look? After all, the sparks were already flying! The atmosphere of Russia at that time was literally electrified by a premonition of catastrophe. This was especially felt by the marginalized. In modern language, this word has acquired a negative meaning: homeless, lumpen, asocial element ... In a broad sense, it means something that goes beyond the edge of the field ("margo" - the edge, hence the "marginalia" - marginal notes). Any person who has gone beyond the edge of his field - ethnic, class, professional, etc. - is already marginalized. And in this sense, the biggest outcasts are probably poets. Not noblemen, not raznochintsy, not workers and not manufacturers, not military servants And not civil servants, and not even mere mortals, but poets... They, marginal poets, perceived with particular sensitivity the condition of millions of marginalized masses, what Blok later called music of the revolution. He, Alexander Blok, warned everyone long before the events in a poem, prophetically called "Retribution". Following him, Mayakovsky, with an accuracy of a year, indicated: “The sixteenth year is coming in the crown of thorns of revolutions ...” Velimir Khlebnikov wrote on sheets in public speeches: “Someone 1916 ...”

Alas. None of those who had to, did not listen and did not understand .. The Tsar day after day noted in his diaries how he ate well and took a walk ... The ruling classes did not think or tried not to think, confident that in the last resort the Cossacks would come, and whip the rebellious cattle with whips, as it was in 1905 ...

How did the gentlemen of the intelligentsia behave? They giggled, slandered, called for a riot! Did they not understand how dangerous it was to rock the boat during the war? But what can I say, when in the very first days of the February Revolution, none other than one of the great princes of the Romanov family put on a red armband on his sleeve and took to the streets of St. Petersburg! Is this not degradation?

I will grit my teeth and try to understand and explain the behavior of the Grand Duke and the Raznochinsk intelligentsia. Explain irresponsibility. When there is no direct responsibility for the editorial office, team, enterprise, organization, state, country, people on your shoulders, then thoughts soar with extraordinary ease. It's a kind of adolescent consciousness syndrome. Destructive Syndrome.

But here is a group of people who were obliged and could not but realize at that time the grave responsibility that lay on their shoulders. These are the generals commanding the fronts.

Already they, the military people, understood, could not help but understand that during the war, during the hostilities, the emperor and the commander-in-chief are not overthrown. Horses are not changed at the crossing. They, the commanders of the fronts, should have nipped in the bud any, even the weakest attempt to do so.

What did the commanders of the fronts do?

They all, as one, sent telegrams to the Sovereign Emperor demanding to abdicate the throne!

What is this if not degradation?

And that's why I'm sad when people talk all the time about the revival of the nobility, all the time there are descendants, and so on and so forth. (To ward off the reproach of class antipathies, I’ll tell you: on the paternal side, in the eighteenth generation, I am a direct descendant of the ancient Karakesek family, and my maternal ancestor is mentioned in the Nikon Chronicle.) I don’t know if it’s possible to step into the same river a second time. Aren't all these attempts funny, don't they irritate people! But the saddest thing is that, speaking of the revival of the best traditions of the departed nobility, none of the current descendants has ever spoken of the monstrous guilt of the nobility before the country and people, no one has spoken of repentance.

Quote:

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Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin famous writer, he was born on April 3, 1745 in a noble family. Fonvizin began to write late, in recent years During his life he was seriously ill and plunged headlong into literature. His most famous work is the comedy "Undergrowth". One of the main characters of the comedy is Starodum, the prototype of which was the father of the author himself. From his father, the writer inherited intolerance for bribery, servility, evil and violence.

Almost the complete opposite of Starodum is Mrs. Prostakova.

She is one of the main characters of the comedy. Illiterate, cruel, rude, but very fond of her son Mitrofanushka, only this love is animal, and not tender maternal "... Come on, Eremeevna, let the child have breakfast ..." She keeps her husband "under the heel" and refers to it is disrespectful to him "You yourself are baggy, smart head"; although she herself is illiterate and no smarter than him "... I can receive letters, but I always order someone else to read them ...". With Prostakov’s servants, she is cruel and rude, “Are you a girl, are you a daughter of a dog? Do I have any maids in my house, except for your nasty hari!”, But if it is beneficial for her, she can become kind and affectionate with anyone. Cunning, doing everything for profit and considering herself "above others", in this she is like her brother, and with him she has a more respectful relationship than with her husband.

The main problems in comedy are the moral decay of the nobility and the problems of education. Through Starodum's speech, the author not only shows the relationship of people to each other, but also looks for the reasons for the decline of the moral foundations of society. The second problem is the problem of education. Mitrofanushka's teaching scenes and many of Starodum's speeches are allotted to this problem. But the main scenes are Mitrofanushka's exam, where he demonstrates his "knowledge" of grammar and geography in all his "glory". According to Fonvizin, the problem of education is of national importance, since proper upbringing is the salvation of society from spiritual decline.

Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin is one of the most famous satirists and his works, written more than two hundred years ago, are still relevant. In the comedy "Undergrowth" we can recognize the hero and our contemporaries living next to us.

Updated: 2016-04-02

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Content:

The novel "Golovlevs" is one of the the best works describing the life of the nobility. In the novel, the author showed the inevitability of the physical and moral destruction of the personality under the influence of the inactivity of existence.
“Gentlemen Golovlevs” - tells us about the moral extinction of the family of landowners Golavlevs, who characterize us the landowners of the period of serfdom and after its abolition. The tale describes to us the degradation of the Golovlev family, which are steadily sliding down to the very bottom. The Golovlevs are constantly quarreling, fighting among themselves because of the inheritance, although they themselves are quite wealthy people. They gradually lose their human qualities, harden towards each other.
At the head of the family is Arina Petrovna Golovleva, a domineering woman who main goal his life to put the multiplication of wealth. She managed a huge estate for a long time, ruled undeniably, skillfully, but completely forgot about maternal feelings. She reacts to the death of her daughter in a more than strange and cold-blooded way, expresses her dissatisfaction that her daughter left her two children, her own grandchildren, to her. Arina Petrovna encourages her sons to be duplicitous for the sake of "the best piece on the platter."
She divided her children into favorites and hateful ones, and every day her favorites were different. Arina Petrovna drowned out their natural feeling of love for their parents, disfigured them with her upbringing. Such an unhealthy environment and upbringing could not contribute to ...
Golovlyov's children grew up as normal, healthy children. As a result, Pashka the quiet one finally went into himself, "Stepka the boobie, the hateful son", sold the house and pitifully exists in Moscow, having spent all the money, orphans-granddaughters are growing up. And all this is the fruit of her upbringing.
Throughout the rum, we encounter scenes of despotism, moral mutilation, the death of one after another immoral members of the Golovlev family. Pavel dies, Judas Golovlev takes over his estate. Styopka the boobie drinks himself alone, locked in his room. At the end of her life, Arina Pavlovna receives the fruits of her cruel upbringing. The most morally terrible person grew up Porfira, who was nicknamed Judas as a child.
Tyranny in the family taught Porfira to pretend to be an affectionate and obedient son, to fawn in front of his mother. He quickly developed the traits of acquisitiveness in himself to the limit, and as a result he became the owner of Golovlev, took possession of the estate of his brother Pavel, took all his mother's money into his hands, preparing her for the fate of a lonely old woman. Judas reached the peak of the moral impoverishment of his soul that it is difficult to call him a man.
Judas does his dirty tricks quietly, calmly, without contradicting the law. At the same time, he was a hypocrite, used truths in conversations such as: respect for the family, religion and law. The author in the person of Judas showed us the peak of human fall. In the heroes of Golovlyov, the writer shows us the unviability of the class of landowners, which leads them to moral extremes.