In Novgorod, Herzen began work on the novel "Who is to blame?". In 1845-1846, the novel was published in parts in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, and a year later it was published as a separate edition.

The novel “Who is to blame?” - an anti-serfdom work. Herzen does not hide his hostile attitude towards the ruling system in Russia and passionately denounces its main support - the local nobility and the greedy, predatory bureaucracy.

He portrayed the arbitrariness of the landowners not as individual exceptions or deviations from supposedly just social laws, but as a system of violence against the people.

Characters are formed under the yoke of violence. Serfdom, like any other socio-political system, forms its own types of man: it contributed to the establishment of predominantly coarse principles in the characters of people. Human nature, as Herzen was convinced, under serfdom inevitably acquires an unkind, inhuman essence. Mutilated souls determine the behavior, habits, ways of relationships between people and often even the usual expression on their faces: a strange mixture of arrogance, fear; servility and wary cunning lies like an indelible imprint on the faces of dependent people.

Herzen sharply notices in his descriptions the abnormal ideas of the feudal lords about the basic moral concepts - about conscience, duty, honor, about love and friendship, about good and evil. He shows how distorted these concepts are, how these natural human qualities are distorted in landlords and officials. Romantic writers often portrayed human behavior in such a way as if an evil force disfigures him: in the ballads of Zhukovsky, in Gogol's Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, in the stories of V. F. Odoevsky and A. K. Tolstoy, supernatural power takes possession of the heroes and encourages them to commit violent acts. The realist writer is looking for an answer not in the other world: Herzen points to the social conditioning of a good or evil beginning in the human soul. All the characters in the novel "Who is to blame?" live in a feudal society and are forced to behave in accordance with established norms of behavior that are obligatory for all. Serfdom puts pressure on society as a whole and on its individual members. Under this oppression, human nature changes: natural (from the point of view of a humanist) feelings are grossly mutilated.

Sources:

• Herzen I.A. Who is guilty? Novel. - A thief magpie. Tale. Enter, art. and note. S. E. Shatalova. Rice. V. Panova. M., Det. lit.", 1977. 270 p. from ill. (School library).
Annotation: According to V. I. Lenin, A. I. Herzen in serf Russia of the forties of the 19th century “managed to rise to such a height that he stood on a level with the greatest thinkers of his time.” During these years, Herzen wrote remarkable works of art: the novel “Who is to blame?” and the story “The Thieving Magpie. »

The writing

Both in theory and in practice, Herzen consistently and purposefully brought journalism and fiction closer together. He is infinitely far from a calm, unflappable portrayal of reality. Herzen the artist constantly intrudes into the narrative. Before us is not a dispassionate observer, but a lawyer and a prosecutor in one and the same person, because if the writer actively defends and justifies some actors, then he exposes and condemns others, without hiding his subjective predilections. The author's consciousness in the novel is expressed directly and openly.

The first part of the novel consists mainly of detailed biographies of the characters, which is emphasized even by the title of individual sections: “Biographies of Their Excellencies”, “Biography of Dmitry Yakovlevich”. In the second part, a more consistent plot narrative unfolds with numerous inserted episodes and author's journalistic digressions. In general, the entire literary text is bound by the unity of the author's idea and is built primarily on the basis of a clear and consistent development of the author's thought, which has become the most important structure-forming and style-forming factor. The author's speech occupies a central place in the general course of the narrative. It is often imbued with irony - sometimes soft and good-natured, sometimes smashing, scourging. At the same time, Herzen brilliantly uses the most diverse styles of the Russian language, boldly combining forms of vernacular with scientific terminology, generously introducing literary quotations and foreign words, neologisms, unexpected and therefore immediately striking metaphors and comparisons into the text. This creates an idea of ​​the author as a great stylist and an encyclopedically educated person with a sharp mind and powers of observation, capable of capturing the most diverse shades of reality depicted by him - funny and touching, tragic and insulting human dignity.

Herzen's novel is distinguished by its wide coverage of life in time and space. The biographies of the heroes allowed him to unfold the narrative over a large time range, and Beltov's trips made it possible to describe the noble estate, provincial cities, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and talk about his foreign impressions. A deep analysis of the originality of Herzen the writer is contained in Belinsky's article "A Look at Russian Literature in 1847". The main strength of the author of the novel "Who is to blame?" the critic saw in the power of thought. “Iskander (Alexander Herzen's pseudonym), wrote Belinsky, “thought is always ahead, he knows in advance what and why he writes; he depicts with amazing fidelity the scene of reality only in order to say his word about it, to pronounce judgment. According to the critic's profound remark, "such talents are as natural as purely artistic talents." Belinsky called Herzen "primarily a poet of humanity", in this he saw the pathos of the writer's work, the most important social and literary significance of the novel "Who is to blame?". The traditions of Herzen's intellectual novel were picked up and developed by Chernyshevsky, as indicated by the direct roll-call of the titles: "Who is to blame?" - "What to do?"

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (March 25 (April 6), 1812, Moscow - January 9 (21), 1870, Paris) - Russian publicist, writer, philosopher, teacher, one of the most prominent critics of the feudal Russian Empire.

(The natural school is the conventional name for the initial stage in the development of critical realism in Russian literature of the 1840s, which arose under the influence of the work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Turgenev and Dostoevsky, Grigorovich, Herzen, Goncharov, Nekrasov, Panaev, Dal, Chernyshevsky were considered to be a "natural school" , Saltykov-Shchedrin and others)

Issues

The composition of the novel “Who is to blame?” very original. Only the first chapter of the first part has the actual romantic form of the exposition and the plot of the action - “A retired general and a teacher, determined to the place”. Then follow: "Biography of their Excellencies" and "Biography of Dmitry Yakovlevich Krucifersky." Chapter “ Life” is a chapter from the regular narrative form, but is followed by “ Biography of Vladimir Beltov". Herzen wanted to compose a novel from this kind of separate biographies, where "in footnotes it can be said that such and such married such and such." “For me, the story is a frame,” said Herzen. He painted mostly portraits, he was most interested in faces and biographies. “A person is a track record in which everything is noted,” Herzen writes, “a passport on which visas remain.” At visible fragmentary narrative, when the story from the author is replaced by letters of heroes, excerpts from the diary, biographical digressions, Herzen's novel is strictly consistent.

He saw his task not in resolving the issue, but in identifying it correctly. Therefore, he chose a protocol epigraph: “And this case, due to the non-discovery of the perpetrators, to betray the will of God, considering the matter unresolved, to hand it over to the archive. Protocol". But he did not write a protocol, but a novel in which investigated not “a case, but the law of modern reality". That is why the question posed in the title of the book resonated with such force in the hearts of his contemporaries. Criticism saw the main idea of ​​the novel in the fact that Herzen's problem of the century acquires not a personal, but a general meaning: "It is not we who are to blame, but the lie whose nets have entangled us since childhood."

But Herzen occupied the problem of moral self-consciousness and personality. Among the heroes of Herzen there are no villains who would consciously and deliberately do evil to their neighbors. . His heroes are children of the century, no better or worse than others; rather, even better than many, and in some of them there are pledges of amazing abilities and opportunities. Even General Negro, the owner of "white slaves", a serf-owner and a despot by the circumstances of his life, is depicted as a person in whom "life has crushed more than one opportunity." Herzen's thought was essentially social; he studied the psychology of his time and saw a direct connection between a person's character and his environment. Herzen called history "the ladder of ascent". This idea was primarily spiritual elevation of the individual above the conditions of life of a certain environment. So, in his novel “Who is to blame?” only there and then the personality declares itself when it separates from its environment; otherwise it is swallowed up by the emptiness of slavery and despotism.

“Who is guilty?" - an intellectual novel. His heroes are thinking people, but they have their own "woe from the mind." And it consists in the fact that, with all their brilliant ideals, they were forced to live in a gray light, which is why their thoughts were seething "in empty action." Even genius does not save Beltov from this “million torments”, from the realization that the gray light is stronger than his brilliant ideals, if his lonely voice is lost among the silence of the steppe. From here arises feelings of depression and boredom:“Steppe - go wherever you want, in all directions - free will, only you won’t get anywhere ...”

“Who is guilty?" - a question that did not give a clear answer. It is not for nothing that the most prominent Russian thinkers, from Chernyshevsky and Nekrasov to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, were looking for an answer to the Herzen question. The novel “Who is to blame?” predicted the future. It was a prophetic book. Beltov, like Herzen, not only in the provincial city, among officials, but also in the capital's office - everywhere he found "the most perfect melancholy", "died of boredom." “On his native shore” he could not find a worthy job for himself. But even “on the other side” slavery was established. On the ruins of the revolution of 1848, the triumphant bourgeois created an empire of proprietors, discarding good dreams of brotherhood, equality and justice. And again the “most perfect emptiness” was formed, where the thought was dying of boredom. And Herzen, as his novel “Who is to blame?” predicted, like Beltov, became “a wanderer in Europe, a stranger at home, a stranger in a foreign land”. He did not renounce either the revolution or socialism. But he was overcome by weariness and disappointment. Like Beltov, Herzen "made and lived through the abyss." But everything they experienced belonged to history. That is why his thoughts and memories are so significant. What Beltov tormented like a riddle became Herzen's modern experience and penetrating knowledge. Again the same question that started it all arose before him: “Who is to blame?”

Beltov's image

The image of Beltov contains a lot of obscure, seemingly contradictory, sometimes given only hints. This was also reflected in the creative subjectivity of Herzen, who created the character of the hero following the fresh traces of his own ideological development, and even more so in the censorship conditions that did not allow him to talk about many things directly. This also determined Belinsky's misunderstanding of Beltov's character. In the "prehistory" of the hero, the critic only drew attention to the fact that Beltov has "a lot of mind", that his "nature" is spoiled by "false education", "wealth", and therefore he does not have "a special vocation for any kind of activity ", that he was "condemned to languish ... with longing for inaction." In the main part of the novel, the character of the hero, according to the critic, is “arbitrarily changed by the author”, and Beltov “suddenly appears before us, some kind of higher, brilliant nature, for whose activity reality does not present a worthy field ...”. “This is no longer Beltov, but something like Pechorin.” The latter opinion is true: the matured Beltov has something in common with Pechorin. But this is not their "genius", and their tragic relationship with society. However, Belinsky was mistaken in assessing the character of the young Beltov. Already in his youth, Beltov was not just a spoiled barich. And then there were more romantic impulses in him than "longing for inaction." As for his transition to the skepticism of a mature understanding of life, this transition looks sudden because the author could not tell about it in detail. This turning point is not made by the author's will, and as a result of "the power of circumstances". This time Herzen's hero is a Russian nobleman and even the son of a peasant serf. Unlike Chatsky, Onegin and Pechorin, who received the capital, secular-aristocratic upbringing, Beltov, like the heroes of Turgenev (Lezhnev, Lavretsky, etc.), was brought up in the estate, and from there he got into the circle of students of Moscow University. A characteristic feature of Beltov's ideological development is his early pursuit of romantic ideals. Based on his own experience, Herzen connects these aspirations with reading Plutarch and Schiller, with strong impressions of the revolutionary movements in the West.

… Beltov's development took place in the atmosphere of Russian public life in the early 1830s. Briefly and deliberately vaguely, Herzen speaks of "a friendly circle of five or six young men", but at the same time emphasizes that the ideas of this circle were "alien to the environment" and that "young people drew colossal plans for themselves," far from being realized. In this, Beltov differs sharply from Pechorin. Pechorin, created by temperament for an active social struggle, longs for "storms and battles", but exchanges his strength in random everyday clashes. Beltov, brought up more abstractly, draws "colossal plans" for himself, but exchanges himself in the performance of private practical tasks, which he always undertakes to solve alone, "with desperate courage of thought." Such is, first of all, Beltov's service in department e, on which the aristocrat Pechorin would never go. Beltov undoubtedly set himself a "colossal" and naively romantic task: alone to fight injustice and overcome it. It was not for nothing that the officials were indignant at the fact that he “rushes around with all sorts of rubbish, gets excited, like his own father ... they cut him, but he saves” ... No wonder the minister himself vainly made him “gentle” suggestions, and then simply thrown out of service for obstinacy. It's the same hobby Beltova medicine. And here he would like to benefit people, trying to solve difficult scientific problems with "desperate courage of thought", and was defeated. Even in painting, the young man's civic-romantic interests affected. Summing up the failures of his hero in the first part of the novel, asking a “sophisticated question” about their causes, Herzen correctly believes that the answer must be sought not in the “mental structure of a person”, but, as he deliberately vaguely says, “in the atmosphere, in the surrounding, in influences and contacts ... ". Beltov himself later retorted well to Krupov, who explained his trinket by wealth, that there are "quite strong motives for work" and "besides hunger", at least "the desire to speak out." Pechorin would not say so. It's a self-assessment of "the man of the 1840s". And in this respect, Beltov can be compared not with Pechorin, but with Rudin. Beltov realized the reason for his failures only during his wanderings in the West. The author emphasizes many times that before going abroad, his hero, due to his romantic upbringing, "did not understand reality." Now he understood something about her. In his own words, he "lost his youthful beliefs" and "acquired a sober look, maybe bleak and sad, but true." Calling Beltov's new views "dreary" but "true," Herzen undoubtedly has in mind the ideological crisis experienced in the early 1940s by the most advanced people in Russia during the transition from philosophical idealism to materialism. ..... This is what Herzen emphasizes in Beltov, saying that Beltov “lived a lot in thought”, that he now has “bold, sharp thinking” and even “a terrible breadth of understanding”, that he is internally open to “all contemporary issues”. It is interesting, however, that Herzen, not content with this, scattered in the novel allusions to some activity of Beltov abroad, which apparently led him to new views and moods. One can try to bring these allusions together, at least hypothetically.

Russian Literature and Medicine: Body, prescriptions, social practice [Collected articles] Irina Borisova

5 Herzen's novel "Who is to blame?"

Herzen's novel "Who is to blame?"

development of psychological realism The novel “Who is to blame?” consists of two parts, which differ significantly from each other in terms of the depiction of literary heroes. The first part consists of a series of biographies of the heroes, a story about their origin, environment and life circumstances. Describing various aspects of social life (quite in the spirit of a physiological essay), Herzen discovers and analyzes the facts of interaction between an individual and society in the environment of the local nobility. This series of biographies prepares for the development of the storyline, which begins in the second part of the novel. Starting from this moment, the method of literary psychologization is introduced, so that the biographies of the heroes become more dynamic. The emphasis is on the inner world of the characters, so the description of their appearance plays only a secondary role. The author resorts to the external only when it can serve as an indicator of the hero's mental states and is, thus, an addition to his biography; the interaction of the hero with the outside world is manifested primarily at the level of depicting his inner world. The author conducts an "open experiment" on the characters who are placed in various life circumstances.

Thus, the strengthening of the psychologization of the inner perspective in the novel leads to going beyond the rigid psycho-sociological framework of the "natural school". The title of the novel reflects its socio-critical orientation. In fact, we are talking about the description of the paradigm of the possibilities of the internal development of the individual within the social framework allotted to him. At the same time, the problem of self-awareness and the hero's gaining independence from society through self-analysis comes to the fore.

Unlike the first part of the novel, which continues the tradition of the "natural school", in which the literary hero is presented as the performer of one or another social function assigned to him by a certain social group, in the second part, increased attention is paid to the personality and the problem of its emancipation from the social environment. S. Gurvich-Lishchiner, in his study of the narrative structure of the novel, comes to the conclusion that the pronounced polyphonic structure "Who is to blame?" sends far beyond the framework of the problem of personality determination by the environment discussed in detail by the “natural school” [Gurvich-Lishchiner 1994:42–52]. Polyphonic construction at the plot level implies the possibility of considering the hero in his interaction with the outside world, as well as focusing on the psychological patterns of development of the hero's inner world. First of all, the patterns of character development are revealed at the level of the dialogically constituted structure of the novel. The rejection of ideas about direct causal relationships between a person and his environment opens up new narrative possibilities for literary psychologization. The hero's past and the hero's reflection on the events that happened to him become essential elements of a literary character. The events of the past at the same time are inextricably linked with the present position of the hero, which makes it possible to predict his future in the novel.

This new perspective is especially pronounced in the image of the main character of the novel, Lyubonka. The detailed character of the heroine distinguishes her from other characters presented in a rather formulaic way. It personifies the ability for intellectual development and at the same time for emotional actions.

From the age of twelve this head, covered with dark curls, began to work; the range of questions raised in her was not great, completely personal, the more she could concentrate on them; nothing external, surrounding, occupied her; she thought and dreamed, she dreamed in order to lighten her soul, but she thought in order to understand her dreams. So five years passed. Five years in the development of a girl is a huge era; pensive, secretly fiery, Lyubonka in these five years began to feel and understand such things that good people often do not guess to the grave ... [Herzen 1954–1966 IV: 47].

This fragment is an example of going beyond the psychological discourse of that time and moving away from literary patterns that denied a woman a spiritual or mental potential and saw the only way to show the spiritual life of the heroine in the image of “hysterical femininity”, the main features of which were weakness and irrationality. Although a woman represents the “weak” part of society, her heightened sensitivity enables her to register deviations from the norm in the development of civilization. With the image of Lyubonka, literary psychologization adopts such “typically feminine” features as nervousness, emotionality, sometimes even imbalance as an opposition to the social criterion of “normality”.

Psychologization in the novel reaches its highest point in Lyubonka's diary entries, in which the aesthetics of the "natural school" are transposed into autobiographical self-reflection. In her diary entries, Lyubonka tries to describe her inner state, establishing a relationship between it and external circumstances (moreover, this introspection is carried out according to psychological laws that are clear to the reader, which greatly increases its significance). The source of the psychological plausibility of such self-analysis is the psychological discourse of that time with its analysis of the internal development of a person and the connections of the biographical narrative with the mental state of the individual.

An analysis of Lyubonka's diary entries clearly shows that although life circumstances play a decisive role in the development of her character, this development itself should be considered as "individual", that is, in the context of the events of the heroine's life, and by no means as "typical" or generalized. Her character is not a product of the social environment, but the sum of the events of her whole life. It is the result of both "the consistent adaptation of world experience" and the dynamic process of her personal development. The main point is the thesis according to which the "I" of the hero grows out of his personal history. The hero's consciousness is a consciousness that is self-reflective and constitutive of the narrative process. The character of Lyubonka is constituted both with the help of an external authorial perspective and with the help of autobiographical diary entries. At the same time, the situation of a personal crisis (love conflict) of the reflecting heroine is clearly modeled in the diary entries. “Self-psychologizing”, conveyed in the text through a first-person story about the motivation of actions and the development of a problem situation that develops into a pathological crisis, reaches a high degree of immediacy, which would be impossible based on the author’s perspective alone. The development of the love conflict is described mainly by the heroine herself, therefore, the "lack" of information given directly by the author is compensated with the help of a detailed psychological justification. In this context, it is the fundamental crisis that is the impetus for the heroine's desire to write the text of her life herself out of the initial inclination towards self-reflection. The meeting with the nobleman Beltov, who bears the traits of an “extra person”, brings a sharp change in Lyubonka’s previously calm life and becomes the subject of the heroine’s reflection: “I have changed a lot, matured after meeting with Voldemar; his fiery, active nature, constantly busy, touches all the inner strings, touches all aspects of being. How many new questions arose in my soul! How many simple, ordinary things, which I had never looked at before, make me think now” [Herzen 1954–1966 IV: 183].

The heroine's husband, having learned about her love affair, is deeply worried about this, his reaction to his wife's betrayal is apathy and disappointment. Lyubonka's memories of her former love for him do not allow her to think about breaking up with her husband. At the same time, the moral laws of "healthy" normality distort the prospect of living together with Beltov. In this aspect, Lyubonka can only perceive her current situation as "sick"; her conflict turns into self-contempt due to weakness of will and the “misconduct” she has committed, the heroine does not see a constructive way out of this situation. It is quite clear to her that an attempt to free herself from social norms can lead to isolation, the prospect of finding happiness in a love affair with Beltov is too uncertain.

But why do all the heroes of this novel fail, despite the initially promising possibilities of their own "liberation"? None of the biographies of the novel can serve as an example of a successful life, despite the fact that the social conditions in the depiction of the author do not predetermine the development of the characters, therefore, they cannot prevent him. The heroes of the novel also do not suffer from a lack of introspection, nevertheless, their self-reflection is not followed by actions, they are marked by an inability to take the “last step”. The reason for this phenomenon is not easy to determine unambiguously. The title of the novel suggests that the main question posed by the writer is the question of guilt (which would mark the moral aspects of the characters' behavior in their personal conflicts). However, the features of the construction of the novel and the strategy of constructing the consciousness of the characters refute the hypothesis of the author's "moral monopoly", therefore, it is impossible to give an unambiguous answer to the question of the causes of social and personal conflicts depicted in the novel. As a result, it becomes clear that the assumption about the development of the question of guilt in the novel is erroneous and leads in the wrong direction. Thus, the author deviates from the ideological principles of the “natural school”, which require the identification (and naming) of the culprit of social diseases.

Herzen tried to show the impossibility of a one-sided explanation of the social and personal problems of the characters. The author does not offer unequivocal answers and at the same time refuses typing in favor of procedural structures. In this novel, every social situation, every dialogic connection between individual characters is problematic.

Depicting the mental development of the hero and human relations in all their diversity, Herzen illuminates the problem of the status of literature and reality in a new way. Reality is depicted using the method of literary psychologization, close and understandable to the reader. The author acts as a psychologist who establishes the character of the characters, their mental and moral state, and connects all this with the "mental" state of society. The text does not pretend, however, to directly reflect reality by filling the novel with a multitude of factual material that constitutes this reality. The author shows reality in the form in which it appears to the eyes of an individual. Social reality is presented in the novel only through the prism of the consciousness of the characters.

Psychologization becomes the main method of Herzen's poetics. Literature is turning into an experimental field for studying the possibilities for the development of an individual under certain conditions, while the plausibility of the image is achieved with the help of a dynamic image of the psyche of the acting characters. This dynamic appears as a result of the inclusion in the literary discourse of segments of anthropological knowledge containing certain connotative connections that would be impossible to establish outside the framework of a literary work. The relationship between literature and society takes on a new form. At the level of pragmatics, new relations are established between the text, the reader and the author, in which the knowledge of the context plays an important role. The position that calls on the reader to determine the culprit of social disorder himself is relativized with the help of the structural composition of the novel. The reader must realize that reality is too complex to be unambiguous. The question of the relationship between morality, science and social norms is posed along with this in a new way. The literary psychogram complicates the functioning of unambiguous connotative connections and replaces them with ambiguity at the level of pragmatics. At the same time, the reader must relate the moral dilemma of guilt to the reader's life situation. But what is the position of man in relation to reality? The cognition of reality and the cognition of the connection between it and a separate person is stimulated by means of "processing" of "external" history into one's own history. The image of a real person is now read not from his opposition to reality, but from the process of cognition viewed through the prism of psychology and being in constant development. The task of man lies in the gradual assimilation and processing of reality. The character of a person is understood, therefore, as dynamic, in constant development and interaction with the outside world. Literary processing of all this is possible, however, only in the case when the possibility of going beyond the subjective and objectifying the mental development of the individual is allowed.

We can thus observe two stages in the development of psychological realism from the poetics of medicine. The initial stage is the introduction into literature by the “natural school” of “medical realism”, which uses psychology as a functional and organizational model for postulating statements in the field of anthropology and sociology. Interest in the problem of the relationship between the individual and society is directed in its further development to the inner world of man. Dostoevsky in the novel "Poor People" develops the problem of the relationship between the individual and society at the psychological level and shows the process of introducing social norms into the internal structures of the hero's psyche. At the same time, psychology is not a tool for expressing the author's ideological convictions; it is more appropriate to speak here of its aestheticization. Herzen in the novel "Who is to blame?" depicts the paradigm of the possibilities of the internal development of the individual within the social framework allotted to her. At the same time, the problem of self-awareness and the hero's gaining independence from society through self-analysis comes to the fore.

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From the author's book

The paranoid novel of Andrei Bely and the "tragedy novel" In his response to Petersburg, Vyach. Ivanov complains about "the too frequent abuse of Dostoevsky's external methods, with the impotence to master his style and penetrate into the essence of things in his reserved ways."

The central work of Herzen in the 40s. - The novel "Who is to blame?". Work on it began back in Novgorod exile, in 1841 year. The novel was written long and hard. Only in 1846 year the novel was completed. Its first part appeared in Otechestvennye Zapiski, and in 1847 year, the entire text of the novel was published as a separate book as an appendix to the Sovremennik magazine.

The novel is dedicated to the wife of N.A. Herzen (Zakharina). It corresponds to the poetics of the Natural School (see the lectures for the principles of N.Sh.). Gradually, the idea of ​​the novel outgrows the framework of "N.Sh.", not limited to a simple statement of facts.

Protocol epigraph“And this case, for the non-discovery of the perpetrators, to betray the will of God, the case, considering them resolved, to hand over to the archive,” Herzen’s intention to designate the question opens. The answer is multi-valued, we will not find a single answer to it in the novel.

The innovation of language in the novel, Herzen introduces folk expressions, neologisms, literary quotations, biblical images with reduced meanings, scientific terminology, foreign words.

The composition of the novel: consists of two parts:

1. The exposition - the beginning of the conflict - the arrival of Beltov V.P. The characters are characterized, the circumstances of their life are drawn. Mostly this part consists of biographies.

2. The climax is a plot narrative, the action is drawn to the main characters, the dynamics are growing. The climaxes are a declaration of love; farewell scene in the park.

The novel includes: Lyubonka's diary, letters, journalistic inserts (affects the reader, with the help of author's comments).

The compositional structure of the novel is extraordinary. The narrative is not cemented by a through plot core. "Actually, not a novel, but a series of biographies, masterfully written ..." Belinsky remarked. In the center of the story are three human lives, three different biographies, destinies. Lyubov Aleksandrovna and Dmitry Yakovlevich Krucifersky, and also Vladimir Petrovich Beltov. Each of them is a complex character.

The image of Lyubonka Kruciferskaya- it bears the greatest semantic, philosophical load. It significantly affects the fate of the other two characters. The illegitimate child of the retired General Negrov, Lyubonka, from childhood, felt the cruel injustice of human relations. The tragic conditions of childhood and adolescence, a very short happiness in marriage to Krucifersky, the story of her unsuccessful love for Beltov - Lyubonka's whole life expresses her detachment from the world, her spiritual loneliness and inability to find a place for herself in a society whose wolf laws her proud could not reconcile and an independent soul. A deep, strong nature, Lyubonka rises above the people around her, above her husband and even Beltov. And she, reluctantly, courageously bears her cross. Lyubonka, however, is trying to defend her right to happiness, but is doomed to death in an unequal struggle. The conditions of life are too cruel and inexorable. Lyubonka Kruciferskaya is one of the most striking female characters created by Russian literature. She takes her place among such images as Sophia, Tatyana, Olga Ilyinskaya, Katerina, Elena Stakhova, Vera Pavlovna.

Near Lyubonka - Dmitry Krucifersky. Raznochinets, the son of a doctor, he went through a difficult life path. A quiet, meek person, soberly assessing his modest spiritual abilities, Krucifersky humbly endures everyday troubles, content with the little happiness that the family hearth gives him. Dmitry Yakovlevich loves his wife very much, and there is no greater joy for him than to look insatiably into her blue eyes. But his world is small, it is far from any public interests. Krucifersky is too ordinary, and early he resigned himself to the life of a provincial inhabitant.

Herzen peers intently into the history of the ruined life and failed opportunities of this man. Using the example of Krucifersky, the writer raises the question of the collapse of a personality deprived of living contacts with reality. Krucifersky is trying to isolate himself from the world. “Meek by nature, he did not think of entering into a struggle with reality, he retreated from its pressure, he only asked to be left alone ..” And Herzen further notes that “Krucifersky far from belonged to those strong and persistent people who create around oneself what is not; the absence of any human interest around him affected him more negatively than positively ... ”Thus, the collapse of Dmitry as a person would have happened even if there had not been a family tragedy. And again, the logic of the novel brings the reader back to the original question - who is to blame?

They are too different people - the Krucifersky couple. They do not have a community of spiritual interests, but even mutual cordial affection. Once Krucifersky saved Lyubonka, rescuing her from the house of the Negrov. And she was eternally grateful to him. But as the years passed, Dmitry not only froze in his spiritual development, but also became an involuntary brake on Lyubonka. Is it any wonder that their family happiness does not withstand the first serious test and collapses. The arrival in the provincial town of Beltov was such a test.

Vladimir Beltov plays a special role in this triangle. You could say it's the main one. This is a man endowed with intelligence and talent. Spending his life thinking about common issues, he is alien to domestic interests, which he considers vulgar. He, as Belinsky spoke, is an extremely rich, versatile nature. However, with a significant flaw - his mind is contemplative, unable to delve into objects and therefore always sliding over their surface. “Such people,” Belinsky continues, “are always rushing towards activity, trying to find their way and, of course, they do not find it.”

Beltov is often associated with Onegin, Pechorin and later - Rudin. It is true that all of them are variants of that socio-psychological type, which is known in Russian literature under the name of the "superfluous person." But each of them has its own distinctive features. Beltov has a stronger desire for social activity than all the others. However, this aspiration is constantly met with obstacles. As Herzen himself writes: “Beltov rushed from corner to corner because his social activity, to which he aspired, found external let. This is a bee that is not allowed to make cells or deposit honey ... "

But Beltov's difficulties are not only in external obstacles. They are in himself, in the properties of his contradictory nature, looking for practical work and constantly being frightened of it. Beltov cannot do anything in the conditions in which he is. The struggle and life itself are beyond his strength. He lacks the will and energy to overcome the hardships of life, and he is ready to capitulate to the first of them. Beltovo reflected the spiritual breakdown of that part of the noble intelligentsia, which, having survived the collapse of the Decembrists, could not find its place in the new circumstances of the social life of Russia. Beltov is looking for his way in life and does not find it. And self-destructs. Having destroyed the family happiness of the Kruciferskys, he cannot become a support for Lyubonka and refuses her. Having lost his “youthful beliefs” and imbued with a “sober” attitude to reality, Beltov comes to the realization of his complete collapse: “My life has failed, on the side of it. I am like a hero of our folk tales, I walked along all the crossroads and shouted: “Is there a man alive in the field?” But the man did not respond alive ... My misfortune! .. And one in the field is not a warrior ... I left the field ... "

Three human lives have passed before us, three different destinies, failed in different ways, and each of which is unhappy in its own way. Who is to blame for this? The question posed by Herzen in the very title of the novel does not have an unequivocal answer.

The drama of each of the three characters is of a public nature and reflects the turmoil in which the life of the Krucifersky and Beltov couple takes place. The personality is constantly exposed to the environment. A society that is in itself unhealthy and torn apart by social and moral contradictions inevitably gives rise to human dramas.

Like any work of art, the novel "Who is to blame?" polysemantic. Herzen, does not offer a monosyllabic answer to the main question posed in this work. The question is too complicated. There is food for thought here. Let the reader think. This is exactly what the author believes: “Our story, in fact, is over; we can stop by leaving the reader permission to: who is guilty?»

The novel had a wide resonance. He made, according to A. Grigoriev, "extremely much noise." The novel aroused heated debate, it struck contemporaries with an unusual structure and a way of revealing the character of the characters through the details of their biography, and also with a manner of writing in which philosophical reflection and sociological generalization occupy such a large place.

Problems raised in the novel: serfdom, bureaucracy, the problem of the "extra man" (Beltov), ​​family and marriage, women's emancipation, the raznochintsy intelligentsia, the problems of the "little man" (Krucifersky).

The system of images in the novel:

1. Nobles - Negroes (rude, tactless, limited people), relatives, guests, residents of the city

2. Rasnochin intelligentsia - Krucifersky, Sofia Nemchinova, Lyubonka, Dr. Krupov, Swiss Joseph, Vladimir Beltov (in spiritual qualities)

3. The image of the Russian people - with love, opposed to the nobles.