Russian Literature, 1730-1840

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Karamzin’s 'Melancholy'

We actually have a rise of the cult of melancholy in 18th century. Why?

Why would you want an ode to melancholy instead of joy?

Dostoevsky’s early ‘sentimentalist’ works (White Nights, Poor Folk) are coming straight out of Karamzin’s tradition

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Муравьёв  (Muravyov)– born a little later than Derzhavin, 1757: died a little bit before him, 1807 -> so in many ways he was Derzhavin’s contemporary

He deserves more attention!

Became very involved in enhancing the university

1773: first book, a book of fables: you usually don’t start out with such a light genre

1775: his next book of odes: they seem Lomonosovian at first, but then you realize something is up there.

He says he couldn’t write like Lomonosov, even though he wanted to: it’s better for him to use his lyre to praise nature

He is not writing for prosperity

It’s the start of just writing for your own pleasure!

He learned to write from Lomonosov, but to feel from Rousseau.

Derzhavin is trying to reform the system, but Murav’ev is not. 

Murav’ev’s tendency is the one that prevails over Derzhavin’s

Pushkin himself is the one who combines Murav’ev and Derzhavin

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Властителям и судиям ('To the Rulers and Judges') -> published in 1780 with no problem, but later in 1787 the book it was in was perceived as anti-monarchial, did not pass the censor: he defended himself by saying it’s from the Bible! And was able to convince people

Lyrical ‘I’ is becoming even more distinct! It’s the ‘I’ of Derzhavin himself – he saw himself as a ‘truth-teller’ and wasn’t afraid to criticize – the monarch MUST live morally: above you in God, and God will judge

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Derzhavin’s Бог (‘God’) -> 3 years before Фелица (Felitsa): it made him famous abroad. Written in 1780 but not published until 1784, he always put it first in collections of his own work he organized -> he began writing on the eve of пасха (Easter), but didn’t finish it, picked it up a year later when he was really moving on up in the political game.

You expect it to be a paraphrase of a psalm with a title like that, but it is clearly not, and it is formed just like a secular ode.

It’s an attempt to integrate theology and science.

Already in the first five lines! Time and space and life = holy trinity of God

Archaic diction: it shows us that he still does have a sense of hierarchy, he is not so advanced as he claims

Next four lines calm down a little bit after being outraged

A human is a drop of water; he reflects the sun -> look how important each human being is!

Incredibly optimistic and uplifting poem for a world that is beginning to suffer the pessimism of disbelief

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Derzhavin came from impoverished nobility, he was destined to serve, served as a guard: he was a witness of Catherine’s coup d’état in 1762 -> he had an adventure during Pugachev rebellion – huge supporter of the monarchy, supported the worst punishments for Pugachev’s people, the harshest torture

By late 1770s he was well engrained into literary life

Фелица (Felitsa) (1782) – he presents Catherine in an everyday light: he presents her as someone who loves the truth, her sole purpose is to serve her people: she’s an enlightened monarch, but also a human being (and an Eastern princess)

He uses descriptive details, which were never present in the ode before.

A tone of levity, which is new for odic discourse

Look at the fifth stanza: all about himself and it’s supposed to be an ode to a princess! – adoption of a persona so much stronger than we’ve ever seen before (these ‘I’s are all real: each stanza satirizes a REAL courtier of Catherine’s who are a little too taken with their own privilege): and then he finally gets back to himself at stanza 10

But look at the meter: classic 10 line Lomonosovian stanza: formal propriety mixed with very evolved language and point of view

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Solomon Gressner – a Swiss poet: every Sentimentalist read him and idolized him

Young – Night Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality

It’s a very different world being presented and it’s very attractive to the audience of Russian poetry.

1770s: a question of which direction you want your poetry to go arises

1) continuation of the civic model: views poetry as something useful- to promote the state, to satire flaws or distortions in society

2) rejection of it: new subject matter and new form / language which is needed

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1770s – things are changing, major transitions from neo-classicism and the aesthetics and politics of the Enlightenment

it’s a slow process and many people claim it lasts right up to Romanticism

The Big Three have become / are becoming models rather than part of the living tradition

New writers are emerging, experimenting with different styles, points of view, lexicon

Гуковский wrote a great book about these changes, he wrote about this world of the nobility which has a particular outlook and supports the status quo, but is also the place where liberalism will grow

Claims that the decline of classicism and rise of sentimentalism is a result of Pugachev rebellion: how?

Idea that these is a firm foundation to the Empire doesn’t seem so firm or unshakeable anymore – these seeds of doubt incline people to look elsewhere (there are probably other causes as well, such as the one at play in Europe)

Let’s not forget 1762 and Peter III -> nobility freed from obligation of service, and it takes a while for these effects to be seen

Instead of serving, noblemen could retire to their estates, admire the beauty of nature --- look at Derzhavin’s ode to some nature

If you no longer conceptualize your life as service to the state, you find other value -? You can find aesthetic values, and your poetry doesn’t have to serve the state or have any civic goal

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Karamzin: Poor Liza, 1792

Feelings and digression of the narrator are just as important as the story being told

His opening paragraphs don’t create joy, but they do create emotion, which is good! We don’t distinguish between emotions

15 occurrences of the word слёзы

So what is the moral of the story?

Everybody gets to experience the pain of another

Who is the audience? Educated women and feminized men.

The goal is not to draw a moral, but to feel empathy

Poor Liza is a retreat from 'adapted for audience', it could be anywhere in the world

In Izmailov’s Poor Masha, every Russian custom is described!

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Radischev: this work is so radical! He says that if the Tsar misbehaves, the Tsar deserves to be hung. Wow, such radical.

The народ puts you on the throne, don’t forget it.

The notion of sentimentality can be played out merely as a literary path (as in Karamzin) or as empathy, political and social (as in Radischev).

Radischev is moderately more archaic when describing regular things than in conversations, but when he is passionately defending an idea, the archaisms seem to come spilling out (see page 143)

“Church Slavic high horse” (see page 202)

Disjuncture between city/countryside is clear in sentimentalism, so its quite shocking that the women of Balgai are so immoral

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What is Karamzin trying to achieve in his 'Letters of a Russian Traveler'?

He’s a name dropper! He wants to show how close his to Voltaire, for example

Cult of friendship: why is friendship so important in the world of sentimentalism? Sympathy, sharing and understanding of emotions, makes it personal: this is the only thing that can counterbalance and undermine the cold, rigid world of absolutism

Cult of nature: he empathizes with nature and it with him

Uses it to espouse his own political views

And here in his respect for order, we see his classicism

We see words with the root чувств- 22 times in the 14 pages; because it becomes a virtue to feel, and a lack of virtue to hide those feelings

Karamzin is known as the one who perfects the form of the middle style

He talks about high topics in the same style! Travel invites a shifting style, but he doesn’t succumb to the temptation

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In the rise of sentimentalism, it is funny that the linguistic innovator Karamzin is more conservative politically than the archaic Radischev

Helvetius, Russeau, Goethe, Sterne, Richardson, Fielding

Sentimentalists: shift away from Classicism and cartesianism – Lock’s dispute with Descartes

Sentimentalism is based on the personal perception of the world: rule-based aesthetic is becoming less pronounced

Личность – in the abstract. This is not confessional, but “the” sentimental narrator

What genres does Sentimentalism take root in?

Light poetry, the journey, the novella (povest’)

If there is humor in Sentimentalism it is from the picaresque 

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Themes in Fonvizin's 'The Minor':

Starodum: b. 1720, father served under Peter: educated in the old way, speaks on ты -> he allows young Milon to speak on вы but to him the division of ты and вы represents the bifurcation of one’s personality

Воспитание is more important than образование because to have a soul, a heart is the most important thing

The наместник shows just how arbitrary the law can be – maybe there needs to be uniformity

If you can’t put a social contract in place (and under Catherine you can’t) the only way to have a good society is to have good воспитание!

Prokorova is a like a bad Catherine, a lesson what could happen with bad воспитание.

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Characters of Fonvizin’s ‘The Minor’: there is a structural balance between the negative/positive

4 positive/4 negative – the rest are just added for local color

the unities are all observed: it’s within 24 hours; in one house

maybe the unity of action is broken because at first it seems like it’s a question of who Sophia will end up with

but that plot fades away quite quickly and we start to see the new question of what will happen to Prostokov

Горе от ума is the next example to think about in this tradition of playing with unity

The ideological part of the play (when Starodum spreads his wisdom) was the most popular part of the play

The structure of the acts 123/\45 leads up to this pontification in Act 3

If A is bad guys, and B is good guys:

1) A>B

2) B>A

3) B-A

B-A ---- the good guys dominate eventually!

Language: look at Karamzin’s Liza and Erast who speak the same way despite being of different classes

Prostokov and Skotinin have low-class way of speaking; they definitely speak differently from the ‘good’ guys

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Staging of Fonvizin's Недоросль ('The Minor') is set for May 1782 – but the actors were scared of repudiation, so it moved to a private theatre: Catherine eventually read it, gave it the go ahead, and it moved to the Imperial theatre where it was a big hit.

Склонение на наши нравы – what makes it universal is critique of tyrannical motherhood and stupidity, but it is still very localized

In order to serve (which you must), you must get an educated.

You cant marry if you don’t serve, so you better get an education

3 проверки: writing/reading; French/German; закон Бога; mathematics; geography; history

a недоросль is someone who hasn’t passed the exams yet; even the title is a СНН since it is so Russian!

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Fonvizin’s Brigadir (1769) focuses on the RUSSIAN flaw of Gaulomania, which is a decidedly Russian flaw

Самодержавие (autocracy) was not questioned, even by those such as the Пашины brothers who didn’t want Catherine to be the Empress

Fonvizin is associated with those who, after Pavel comes of age in 1774, wanted to see him take the throne immediately

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Some background on comedy – born with Sumarokov: all his comedies are in prose -> interesting, because it’s one of the few places where you can use some real, spoken language

Ёкене – perfectly alright in the context

Comedy is to amuse and to point our social flaws/vices

Shift of comedy in a local direction: Dmitry (the tragedy) seems like it could be in any country, but for comedy to be more effective it HAS to be more local, more Russified

Elagin is the first to Russify his translations of comedies

Склонение на наши нравы – adapted to our tastes