#fonvizin

[ruslit]

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.

[ruslit]

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

[ruslit]

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!

[ruslit]

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

[ruslit]

Fonvizin's The Minor (1782) carries an enlightened message. Swipes are taken at official corruption, the ignorance and crude manners of the rural gentry, and the abuses of serfdom.

The characters give the play enough local color to make it a genuinely Russian play.

[ruslit]

Denis Fonvizin's The Brigadier (1769) is a satire on the Gallomania of the Russian gentry and the loose morals that it engendered. The brigadier abuses his wife, a good but old-fashioned and terribly naive Russian woman, and courts the wife of his friend. His son, recently back from Paris, is expected to marry Sonya the councillor's virtuous and intelligent daughter, but instead makes advances to her all-too-willing stepmother. In the end the adulterers are shamed, and Sofya can marry Mr. Dobrulyubov (Goodlove).

The plot is static and hardly original, but the dialogue is racy and often funny. The characters are drawn rather well.

[ruslit]

In 1755 Moscow University was founded, largely through the efforts of Lomonosov, and in the following year it began to publish a newspaper, The Moscow News.

The first groupings of literati arose in the second half of the century. The court of Catherine the Great and Moscow University were centers of literary activity.

Catherine's secretary Ivan Elgain headed a circle of playwrights that included Denis Fonvizin and Vladimir Lukin.

Nikolai Lvov was the centre figure of a circle including his brother-in-law Derzhavin, Vasily Kapnist, Mikhail Muravyov.

Mikhail Kheraskov was the focus of literary activities around Moscow University for many years.

[twodogsdead]

Just one rule. My father told me again and again: 'Have a heart, have a soul, and you will be a human being always.' As to the rest - it's only a fashion.

Denis Fonvizin, The Minor