The essay “I was the first to dare to proclaim Felitsa’s virtues in a funny Russian style” (based on the work of G. R.

In the 1780-1790s, interest in national history and folk art, epics and fairy tales arose in Russian literature.

Levshin in “Russian Fairy Tales” (1780-1783) retells Russian epics, and Bogdanovich introduces characters from Russian folk tales into his poem “Darling” (1783). Interest in folk poetry intensifies after the discovery of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” which is perceived as a work of Russian heroic epic.

Western European literature of that time also had a powerful influence on Russian poetry of those years. The landscape lyrics of Thomson and Gray, Jung's "Night Thoughts", the poems of Ossian, Germanic and Scandinavian myths occupy a place in the literary consciousness of the era on a par with the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, with ancient Olympus.

With a very lively responsiveness to everything new, Derzhavin, no matter who he translated - Horace or Anacreon, no matter who he followed - Jung or Ossian, always wrote about his own things in his own way, was always true to his own thoughts and feelings. Therefore, we should not be confused by Derzhavin’s words that the “special path” that he embarked on in 1779 was found by him in “imitation of Horace.” Derzhavin's Goradianism is only one of the forms of his poetic self-determination. Derzhavin was too great a poetic individual for him to fear the loss of his independence from contact with other poetic worlds.

Derzhavin was not the first Russian poet to turn to the work of Horace. The great Roman poet, singer of moderation, rural joys and leisure, denouncer of urban bustle and luxury, was translated, “bending”, adapting to Russian morals, by many Russian poets, starting with Kantemir and Trediakovsky.

In Russian poetry of the 18th century there was a very strong interest in the work of the ancient Roman poet Quintus Horace Flaccus (65-8 BC). The Latin language and Latin literature were a mandatory element in the education of that time, and for those who did not know Latin or did not know it well enough, there were numerous German and French translations.

By the time Derzhavin identified himself as a poet, i.e. by the end of the 1770s, there were already excellent translations of Horace’s odes, epistles and satires in Russian, made by Lomonosov, Trediakovsky, Barkov, Popovsky. But all these translations did not contribute anything significantly new to the development of Russian poetry.

In the works of Derzhavin and his poet friends, especially V.V. Kapnist, interest in Horace takes on a special meaning. Horace becomes a teacher of life; in his poetry, Derzhavin looks for ideas and feelings that are in tune with his own moods, his own sense of life.

There were many things that attracted Russian poets to Horace’s lyrics. Horace's poems are always addressed to a specific addressee; the lyrical theme develops in them as a monologue on behalf of the author's "I", while the poet most often expresses his wishes or advice. This lyrical-didactic form with the greatest completeness and variety allowed Horace to present his philosophy of life, which entered the pan-European cultural tradition as “Horatian wisdom.” The ideal of a serene enjoyment of life receives its classical literary expression from Horace. In the flight of time, in the change of seasons, in the withering of flowers and the vicissitudes of human fate, the poet sees a reminder of the short duration of life... Feasts, wine, love - these pleasures should not be neglected, but the basis of a blissful life is in the serenity of the spirit, which knows how to maintain moderation in prosperity and firmness in difficult situations - that’s what Horace argued. The thirst for wealth and the desire for honors are equally useless... In the “golden mean”, in the reduction of desires, is the source of happiness, and Horace willingly depicts his quiet life on the Sabine estate.

Derzhavin's initial Horatian experiments are characterized by a shift in lyrical and philosophical reasoning - about the need to moderate passions and not pursue excess - and topical satirical allusions to some circumstances of the poet's life at that time, his relationship with the court, with Catherine II, with her favorites. For example, the poem “On Moderation” (1792) begins with a discussion about the right path to well-being, that is, to happiness:

We'll be happier
If we do not dare in the rush of the waves,
Neither in a whirlwind, timid, we will not force
Keep our boat close to the shore.
He is enviable only for his condition,
Who walks the middle path,
I am not delighted with dreams.
Neither the darkness was terrified by troubles;
Moderate in a hut, a palace,
Equal in peace and anxiety.
There is no desire to collect millions.
Doesn't grin at a greasy table;
Doesn't require anyone's bows
And it doesn’t polish anyone’s floor;
It doesn’t curl into the soul to call a friend,
It does not catch the sacraments and does not flatter;
Ready for work and service,
And he only honors virtue.
Although the king caresses him,
He doesn't raise his nose.

Of these two stanzas, the first is quite close to the text of the beginning of one of Horace’s odes, but the second is completely independent and there is nothing actually Horatian in it, just as there is none in the following stanzas, where we are clearly talking about modern, moreover, topical events of 1792, right up to the French Revolution, which was then in its fourth year. Those who “follow the middle path” are content with the ideal of moderation, according to Derzhavin:

Yourself and your neighbor's peace,
Honors God, faith and kings;
Not building kingdoms with metaphysics,
Laughs in vain at the bubbles,
Flying in a fleet to the sky with cargo,
And he doesn’t think of being free as a Frenchman.

In his later “Explanations,” Derzhavin wrote about the above verses that he was “joking here that the philosophers of that time... imagining equality and freedom, like bubbles, rise in their opinions, wanting to fly into heavenly bliss or have it on earth.”

And the next lines of the poem are full of hints about Derzhavin’s court affairs and relationships. There is no longer any resemblance to Horace, no allusions or references to him.

Real and “consonant” singing with Horace appears later in Derzhavin, when satirico-political allusions and likenings completely disappear from his lyric-philosophical poems.

The poem “On Divination” (1798) is a closer translation of Horace’s ode than “On Moderation”.

In the text of his poem, Derzhavin did not include anything topical, nothing that would be connected with the court, with the international relations of those years... But at the same time, he threw out everything that had to do with Roman life. He has no appeal to Leuconoe, no Jupiter and the Tyrrhenian Sea, no “straining of the wine.” Despite, however, the fact that in Derzhavin’s poem there is nothing related to the topic of the day and the events of the political life of Russia, it is all imbued with the spirit of a different, completely non-Roman life, it is given a Russian flavor by its very style, choice of words and phrases:

So! Evil time is fleeting
It flies while we speak;
Pinch the joy heartily
From those roses that we look at;
Celebrate this good day,
Drink the cup of joy now,
Don't be flattered by golden mountains
And don't trust the next day.

And in the poem “Kapnistu” (1797), also one of Derzhavin’s “Horatian” poems, the main idea, so often and variedly developed in his free translations or imitations of Horace, is expressed with the greatest completeness:

Happy is he who has food on his table
Although not luxurious, but neat,
Parents' bread and salt
Set up, and a pleasant sleep
When not taken away from anyone
Neither fear nor vile acquisitions:
Who can be happy with little,
Richer than Croesus himself.
So why in such a short life
We rush here and there,
To other lands from the homeland
Jumping out of boredom or trouble,
And warm up with the alien sun?
Move away from the ashes,
From his homeland, who thinks -
He is running himself.
Our worries and troubles
They will follow us everywhere,
On ships through waves, ice,
And the cavalry behind the Toroks.”

The poetry of contentment with life in the family circle, outside the worries and anxieties of history, the poetry of independence and peace, imbued in Derzhavin, using Belinsky’s expression, with the “class principle”, the pathos of Russian noble life, first poeticized by Derzhavin, received its further development from Pushkin, and after him in Russian prose, from Turgenev’s novels to Bunin’s stories. This, perhaps, is the enduring historical significance of the Horatian and “middle path” of Derzhavin. At the same time, it is very interesting to observe how some Derzhavin images are sometimes repeated in Pushkin - and at the same time change their meaning.

Derzhavin’s poem “Praise of Rural Life” (1798) says:

A pot of hot, good cabbage soup,
Smoked ham under smoke;
Surrounded by my family,
Among which I myself am master,
And then my lunch tastes good!

All this is unusual for pre-Derzhavin poetry, “weighty and visible”; these are all signs of the real life of a real noble estate - and this was one of the artistic discoveries of Derzhavin, who boldly introduced “low”, as many believed in his time, life into the high poetry of philosophical thoughts, into the world of beauty.

These verses from “In Praise of Rural Life” are most directly connected with a well-known passage in “Onegin’s Travels,” which speaks polemically about Pushkin’s rejection of the themes and images of his romantic era and the transition to other themes, to a different understanding of the tasks of poetry:

I need other paintings:
I love the sandy slope,
There are two rowan trees in front of the hut,
A gate, a broken fence,
There are gray clouds in the sky,
Heaps of straw in front of the threshing floor
Yes, a pond under the canopy and in the thick
The expanse of young ducks;
Now the balalaika is dear to me
Yes, the drunken tramp of a trepak
In front of the threshold of the tavern.
My ideal now is a mistress,
My desires are peace,
Yes, there's a pot of cabbage soup, it's a big one.

Pushkin here affirms his understanding of beauty and his conviction in the limitless possibilities of realism in art.

For Pushkin, contentment with little is at the same time an assertion of the great rights of the poet and poetry to depict all spheres of life, any corner of it in the name of the truth of art.

One of Derzhavin’s most significant “Horatian” works was “Ode on the Death of Prince Meshchersky.” It is a vivid example of the use of artistic images, as well as insertions and individual expressions of Horace.

The poetry of domestic joys and the peaceful family life of a middle-class Russian gentleman arises in Derzhavin’s work on the basis of the traditions of Russian Horatianism, which with particular interest “inclined Horace’s second epode to our morals.”

The beginning of this tradition was laid by Trediakovsky, in the poem “Strophes of Commendation to the Life of a Villager” (1752), who thoroughly Russified the everyday environment and social coloring of the Latin source. He had winter with snow, and “huts”, and hound hunting for wolves and bears, and “barn”, and “threshing floor”, and “svetlitsa”, and, finally, a completely un-Roman dinner:

Satisfying only cabbage soup, a piece of soft bread,
Young lamb sometimes;
Still in the house, what are all its needs,
On holidays he drinks beer, but he always drinks kvass.

Derzhavin turned to Horace’s second epic in 1798 and also “considered” its alteration “with Russian customs and mores.” In the style of his poem, Derzhavin is very close to Trediakovsky, sometimes even reproducing his expressions and lines:

Derzhavin’s “Praise of Rural Life” contains even more signs of Russian life than Trediakovsky’s poem. In addition to those mentioned above, there are “own oxen”, and “re-cleaned” molasses, and a ram, “prepared for Peter’s Day”, and “a pie made with milk mushrooms”, and Horace’s “usurer” turns into a “farmer”.

No less, and perhaps even more important for the development of all Russian poetry of the 1780-1810s than Horace or Jung, was the “ancient Scottish poet-bard Ossian.” In 1765, the Scottish writer D. Macpherson published “The Works of Ossian, son of Fingal,” which he translated from “Gaelic” (Scottish) into English. In the preface to this collection, written by Blair, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, Ossian was declared the Homer of the northern peoples, the creator of epic poems in no way inferior to the Odyssey and the Iliad. In reality, there was no Ossian, and the author of his works was Macpherson himself.

Ossian's poems were a huge European success. Ossian's sentimental and melancholic poetry, elegiac memories of the past, majestic and gloomy pictures of the nature of mountainous Scotland, “opened” for the first time to the literary consciousness of the era - all this made Ossian one of the most powerful inspirers of the poetry of European pre-romanticism. And Derzhavin could not help but be struck in Ossian’s poems by the noisy waterfalls, foamy mountain streams, the sound of the surf, the wind whistling in the expanses of the steppe, fogs on the mountain tops, the moon that looks through the fog or through the night clouds...

In the ode “To the Capture of Izmail” (1790), Derzhavin combined the Russian odic tradition, the techniques of depicting battles developed by Lomonosov and Petrov, with the images of Ossian’s poetry. From Ossian he took “gloomy, terrible silence” at the beginning of the assault, which does not at all fit with the cannonade of three hundred guns; From Ossian they came to the Russian army and the “bard” “ancient”, “ecstatic”, with whom the priest walking in front of the Russian soldiers is compared, and the shadow of a warrior, and the comparison of the “shield” with the “full month”:

Already in Euxine since midnight
Between the waters and the stars lies the fog,
Dense groves float beneath it;
Among them, like mountains, is a fragment of ice
Or the husband baked a gray shadow
Sits, looking around:
Like a full month shield it...

The same “gray-haired man” appears in “Waterfall” (1791) and pronounces a monologue there that expresses the main idea of the ode; in this ode, the landscape also takes on an Ossianic flavor, anticipating Zhukovsky’s night landscapes:

Wavy bank of clouds
They quietly ran past,
Of which, tremulous, pale,
The moon was peeking down.

Many of the landscapes of “Waterfall” were inspired by Derzhavin’s “Songs of the Ancient Bards”:

We also see Ossian’s “masquerade” in Derzhavin’s poems dedicated to wars, in particular Suvorov’s campaigns. Thus, in the ode “On the Crossing of the Alpine Mountains” (1799), Derzhavin recalls Ossian as his inspiration:

But what? Isn't it the spirit of Ossian,
Singer of mists and seas,
It seems to me under the moonlight of Morana,
How did he go against the king of kings?

In another ode of the same time (“For Victories in Italy,” 1799), Derzhavin, with complete conviction of the legality of his actions, mentions Ossian, Scandinavian mythology, and fantastic legends about Rurik. For him, this is all the product of one common northern (“Ossianic”) culture; all this for him is “Varangian-Russian fable,” that is, the mythology of the North in general. Therefore, already in the first stanza of this poem, Ossian’s “oaks” and “harps” are adjacent to the Valkyrie (“Valka”), about which Derzhavin’s explanations give the following information: “The ancient northern peoples, or Varangian-Russians, proclaimed war and gathered for it according to hitting the shield. And they called war maidens or muses “Valkas”:

Strike the silver, sacred one,
Far-ringing, Valka! shield,
Yes, your thunder, echoed,
There will be a noise in the bards' home.
They get up. - A hundred harps sound with strings,
A hundred oak trees are burning before them,
From the bowl of circular dawn
Gray foreheads shine in the darkness.

Next, a typical Ossian warrior appears (he turns out to be Rurik in the third stanza), who is “covered with white waves of fog over his chest and shoulders.” He is “captivated by the singers singing his deeds,” meaning the fabulous “capture of Paris” carried out by the Varangians under the leadership of Rurik.

The significance of Derzhavin Ossianism lies not only in the use of motifs from northern poetry, but also in the desire to reproduce its style. Thus, Derzhavin speaks about the singers glorifying Rurik in the “Ossianic” style:

Depends shines with battle rays Through the darkness of times his praise.

The rays of battle are a complex metaphor, but Derzhavin does not simply include this image in his poem, he connects these “rays of battle” with the “darkness of times” that contrasts them in meaning. Verb shines receives both a concrete and figurative meaning (shines... with rays and glitters... praise), and all together creates the idea of something very ancient, wild and primitive in its power, not entirely understandable to Derzhavin’s contemporaries, but still so , where “something familiar is heard.” It is this feeling of kinship with the world of “Varangian-Russian”, primitive, but “powerful in its wild greatness, poetry that allows Derzhavin to use its imagery to describe the modern hero - Suvorov:

“Behold my,” he says, “the governor!
Brought up in fires, in ice,
Leader of the Storms midnight people
Ninth wave in the sea waves,
A star that has passed the paths of the world..."

In the ode “To the Capture of Warsaw” (1794), Ossian motifs coexist with the Russian epic style:

He steps on the mountains, the mountains crack,
He will lie down on the waters - the waters are boiling,
It touches the hail, the hail falls,
He throws the towers behind the cloud with his hand.

In the mid-1790s, Derzhavin felt the need to sum up his poetic work and determine his place among Russian poets. One after another, he writes poems in which this theme occupies the main place: “To the Lyre” (1794), “My Image” (1794), “The Nightingale” (1795), “Monument” (1795).

In the poem “My Idol” Derzhavin talks about different types of posthumous fame and methods of acquiring it:

It’s easy to make the world thunder with evil,
It's only a step to Herostratus;
But it is difficult to glorify with valor
And reign in the hearts...

While asserting the true glory of the great figures of Russian history - Peter the Great, Pozharsky, Minin, Filaret, Dolgoruky, Derzhavin does not find the same rights to posthumous glory:

You are worthy! - But am I right?
To wish - to be with you?
What will fame say about me?
Am I leading an unknown life?
I did not save the kingdom from destruction,
He did not place kings on the throne,
I did not erase deceit with patience,
Didn't bring me any riches
For sacrifice, to reinforce the throne,
And the law could not protect.

And yet, having gone through and listed everything that he did not accomplish great, remembering all the little that he managed to do in his official positions, Derzhavin finds such a merit of his that can justify the existence of his bust among the remarkable figures of Russia:

But if I have nothing to do,
Why would you dedicate an idol to me?
I dare to impute dignity
That I knew the virtues to honor,
What could Felitsa portray?
Heavenly goodness in the flesh.
What did I sing to that Russian queen,
We can't find any other
Not today, not in the future in the space of the world, -
Boast, my boast, lyre!

So, Derzhavin’s right to a bust, and more broadly, to immortality, is determined, according to his deep and unshakable conviction, by the poetic image of Catherine that he created. In “Monument” (1795) this is expressed with even greater force:

That I was the first to dare in a funny Russian syllable
To proclaim Felitsa’s virtues,
Talk about God in simplicity of heart
And speak the truth to kings with a smile.

“The virtues of Felitsa” and the “truth” expressed to the “kings” - this is how Derzhavin expressed his attitude towards his own literary merits in an extremely laconic form. Derzhavin considered the image of Felitsa he created to be the embodiment of his ideal ideas about what a king, a man on the throne, should be like. Unlike other Russian odic poets, Derzhavin in “Felitsa” made the state activities of Catherine II directly dependent on her human qualities, “virtues,” as he wrote in “Monument.” The absence of these “virtues” turns any figure - not only the king, but even the smallest official - into a slave of his own passions; from a servant of the common good he turns into a low self-seeker. Derzhavin wrote about these violations of moral laws, wherever they occurred, in his poems directed against tyrants and nobles; he meant this position of “jealousy” for the public good when he wrote about “truth”, “with a smile” - that is, in comic-satirical odes - expressed by him to the “kings”.

Derzhavin saw the novelty of his social, and therefore literary position, in this combination of the serious and the funny (“funny”), the ideal and the satirical, in the ability to put lofty thoughts (“truths”) in a comic form.

In the minds of his contemporaries and descendants, Derzhavin remained the singer of the “Catherine Age,” the time of the most magnificent splendor and real power of noble Russia in the 18th century. His pride in “Felitsa” was legitimate and natural, as was his idea of himself as a poet-herald of “truth.” But Derzhavin’s awareness of the need to take stock was also reflected in the feeling of changes in his own work. It was from the mid-1790s that Derzhavin returned to the themes and images of his poems of the second half of the 1770s, finalized and published some of them (“Plamide”, “Nine”, “Peni”, “Separation”) along with new things in in his collection “Anacreontic Songs” (1804). What he once considered only as fun becomes, at the turn of two centuries, the last word in literature, an expression of the ideas of new times. And if in “Monument” (1795) Derzhavin wrote about serving “truth” and about “Felitsa’s virtues”, about his philosophical and religious poems (“talk about God in heartfelt simplicity”), then in the poem “Swan” (1804), Derzhavin defines the essence of his poetry differently. Instead of civil-political, state issues, instead of teaching the tsars (“speak the truth to the tsars with a smile”), Derzhavin appears - a poet of humanity, a poet of home joys and peaceful amusements of private life:

Here is the one flying, building a lyre,
Spoken in the language of the heart
And preaching peace to the world,
Myself made everyone happy.

Derzhavin continued to write odes until the end of his life, he did not miss a single significant event in the political life of Russia, but all this was already poetically cold, devoid of the internal energy of his odes of the 1780s, and boiled down to self-repetition.

Since the mid-1790s, Derzhavin has been achieving poetic achievements in other genres. Instead of the previous idea of a world in which the laws of reason and morality operate, the world in the poet’s mind was divided into two sharply demarcated spheres. The world of politics, the world of history, the world of the Russian solemn ode of Lomonosov, Petrov, Derzhavin was separated in his consciousness and creativity from the world of private human interests, from the everyday course of home life, from intimate feelings, joys and sorrows.

Man has separated from the citizen, and the only force that can connect between “history” and private life, civil society and man with his personal interests is beauty. The birth of beauty brings peace and harmony into the lives of people and the gods themselves, Derzhavin retells the ancient myth:

...and Beauty
Instantly she was born from the waves of the sea.
And only she looked,
Immediately the storm tamed and silence fell...
The gods were silently surprised
With your mouth open at beauty,
And they admitted it in agreement:
Peace and war - from beauty.
("The Birth of Beauty", 1797)

The feeling of beauty, the ability to perceive it - an aesthetic feeling, as we would say today - becomes for Derzhavin the main measure with which he now approaches people. He is convinced that serving the common good is a consequence of a developed aesthetic sense.

Derzhavin wrote in his poem “To the Art Lover” (1791):

The gods turn away their gaze
From someone who doesn't like muses,
The furies give him
There is a callous, rough taste in the heart,
I thirst for gold and silver,
He is the enemy of the common good
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
On the contrary, they look
Gods upon the favorite of the muses;
A tender heart is invested
And elegant delicate taste;
His soul is generous to everyone,
He is a friend of the common good!

These thoughts became incredibly important for Derzhavin precisely in the 1790s. In the poem “To the Lyre” (1794), he again talks about the “Iron Age” and the thirst for wealth, which replaced the love of beauty:

Are the eyelids now made of iron?
Are men harder than flints?
Without knowing you,
The world is not captivated by the game,
Alien to the beauties of goodwill.
Valor is alien to be captivated,
They only strive for gold and silver,
Only they remember themselves;
Tears don't touch them
The cries of hearts do not reach...

The movement of the poet's creative interests from the sphere of state and politics to the sphere of private life caused genre changes in Derzhavin's poetry. Derzhavin now writes short poems.

The unity of Lomonosov's ode is thematic unity: the theme-concept chosen by the poet (light, joy, beauty) runs through the entire ode from beginning to end and gives harmony to its construction and logically justifies the most seemingly unexpected upsurges of poetic “delight.”

Derzhavin tried to follow Lomonosov's thematic structure at the end of the century. Thus, the ode “On the death of Prince Meshchersky” is sealed by the repetition in each stanza of the word “death” (which is also the main philosophical theme), or derivatives from it, or similar in meaning:

Already with teeth death grinding..
The greedy swallows the kingdoms death...
Acceptable with life death my,
To die, let's be born.
Carrying all the pity death stinks...
He just doesn’t remember mortal die
And he expects himself to be eternal;
Comes death to him like a thief,
And life suddenly steals away.
Alas! where there is less fear for us,
There may death get it sooner...
You left this shore of life,
To the shores you dead retired...
Where there is a table of food, there is a coffin;

The tombstones howl there,
And pale death looks at everyone...
Death, awe of nature and fear!..
This day or tomorrow die,
Perfilyev! Of course we should
Why should one be tormented and grieved?
What mortal did your friend not live forever?

The main image-concept of ode (“death”) is in a complex relationship with its contrasting image—the concept of “eternity”:

Like fast waters flowing into the sea,
So in eternity Days and years flow by...
Only a mortal does not think of dying
And be himself he eternal tea...
Take away the happiness, it's possible
You are all temporary here and false:
I'm at the door eternity I'm standing.

But already in the ode “On the Death of Prince Meshchersky” Derzhavin connects neighboring stanzas with each other by repeating one word, with which the listed “thoughts” and images begin. Stanzas six and seven are linked by the repetition of the image of watching death:

Where the faces of feasts were heard,
The tombstones howl there,
And pale death looks at everyone...
Looks at everyone- and on kings,
For whom the world is too small for power;
looks on the magnificent rich,
What are idols in gold and silver;
looks for charm and beauty,
looks to an elevated mind,
looks bold in strength -
And sharpens the blade of the scythe.

The eighth and ninth stanzas are connected in the same way:

The hours had barely passed,
Chaos flew into the abyss,
And all like a dream, your age has passed.
Like a dream like a sweet dream,
My youth has also disappeared...

Such an interstrophic connection expanded the framework of the period beyond the limits of one stanza, created supra-strophic unity, increasing the volume of those verbal masses from which the odic building was built.

This method of syntactically combining two adjacent stanzas began to be widely used by Derzhavin. Thus, in the ode “On the treachery of French indignation and in honor of Prince Pozharsky,” this technique is carried through the entire work:

Unfair roads
To the temple eternal glory don't lead. (13)
They don't take you to the temple- in place frontally
They are the creators of injustice... (14)
And the truth shines forever;
She is one
The grain of all virtues. (21)
Corn immortality and root
Greatness, kindness is the crown... (22)

However, it was only possible to connect two adjacent stanzas in this way, and Derzhavin needed to tie together large verbal groups, and he combines several stanzas with the help of an anaphoric beginning, repeated in three, four, and in “Waterfall” even in seven stanzas in a row. In the ode “For Happiness” (1789), the anaphoric beginning emphasizes the simultaneity of a number of events in European political life with what Catherine II is doing, whose prudence and wisdom Derzhavin praises, ridiculing her European colleagues on the crowns. The entire ode is written as an appeal to the god of happiness, to whom the poet complains about his sad situation, and ironically depicts the general confusion and confusion. A single beginning (“In those days...”) unites stanzas four through thirteen, i.e., 90 lines, but this unification has a purely external, formal, and not “substantive” meaning. For Derzhavin, only the simultaneity of events is important, so he not only lists (in a humorous way) various political conflicts and incidents of 1789, but also within one stanza connects the most diverse facts in nature, meaning and significance:

In those days of human enlightenment,
Just like there are no kikimore phenomena.
How you work miracles for everyone:
You magnetize girls and ladies,
You make gold from stones,
You spit in the eyes of patriotism,
You roll the whole world head over heels;
How fast are your examples?
The whole land is full of cavaliers,
And the whole world became a foreman.

This stanza talks about everything! Mentioned here are the fascination with hypnosis, which in the 18th century was called “animal magnetism”, the Masonic search for the philosopher’s stone, with the help of which they hoped to transform metals into gold, the generous distribution of the Vladimir Order by Catherine II, frequent promotion to the rank of brigadier - events, so to speak, local, Petersburg significance - and next to these bureaucratic-court affairs and gossip is the line - “you spit in the eyes of patriotism,” the meaning of which goes beyond the scope of local news and, obviously, concerns some international relations of Russia that are not entirely clear to us now.

Derzhavin compares phenomena only because they exist simultaneously, and not based on the logic of the development of a certain theme or a combination of two themes, as Lomonosov did.

“For Happiness” is one of those “comic” odes in which Derzhavin allowed himself even greater freedom in choosing facts and expressions than in “Felitsa” or “Reshemysl” (1783), and in order to justify this freedom of tone, in the first An explanation was given for the publication: “...written at Shrovetide” (and in the manuscript it was written “when the author himself was drunk”). With this note, Derzhavin seemed to “justify” himself to the readers for the deviations from the canonical type of laudable ode, which he made in the ode “For Happiness”, turning it, according to the correct definition of G.A. Gukovsky, into a kind of political feuilleton in verse. This “justification” of Derzhavin is clear evidence that he had a very accurate idea of the genre nature of the ode and that the deviations that he made were aesthetically felt only against the background of this idea of the stable form of the laudable ode. Therefore, it is not surprising that almost at the same time as the “comic” ode “For Happiness,” Derzhavin writes quite “serious” odes “Image of Felitsa” and “For the Capture of Ishmael,” in which, especially in the latter, he is close to Lomonosov’s odic style.

In Derzhavin’s great odes, such as “Waterfall”, “Image of Felitsa”, “On the capture of Ishmael”, “On treachery...”, Derzhavin’s departure from Lomonosov’s idea of a high syllable - “equal choice of words”, is clearly visible. Derzhavin defined this stylistic principle of Lomonosov.

The high culture of stylistic selection, created by Lomonosov and adopted by all the poets of Russian classicism, began to be violated in the main poetic genre - the ode, already in Petrov. The syllable of his odes is oversaturated with those “decrepit” Church Slavonic words, the use of which Lomonosov resolutely warned.

Derzhavin began to boldly introduce into the ode words and phrases from the style that Lomonosov called “mean” (that is, low, simple) - words and phrases from the vernacular, which before him had been used only in a fable or an ironic-comic poem. In the ode “On the Death of Prince Meshchersky” pale death for everyone looks- a combination impossible neither among Lomonosov nor among the “bravest” poets of the 1770s.

“Murza,” in whose name the entire presentation in “Felitsa” is conducted, uses words and expressions that, before this ode, had access only to comic poetry, in such genres as the fable or the heroic-comic poem:

And I, having slept until noon,
I smoke tobacco and drink coffee...
Then suddenly, be seduced by the outfit,
I'm off to the tailor for a caftan...
I'm walking under the swing;
I go to the tavern to drink some mead...
With my hat on one side,
I'm flying on a fast runner...
Or, sitting at home, I’ll play a prank,
Playing fools with my wife;
Then I get along with her at the dovecote,
Sometimes we frolic in blind man's buff;
Then I’m having fun with her,
I'm looking for it in my head...

Derzhavin, accustomed to freely disposing of large masses of words in extensive odes (there are more lines in “Waterfall” than in Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman”), it was not easy for him to return to small poetic genres.

Their names are already characteristic - “For a Guest” (1795), “For a Friend” (1795) - which in themselves introduce them to a different, but odic, sphere of life.

The poem “To a Friend” consists of three eight-line stanzas. Each stanza is one complete sentence. The periods do not extend over several stanzas, as was the case in odes.

Let's go today, fragrant
We are drawing air, my friend! to the garden,
Where the elms are light, the pines are dark
They stand in thick clumps;
The one with dear friends
With the friends of your hearts
We planted and raised ourselves;
Now the shadow is pleasant in them.
Let Dasha be stately, black-eyed
And chubby, with her
Swinging his brow, there by the stream,
And the blond one is alive
Lisa flutters like a marshmallow to us
The Cossacks will dance together,
And nectar with fiery sparkle
Their pink hand will give them.
We, sitting there in the shade of the tree,
Let's drink to the health of all people:
First for the lovely female sex,
For your sincere friends;
Then for those who are our villains:
We are pleased to be with some;
Others are like hidden snakes,
We are taught to live carefully.

The small verse space that Derzhavin now began to have at his disposal (some of his poems were “reduced” to sixteen, eight, or even four lines) required a different attitude towards the poetic word. Or rather, only now Derzhavin was faced with the problem of words.

Within the narrow confines of a small poem, every word, every shade of meaning, every new relationship of words or meanings, every form of logical-syntactic connections acquired immeasurably greater importance than was the case with a single word in odes, where the word seemed to be lost in large verbal masses, dissolved in the general element of lyrical inspiration. Derzhavin understood very well the difference between an “ode” and a “song,” by which he understood small lyrical genres: “A song always adheres to one direct direction, and an ode meanderingly moves away to roundabout and side ideas. The song explains one passion, and the ode flies to others. The song has a simple, thin, quiet, sweet, light, pure syllable, and the ode is bold, loud, sublime, blooming, brilliant and sometimes not so much processed... The song removes pictures and ornateness from itself as much as possible, but the ode, on the contrary, , decorated with them. The song is a feeling, and the ode is heat... The song in every verse contains the full meaning and final periods; and in an ode the thought often flies not only into the neighboring stanzas, but also into subsequent stanzas.”

The bizarre, inverted word order is more noticeable in small works than in odes:

Come, my old benefactor,
Creator after twenty years of goodness!
(“Invitation to Dinner”, 1795)

And yet, in these poems, small in number of lines, despite the frequent inconsistencies between genre and style, Derzhavin was able to express in his own way his admiration for beauty in art and in life, genuine admiration for the youth and liveliness of “beauties”, combined with good-natured irony over his own old age. This pathos of singing love and beauty was adopted from Derzhavin by several generations of poets. Batyushkov and young Pushkin owe a lot to Derzhavin’s love lyrics.

Notes

Toroka - straps behind the saddle.

Euxine, Pont Euxine - Black Sea.

Moran is the hero of Ossian's poems.

Liki - a choir of singers.

Derzhavin, until the end of his days, will wear the honorary uniform of the Tsarina’s chosen interlocutor, who conducts a conversation with her “in a funny Russian style,” admitted to the number of those who are allowed “with a smile” to reveal the “truth” to the authorities. In the famous “Monument”, written in the year of Catherine’s death, in 1796, the poet, in retrospect, summing up his poetic experiences of the Catherine era, declares with almost terminological clarity:

That I was the first to dare in a funny Russian syllable

Exclaim about Felitsa’s virtues (496).

Commenting on these lines, L.V. Pumpyansky rightly pointed out the importance of two series of words: “what” and “how” (497). Meanwhile, Derzhavin gave a fairly serious explanation for his poems; behind the seeming non-terminology of the definitions there was a verified political and literary attitude: “The author of all Russian writers was the first who wrote lyrical songs in a simple, funny, light style and jokingly glorified the empress, for which he became famous” (498).

The "what" of his 1780s odes was always focused on Catherine. At the same time, the relationship “poet - king” is replaced by the conditional correlation “Tatar Murza” - “Kyrgyz-Kaisak Queen”. Derzhavin continued to develop the same plot in his subsequent works. “Tatar Murza” turns into a kind of “fairytale” mask, and the real plot of the relationship with the empress is mixed with the fictional one. “True” and “fable” are combined in a plot that cyclizes the works of the poet of this period. Murza emphasizes the intimacy of his relationship with Felitsa, who comes to his house, “secretly” sends gifts, and he, in turn, sings his “Tatar songs” to her, overcoming the intrigues and slander of ill-wishers - “from under the radar” (“ Vision of Murza"), This approach to the depiction of the empress is interpreted as unhypocritical, and the style of description as “simple”. In “Gratitude to Felitsa” of 1783, Derzhavin noted:

When you're in unfeigned

Simplicity pleases the syllable,

Listen... (499)

The point was not only in the playful development of the resulting plot, but also in emphasizing the “outlying” associations that signaled the imperial context of the conversation with the tsar (500). On the other hand, Derzhavin’s constant appeal to Tatar roots was also significant: in the dedicatory poem “Monarch!”, presented to Catherine along with the manuscript of a volume of poems on November 6, 1795, the poet will bring his genealogy to the glorious Bagrim, the ancestor of several noble families, who came from Zolotaya The hordes serve the Grand Duke Vasily the Dark (“The last clan of Bagrim will be forgotten in me” (501)). Genealogy increased the status of the dialogue and allowed the “Tatar Murza” to speak with the tsar on behalf of a “representative of the nobility” who had long been accustomed to serving the authorities. Felice's praises thus came with the sanction of the noble class.

Derzhavin’s praises for the empress are presented as words of “truth”, “truth”, which he “dares” to speak about - despite suspicions of flattery both on the part of the nobles and on the part of the object of glorification. The poet takes upon himself the courage to “read” the strategy of good and happiness in the logic of the empress’s political actions. He addresses this almost “secret” knowledge not to his contemporaries, but to his descendants. It is no coincidence that between “Felitsa” and “Monument” was written “The Vision of Murza” (printed only in 1791, but actively read in literary circles), where the poet declared:

But, crowned virtue!

I sang not flattery and not dreams,

And what the whole world is witness to:

Your deeds are the essence of beauty.

I sang, I sing and I will sing them,

And in jokes the truth I will proclaim;

Tatar songs from under the radar,

Like a ray, I will tell posterity (502).

Derzhavin’s new approach, who defined “truth” as the “merits” of the empress, was taken up by the authors of “Interlocutor.” This was the poetic message of M.V. Sushkova, entitled, in imitation of Derzhavin, “Letter from a Chinese to Tatar Murza, who lives on his business in St. Petersburg.” "M.S.", "obedient servant." living in Moscow, at the same time imitated Catherine herself both in the playful anonymity of the tone and in the creation of a literary mask (in the preface “M.S.” reports that “I was in China and found this paper”:

From the end of the earth, in another we know what is happening;

In Beijing, O Murza, we read your poems,

AND the truth lovingly, we say in agreement:

We see Confucius on the throne of the North.

For about twenty years now glory has been spreading everywhere,

Majesty of soul, wisdom, meekness of disposition,

Laws and deeds are charitable,

With which I elevated myself so much,

Example of earthly Lords, midnight countries Queen,

And today you, Murza, sung by Felitsa (503).

“Interlocutor” cultivates a similar type of “epistolary ode” containing references to Derzhavin’s “Felitsa”. The anonymous author writes in his message “To my friend ***”:

Murza in his poems to Felitsa

Just one true wrote,

Without flattering this wise Queen,

What did she do, he said -

And the sounds of truth rang out,

And tender tears flowed

Everyone has joyful eyes.

I wish I was like Murza

Describe Felitsa's affairs

And just like him, in poetry freely

All my feelings to say... (504)

When Derzhavin wrote about his merits in “Monument” (“And to speak the truth to kings with a smile”), he relied on the tradition he himself created and approved in the circle of “Interlocutor”. In this case, “truth” did not at all mean the “bitter truth” that the poet dared to express to the authorities (as this maxim was repeatedly interpreted in criticism). It was a rhetorical move in which “truth” meant “high appreciation of activity” (“what”), and the definition “with a smile” defined “how”, that is, “funny”, “jokingly”, in the new spirit that replaced old, “frontal”, seriously eloquent complementarity (Petrov, Ruban).

In his later “Discourse on Lyric Poetry, or Rim,” Derzhavin gave a kind of key to understanding his odic strategy, illustrating with a fragment from “Felitsa” a description of the type of ode that he defined as “mixed.” Derzhavin wrote: “In it alone the Poetrator can talk about everything. - Praising the hero, glorify God; describing nature, preaching morals, etc. The diversity of objects produces variety and gives birth to abundance, has the sharpness of the mind like lightning, instantly rushing from one end of the sky to the other, which arouses surprise; but only here common sense, or logic, is very necessary. Because in such mixed odes allegorical and hinted praises are conveniently placed, which, like a subtle fragrance or quiet harmony brought from afar, amuse sensitive and noble hearts more than close and rough thunder, or thick incense smoke directly in the face, then people who have taste like them better. The sudden combination of all distant and near rays, or circumferences, to one point is the height of art. It is something that shakes the soul and is called graceful or lofty” (505).

This retrospective look at his own ode highlights Derzhavin’s poetic strategy and allows him to more correctly answer the questions posed by Pumpyansky - first of all, the question “how”. The poet talks about the orientation of “Felitsa” towards people “with taste”, who in hints and allegories will decipher the object of “praise”, and the sophisticated - allegorical - type of narration, connecting dissimilar objects, “amuses” and shows the “sharpness” of the author. The ability to “funny” smoke incense is the dignity of an ode, according to the poet’s definition. This is exactly how Derzhavin’s contemporaries understood the meaning and content of the ode “Felitsa”.

The birth of a new canon did not go unnoticed by contemporaries. Almost every issue of Sobesednik contained references to the famous ode. The author of eight laudatory odes to Catherine, Ermil Kostrov, appeared on the pages of Sobesednik with a lengthy message to Derzhavin, a kind of nomination of the poet for first place in Russian poetry. In his “Letter to the creator of an ode composed in praise of Felitsa, princess of the Kyrgyz-Kaisaika,” Kostrov declared:

Apparently you are Pinda at the top

And in the fertile valley of pure muses

I went through all the paths and streets;

And to glorify the princess so much.

Comfort, cheer, amuse

You have found a path untrodden and a new one (506).

Kostrov, as he himself writes, expresses the opinion of sophisticated readers who accept new configurations of the ode with pleasure and cannot stop rereading it many times -

So that again funny don't pay attention to toys there (507).

On the pages of “Interlocutor,” Kozodavlev, expressing the opinion of his high patrons, called on Derzhavin to repeat the experience of successfully glorifying Catherine. In the same magazine he publishes “Letter to the Tatar Murza, who composed “Ode to the Wise Felitsa,” where he persistently calls on the poet:

TO fun write good souls in poetry

The deeds of the glorious and wise queen.

Which we honor under the name of Felitsa (508).

In a letter to Grimm dated August 16, 1783, Catherine described the literary aims of the Sobesednika magazine, also using the fashionable word “amusant”: “As for NB and notes, you need to know that four months ago in St. Petersburg it became publish a magazine containing hilarious NBs and notes; this magazine in general a jumble of very funny things. I also provided him with a description of the initial history of Russia; We are quite satisfied with the magazine. NB I say this out of modesty, since he seems to be a complete success” (509).

The word “fun” is becoming synonymous with literary creativity of a new direction. Later, in 1786, in connection with the appearance of Catherine’s comedies, Bogdanovich would confidently declare the principles of a new literary strategy, finding their example in the writings of the monarch herself. In “Poems for the Writer of New Russian Comedies” he writes:

Loving the Fatherland,

Show him the paths of peace, happiness, glory;

Softening the formidable and rude regulations,

The pleasure of usefully interfering with one's own fun,

Fun wish to edit human morals,

Without offending people with another desire,

Are these not deeds worthy of You? (510)

A few years later, in the poem “Dobromysl,” Bogdanovich will point to “the funniest creators” as a whole galaxy of poets; addressing Catherine, he will write:

Finally, you wish that the writer of “Darlings”

Ancient fiction has a simple narrator.

Entered the wide path funniest creators... (511)

“Funny toys”, “funny style” nevertheless meant more than a rejection of odic “soaring” or the ability to give humorous characteristics to nobles, although this was what Derzhavin liked in the first place.

What is Derzhavin’s “funny style”? First of all, it was a stylistic revolution in relation to the theory of “three calms”: Derzhavin dared to write an ode in the “middle” style, allowing for the mixing of all speech layers and playing up this mixture itself (“macaronic” style, as defined by B.A. Uspensky (512) ). It was also important that in this “macaronic” style the correlation between the “high” (throne) and “low” (smoking tobacco by a sleepy nobleman) objects of description was not observed. The lowering of style by one floor in the high genre was a colossal shift in form, interconnected with a shift in content. The cosmology of the ode was destroyed, and instead of macrocosmic space, the Russian emperor found himself in microcosmic space - at his desk, over a glass of lemonade, at a simple dinner.

On the other hand, “low” life was no longer perceived as low and unworthy of the high genre. There was an elevation of the object of description, an awareness of ordinary worldly activities as worthy of the high genre of ode. This double destruction of the odic canon did not at all desacralize power. On the contrary, the system of odic sacralization was illuminated with updated semantic plans.

As V.F. subtly noted. Khodasevich, Ekaterina in “Felitsa” saw herself “beautiful, virtuous, wise” not in the idealized, high odic tradition - she no longer perceived herself that way, but “beautiful, and wise, and virtuous within the limits accessible to man” (513) . Derzhavin identified the empress with that ideally enlightened person of the era whom the authorities themselves wanted to cultivate (including through the “Interlocutor”).

| |

On the morning of June 28, 1762, a palace coup took place in Russia. Two young women joined the conspiracy of the guards officers: the emperor’s wife and her friend Princess Dashkova. In the morning, the future empress visited the Izmailovsky barracks, the Semenovsky regiment, and at the Kazan Cathedral she was enthusiastically greeted by the Horse Guards and musketeers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment.

Down with Peter the Third! - the Preobrazhenites shouted. - We don’t want to go on the Danish campaign!

The young queen shouted:

Take off your Prussian uniforms and wear Russians!

The Preobrazhenites were delighted: after all, Russian uniforms are

Uniforms introduced by Peter the Great! Voices were heard:

Long live Mother Empress!

On the same day, a manifesto was drawn up in the Senate and the new empress was named Catherine II.

On this day, which was followed by 34 years of the reign of Catherine II, the musketeer Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin shouted “hurray”, then the officer, Olonets and Tambov governor, Secretary of State and Minister of Justice of Russia.

For many years, Derzhavin admired the empress. She seemed to him, a convinced supporter of enlightened absolutism, a model of intelligence and charm, kindness and justice. He was ready to write about her, serve her, protect her. Therefore, when the Peasant War broke out under the leadership of Pugachev, Derzhavin, with his characteristic ardor, rushed to defend the interests of his empress. In 1777, his service began in the Senate, where he continued to faithfully serve the “enlightened empress,” in whom he saw a progressive transformer of Russia.

While still a musketeer in the Preobrazhensky Regiment, Derzhavin wrote poetry, to which he did not attach serious importance. These were either songs of praise to the girls they knew, or brave couplets about the guards regiments. Sometimes Derzhavin wrote odes, imitating his poetic idol - the great Lomonosov. Very often the poet-musketeer reproached himself for the fact that he could not stay within the framework of the “high calm”: “Now a colloquial word will pop up, then a soldier’s.”

Derzhavin's first odes, marked by the maturity of his skill and depth of thought and feeling, appeared in the late seventies. One of them - “Felitsa” - written in a simple-minded and relaxed manner, attracted the attention of the poet’s friends. In handwritten lists she became famous in the reading society. Smart people liked her, but court hypocrites outraged her.

The poet borrowed the name “Felitsa” from the moralizing work of Catherine the Great, “The Tale of Prince Chlorus.” Under his pen, the fantastic “Princess of the Kyrgyz-Kaisak Horde” turned into the ideal of an enlightened ruler, the mother of the people, whom he wanted to see in the person of the empress.

“Felitsa” was also discussed at the Academy of Sciences.

Yes, this is just sedition!

“But I like poetry,” said Ekaterina Romanovna

Dashkova, a longtime friend of the Empress who became president

Academy.

An educated and well-read woman, she understood and appreciated the satirical nature of the ode.

No, just listen to what he writes here! - the princess exclaimed:

And I, having slept until noon,

I smoke tobacco and drink coffee;

Transforming everyday life into a holiday,

My thoughts are spinning in chimeras...

In my opinion, we are talking about His Serene Highness Prince Potemkin here.

Yes, this is his portrait, the spitting image!

Ekaterina Romanovna did not like Potemkina. However, she turned out to be right. Already at the end of his life, in his “Explanations,” Derzhavin admitted that both “lazy” and “grump” referred to nobles close to the queen.

In 1783, the ode “Felitsa” was published in the magazine “Interlocutor of Lovers of the Russian Word.” The ode received the “highest approval” and the road to literary activity opened for Derzhavin. Catherine II became interested in the poet, who “knew me so briefly, who knew how to describe me so pleasantly.”

In Derzhavin’s depiction, the queen appears to the reader like this:

Without imitating your Murzas,

You often walk

And the food is the simplest

Happens at your table;

Without valuing your peace,

You read, you write in front of the levy...

In this stanza, the queen is described as a respectable, hardworking person, who differs in this from her lazy, carefree subjects, who often indulge in gluttony and pleasure.

At the end of the ode, Catherine already has divine properties:

You alone are only decent,

Princess! to create light from darkness;

Dividing Chaos into spheres harmoniously,

The union will strengthen their integrity.

It is interesting that after serving as Catherine’s personal secretary for several years, Derzhavin was unable to compose new poems of praise for her. However, he served in all positions honestly, zealously, and devotedly.

In the life and work of the remarkable Russian poet Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin, in his unique, sharply defined character, the era of the 18th century, full of contradictions, was reflected as in a mirror. Derzhavin - decisive and courageous, always direct, independent in judgment, with a developed sense of self-esteem - often aroused strong dissatisfaction on the part of his superiors. After spending several years in the civil service, the poet was forced to retire.

During these difficult years, the poet's literary talent reached its peak. His poems, although without the author's name, appeared in magazines and began to attract the attention of readers. But fame came to Derzhavin only in 1783, after the appearance of his famous ode “Felitsa” (Latin for “happiness”) addressed to Catherine the Great.

During the creation of Felitsa, Derzhavin knew the empress only by rumor and sincerely believed that she was what she tried to show herself to be - an enlightened mother of the Fatherland. This is exactly how Catherine is depicted in his ode. But the work, along with the glorification of the queen, exposes the arrogant, selfish and lazy nobles around her.

Like all writers of the 18th century, Derzhavin was a representative of the classical school, but the poet’s powerful talent was cramped within the strict rules of this direction. Therefore, Derzhavin combined ode and satire in “Felitsa” - two different poems, and created an ode-satire, which became a real literary revolution. The lofty poetry of the ode became simpler and closer to life. Ode "Felitsa" is a civil ode. Derzhavin addressed all civil odes to persons endowed with great political power: monarchs, nobles. Their pathos is not only laudatory, but also accusatory, which is why V. G. Belinsky called some of them satirical. “Felitsa” is dedicated to Catherine II and continues the tradition of Lomonosov’s laudatory odes, but differs sharply from them with a new interpretation of the image of an enlightened monarch. The ode is imbued with an internal unity of thought. Personifying modern society, the poet gracefully praises Felitsa, comparing himself with her and depicting his vices. The image of an enlightened monarch is contrasted with the collective image of the vicious Murza; the author speaks half-jokingly and half-seriously about the merits of Felitsa,

laughs cheerfully at himself. In the ode, according to Gogol, there is a “connection of the highest words with the lowest.”

The novelty of this ode lies in the fact that the image of Felitsa is diverse. Felitsa is both an enlightened monarch and a private citizen. For example, the author depicts the queen’s private life, her habits and character traits:

You often walk

And the food is the simplest

It happens at your table...

Shows the specific deeds of the ruler, her patronage of trade and industry, she is a god who allowed her people a lot: “to ride into foreign regions,” “to look for silver and gold,” “to cut wood,” “to weave, and spin, and sew,” “untying the mind and hands.” On the one hand, Felitsa “enlightens morals,” on the other hand, she views poetry, which she favors, as “delicious lemonade in the summer.” Catherine the writer strives to develop literature in the spirit of protective ideas.

Derzhavin specifically and expressively contrasts his contemporary reign with the previous one:

There with the name Felitsa you can

Scrape out the typo in the line...

But praise for the empress herself is combined with satire of her associates. Murza Derzhavina is the poet himself, frank and sometimes crafty, with many characteristic features of Catherine’s real nobles. Derzhavin's poem reveals in all its completeness and contradictions the image of his contemporary - a natural man, with his ups and downs.

The poet K.I. Kostrov wrote that the “floating” ode no longer provides aesthetic pleasure, and believed that the “simplicity” of Derzhavin’s style deserves special attention. The author himself was also aware of the novelty of “Felitsa” and attributed it to “this kind of work that has never happened in our language.”

Catherine, flattered by Derzhavin’s ode, returned him to service, but the poet, during personal communication with the empress, became convinced that he had too idealized her image in “Felitsa,” refused to write poems of praise to her and began to condemn her environment. In a person, Derzhavin most of all valued the greatness of civil and patriotic feats and with his accusatory works gained fame as one of the founders of civil poetry. Derzhavin’s historical merit lies in his introduction of the “ordinary poetic word” into Russian poetry.

Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin is one of the major poets of the 18th century, the last representative of Russian classicism in literature. His work is absolutely contradictory. Revealing the potential of classicism, Derzhavin at the same time smashed it, paving the way for romantic...

New!
In the history of Russian literature of the eighteenth century, Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin occupies a special place. The famous nineteenth-century critic Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky called Derzhavin’s poems a poetic chronicle of the reign of Catherine the Great....

Derzhavin's work is deeply contradictory. While revealing the possibilities of classicism, he at the same time destroyed it, paving the way for romantic and realistic poetry. Derzhavin’s poetic creativity is extensive and is mainly represented by odes, among which...

Lomonosov was the forerunner of Derzhavin; and Derzhavin is the father of Russian poets... V. G. Belinsky Among my peers you will not meet people who would read the poetry of Gabriel Derzhavin. Nevertheless, every schoolchild knows about his special role in Russian literature....

What themes can you identify in the poem “Monument”?

The high purpose of the poet in society and the people's memory of his work are the leading themes of the “Monument”. You can highlight the themes through which the main ones are revealed. This is the theme of a monument that can withstand the pressure of time and the elements. This is the connection between the glory of the Russian poet and the existence of the Slavic family (“As long as the Slavic family will be honored by the universe...”), the geographic boundaries of this glory. This is also the creative manner of the poet, the creation of which Derzhavin takes credit for. At the same time, two specific works are named - “Felitsa” and “God”. Finally, the muse crowns her brow with the “dawn of immortality.”

What do we, following Derzhavin, understand by a “wonderful” and “eternal” monument, which is harder than metals and “higher than the pyramids”? What is the meaning of the contrast between metal, pyramids and the monument erected by the poet?

A monument, “wonderful, eternal,” which is “harder than metals and higher than the pyramids,” is a deeply spiritual concept, which will later be colorfully and accurately called by Pushkin “not made by hands.” This is the memory of the people, which will honor the works of the poet, which have both specific historical and timeless significance. A material structure will sooner or later be subject to destruction by time; a creative heritage, if it is of spiritual value to society, is not subject to destructive processes.

How is the theme of immortality resolved in the poem? Why is the author sure that his fame will increase after death?

The poet connects the significance of his work with the existence and development of Slavic culture. He views the creation of a new poetic manner as a new and significant contribution to Russian poetry.

What does Derzhavin credit to himself as a poet and person?

He listed his merits laconically and precisely: “to proclaim Felitsa’s virtues in a funny Russian style,” that is, to humanize the image of the reigning empress, to reform the style of the ode, to introduce simplicity and sincerity into the style of philosophical reflection (“God”).

What do you think a “funny Russian syllable” means? Can you give examples of it from Derzhavin’s poetry?

“Funny Russian syllable” is a new stylistic manner introduced by Derzhavin into Russian literature, in which his two central works “Felitsa” and “God” were written. She is characterized by sincerity, absence of solemn affectation, civic courage and love of truth. Derzhavin spoke “truth to the kings” “with a smile,” that is, softening the harshness of moral teachings with a playful tone, but without reducing the depth of objections and disagreements, which we know well from his biography. “A funny Russian syllable” is one of the essential stylistic elements of Derzhavin’s poetry, also called in literary criticism as “the destruction (or, according to A.V. Zapadov, renewal) of the classicist ode.”

It is advisable to cite examples from the above-mentioned works. Thus, contrasting the contemporary reign of Catherine II with the morals of the court of Anna Ioannovna, Derzhavin includes the lines in the ode “Felitsa”:

There are no clownish weddings taking place there, They are not being fried in ice baths, They are not flicking the mustaches of nobles; Princes don’t cluck with their hens, And they don’t dirty their faces with soot.

In the same ode we read an image of the life of a provincial nobleman, although living in the capital. Material from the site

What style is this poem written in? Does it have high style elements? What is the role of Old Church Slavonicisms in the poem?

The poem sounds smoothly, solemnly. We can say that it was written in a high style, based on a combination of both commonly used and outdated Old Church Slavonic vocabulary, giving it a solemn sound. Old Slavicisms help to give special significance to themes that are so important for the poet, for the affirmation of his high mission in society (erected, crushed, decay, universe (truncated form), despised, brow, crown, etc.). And only the stanza about the “funny Russian style” is performed in an average style, it sounds hearty and simple, which fully corresponds to the theme stated in it.