secrets

Fyodor Dostoyevsky - notes from the house of the dead. Notes from the House of the Dead VII. New acquaintances. Petrov

Part one
Introduction
I met Alexander Petrovich Goryanchikov in a small Siberian town. Born in Russia as a nobleman, he became a second-class exile convict for the murder of his wife. After serving 10 years of hard labor, he lived out his life in the town of K. He was a pale and thin man of about thirty-five, small and frail, unsociable and suspicious. Driving past his windows one night, I noticed a light in them and thought he was writing something.

Returning to the town about three months later, I learned that Alexander Petrovich had died. His mistress gave me his papers. Among them was a notebook describing the hard labor life of the deceased. These notes - "Scenes from the House of the Dead," as he called them - struck me as curious. I'm choosing a few chapters to try.

I. Dead house
Ostrog stood at the ramparts. The large yard was surrounded by a fence of high pointed pillars. There were strong gates in the fence, guarded by sentries. Here was a special world, with its own laws, clothes, customs and customs.

Along the sides of the wide courtyard stretched two long one-story barracks for prisoners. In the depths of the courtyard - a kitchen, cellars, barns, sheds. In the middle of the courtyard there is a flat platform for checking and roll calls. Between the buildings and the fence there was a large space where some prisoners liked to be alone.

At night we were locked up in the barracks, a long and stuffy room lit by tallow candles. In winter they locked up early, and for four hours in the barracks there was a din, laughter, curses and the ringing of chains. There were about 250 people permanently in prison. Each strip of Russia had its representatives here.

Most of the prisoners are exile-convicts of the civil category, criminals deprived of any rights, with branded faces. They were sent for terms of 8 to 12 years, and then sent across Siberia to the settlement. Military-grade criminals were sent for short periods, and then returned to where they came from. Many of them returned to prison for repeated crimes. This category was called "always". Criminals were sent to the "special department" from all over Rus'. They did not know their term and worked more than the rest of the convicts.

On a December evening I entered this strange house. I had to get used to the fact that I would never be alone. The prisoners did not like to talk about the past. Most were able to read and write. The ranks were distinguished by colorful clothing and differently shaved heads. Most of the convicts were gloomy, envious, vain, boastful and touchy people. Most of all, the ability to be surprised at nothing was valued.

Endless gossip and intrigues were conducted around the barracks, but no one dared to rebel against the internal charters of the prison. There were outstanding characters who obeyed with difficulty. People came to prison who committed crimes out of vanity. Such newcomers quickly realized that there was no one to surprise here, and they fell into the general tone of special dignity that was adopted in prison. Cursing was elevated to a science, which was developed by incessant quarrels. Strong people did not enter into quarrels, they were reasonable and obedient - this was beneficial.

They hated hard labor. Many in the prison had their own business, without which they could not survive. The prisoners were forbidden to have tools, but the authorities turned a blind eye to this. All sorts of crafts met here. Work orders were obtained from the city.

Money and tobacco saved from scurvy, and work saved from crime. Despite this, both work and money were forbidden. Searches were carried out at night, everything forbidden was taken away, so the money was immediately drunk away.

The one who did not know how, became a dealer or usurer. even government items were accepted on bail. Almost everyone had a chest with a lock, but this did not save them from theft. There were also kissers who sold wine. Former smugglers quickly put their skills to good use. There was another constant income - alms, which were always divided equally.

II. First Impressions
I soon realized that the severity of the hard labor of work was that it was forced and useless. In winter, government work was scarce. Everyone returned to prison, where only a third of the prisoners were engaged in their craft, the rest gossiped, drank and played cards.

It was stuffy in the barracks in the mornings. In each barracks there was a prisoner who was called a paratrooper and did not go to work. He had to wash the bunk beds and floors, take out the night tub and bring two buckets of fresh water - for washing and for drinking.

At first they looked at me askance. Former nobles in hard labor will never be recognized as their own. We were especially hit at work, for the fact that we had little strength, and we could not help them. The Polish gentry, of whom there were five people, were not loved even more. There were four Russian nobles. One is a spy and informer, the other is a parricide. The third was Akim Akimych, a tall, thin eccentric, honest, naive and accurate.

He served as an officer in the Caucasus. One neighboring prince, who was considered peaceful, attacked his fortress at night, but unsuccessfully. Akim Akimych shot this prince in front of his detachment. He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted and exiled to Siberia for 12 years. The prisoners respected Akim Akimych for his accuracy and skill. There was no trade that he did not know.

While waiting in the workshop to change the shackles, I asked Akim Akimych about our major. He turned out to be a dishonorable and evil man. He looked upon the prisoners as if they were his enemies. In prison, they hated him, feared him like the plague, and even wanted to kill him.

Meanwhile, several kalashnits appeared in the workshop. Until adulthood, they sold kalachi baked by their mothers. Growing up, they sold very different services. This was fraught with great difficulties. It was necessary to choose a time, a place, make an appointment and bribe the escorts. But still, I sometimes managed to be a witness to love scenes.

The prisoners ate in shifts. During my first dinner among the prisoners, a conversation came up about some Gazin. The Pole, who was sitting next to him, said that Gazin was selling wine and wasting his earnings on drink. I asked why many prisoners look at me askance. He explained that they were angry with me for being a noble, many of them would like to humiliate me, and added that I would face more trouble and scolding.

III. First Impressions
Prisoners valued money as much as freedom, but it was difficult to keep it. Either the major took the money, or they stole their own. Subsequently, we gave the money for safekeeping to the old Old Believer, who came to us from the Starodubov settlements.

He was a small, gray-haired old man of sixty, calm and quiet, with clear, bright eyes, surrounded by small radiant wrinkles. The old man, along with other fanatics, set fire to the church of the same faith. As one of the instigators, he was exiled to hard labor. The old man was a wealthy tradesman, he left his family at home, but with firmness he went into exile, considering it "torment for the faith." The prisoners respected him and were sure that the old man could not steal.

It was sad in the prison. The prisoners were drawn to go on a spree for all their capital in order to forget their longing. Sometimes a person worked for several months only to spend all his earnings in one day. Many of them liked to make bright new clothes for themselves and go to the barracks on holidays.

The wine trade was a risky but rewarding business. For the first time, the kisser himself brought wine into the prison and sold it profitably. After the second and third time, he established a real trade and got agents and assistants who took risks in his place. The agents were usually squandered revelers.

During the first days of my imprisonment, I became interested in a young prisoner named Sirotkin. He was no more than 23 years old. He was considered one of the most dangerous war criminals. He ended up in jail for killing his company commander, who was always dissatisfied with him. Sirotkin was friends with Gazin.

Gazin was a Tatar, very strong, tall and powerful, with a disproportionately huge head. In prison they said that he was a fugitive military man from Nerchinsk, was exiled to Siberia more than once, and finally ended up in a special department. In prison, he behaved prudently, did not quarrel with anyone and was not sociable. It was obvious that he was not stupid and cunning.

All the brutality of Gazin's nature manifested itself when he got drunk. He flew into a terrible rage, grabbed a knife and rushed at people. The prisoners found a way to deal with it. About ten people rushed at him and started beating him until he lost consciousness. Then he was wrapped in a short fur coat and taken to the bunk. The next morning he got up healthy and went to work.

Bursting into the kitchen, Gazin began to find fault with me and my comrade. Seeing that we had decided to remain silent, he trembled with rage, grabbed a heavy bread tray and swung it. Despite the fact that the murder threatened trouble for the entire prison, everyone quieted down and waited - to such an extent was their hatred for the nobles. Just as he was about to lower the tray, someone called out that his wine had been stolen, and he rushed out of the kitchen.

All evening I was occupied with the thought of the inequality of punishment for the same crimes. Sometimes crimes cannot be compared. For example, one stabbed a man just like that, and the other killed, defending the honor of the bride, sister, daughter. Another difference is in the punished people. An educated person with a developed conscience will judge himself for his crime. The other does not even think about the murder he committed and considers himself right. There are also those who commit crimes in order to get into hard labor and get rid of a hard life in the wild.

IV. First Impressions
After the last verification from the authorities, an invalid remained in the barracks, observing order, and the eldest of the prisoners, appointed by the parade-major for good behavior. Akim Akimych turned out to be the eldest in our barracks. The prisoners paid no attention to the disabled person.

The prison authorities have always been wary of the prisoners. The prisoners were aware that they were afraid, and this gave them courage. The best leader for prisoners is the one who is not afraid of them, and the prisoners themselves are pleased with such trust.

In the evening, our barracks took on a homely look. A bunch of revelers sat around the rug for cards. Each barracks had a convict who rented out a rug, a candle, and greasy cards. All this was called "Maidan". The servant at the Maidan stood on guard all night and warned of the appearance of a parade-major or guards.

My seat was on the bunk by the door. Akim Akimych was placed next to me. On the left was a bunch of Caucasian highlanders convicted of robbery: three Dagestan Tatars, two Lezgins and one Chechen. Dagestan Tatars were siblings. The youngest, Alei, a handsome guy with big black eyes, was about 22 years old. They ended up in hard labor for robbing and slaughtering an Armenian merchant. The brothers loved Alei very much. Despite outward softness, Alei had a strong character. He was fair, smart and modest, avoiding quarrels, although he knew how to stand up for himself. Within a few months I taught him to speak Russian. Aley mastered several crafts, and the brothers were proud of him. With the help of the New Testament, I taught him to read and write in Russian, which earned him the gratitude of his brothers.

Poles in hard labor were a separate family. Some of them were educated. An educated person in penal servitude must get used to an environment alien to him. Often the same punishment for all becomes ten times more painful for him.

Of all the convicts, the Poles loved only the Jew Isaiah Fomich, a 50-year-old man who looked like a plucked chicken, small and weak. He came on a murder charge. It was easy for him to live in hard labor. As a jeweler, he was inundated with work from the city.

There were also four Old Believers in our barracks; several Little Russians; a young convict of 23 years of age who killed eight people; a bunch of counterfeiters and a few grim personalities. All this flashed before me on the first evening of my new life amid smoke and soot, with the ringing of shackles, amid curses and shameless laughter.

V. First month
Three days later I went to work. At that time, among the hostile faces, I could not discern a single benevolent one. Akim Akimych was the friendliest of all with me. Next to me was another person whom I got to know well only after many years. It was the prisoner Sushilov, who served me. I also had another servant, Osip, one of the four cooks chosen by the prisoners. The cooks did not go to work, and at any moment they could refuse this position. Osip was chosen for several years in a row. He was an honest and meek man, although he came for smuggling. Together with other chefs, he traded wine.

Osip cooked food for me. Sushilov himself began doing laundry for me, running around on various errands and mending my clothes. He could not serve anyone. Sushilov was a pitiful, unrequited and downtrodden man by nature. The conversation was given to him with great difficulty. He was of medium height and of undetermined appearance.

The prisoners laughed at Sushilov because he was replaced on the way to Siberia. To change means to exchange name and fate with someone. This is usually done by prisoners who have a long term of hard labor. They find fools like Sushilov and deceive them.

I looked at the penal servitude with greedy attention, I was struck by such phenomena as the meeting with the prisoner A-vym. He was from the nobility and reported to our parade-major about everything that was happening in the prison. Having quarreled with his relatives, A-ov left Moscow and arrived in St. Petersburg. To get money, he went on a vile denunciation. He was convicted and exiled to Siberia for ten years. Hard labor untied his hands. For the sake of satisfying his brutal instincts, he was ready for anything. It was a monster, cunning, smart, beautiful and educated.

VI. First month
I had several rubles hidden in the binding of the Gospel. This book with money was presented to me in Tobolsk by other exiles. There are people in Siberia who unselfishly help the exiles. In the city where our prison was located, there lived a widow, Nastasya Ivanovna. She could not do much because of poverty, but we felt that there, behind the prison, we had a friend.

During these first days I thought about how I would place myself in prison. I decided to do what my conscience dictates. On the fourth day I was sent to dismantle the old state-owned barges. This old material was worth nothing, and the prisoners were sent in order not to sit idly by, which the prisoners themselves well understood.

They set to work sluggishly, reluctantly, clumsily. An hour later, the conductor came and announced the lesson, after completing which it would be possible to go home. The prisoners quickly got down to business, and went home tired, but satisfied, although they won only some half an hour.

I interfered everywhere, I was almost driven away with abuse. When I stepped aside, they immediately shouted that I was a bad worker. They were glad to mock the former nobleman. Despite this, I decided to keep myself as simple and independent as possible, without being afraid of their threats and hatred.

According to their concepts, I had to behave like a white-handed nobleman. They would scold me for it, but would respect me inwardly. Such a role was not for me; I promised myself not to belittle before them either my education or my way of thinking. If I began to fawn and familiarize with them, they would think that I do it out of fear, and they would treat me with contempt. But I didn't want to close myself in front of them.

In the evening I wandered alone behind the barracks and suddenly saw Sharik, our cautious dog, quite large, black with white spots, with intelligent eyes and a fluffy tail. I petted her and gave her some bread. Now, returning from work, I hurried behind the barracks with Sharik squealing with joy, clasping his head, and a bittersweet feeling ached at my heart.

VII. New acquaintances. Petrov
I got used to it. I no longer wandered about the prison as if lost, the curious glances of the convicts did not stop at me so often. I was struck by the frivolity of convicts. A free man hopes, but he lives, acts. The hope of a prisoner is of a completely different kind. Even terrible criminals, chained to the wall, dream of walking around the prison yard.

For the love of work, the convicts mocked me, but I knew that the work would save me, and did not pay attention to them. The engineering authorities facilitated the work of the nobles, as weak and inept people. Three or four people were appointed to burn and crush the alabaster, headed by the master Almazov, a stern, swarthy and lean man in years, unsociable and grumpy. Another job I was sent to was to turn a grinding wheel in a workshop. If something big was carved, another nobleman was sent to help me. This work remained with us for several years.

Gradually, my circle of acquaintances began to expand. The first to visit me was the prisoner Petrov. He lived in a special section, in the most distant barracks from me. Petrov was not tall, of strong build, with a pleasing broad-cheeked face and a bold look. He was about 40 years old. He spoke to me at ease, behaved decently and delicately. This relationship continued between us for several years and never got closer.

Petrov was the most determined and fearless of all the convicts. His passions, like hot coals, were sprinkled with ashes and quietly smoldered. He rarely quarreled, but he was not friendly with anyone. He was interested in everything, but he remained indifferent to everything and wandered about the prison without doing anything. Such people show themselves sharply at critical moments. They are not the instigators of the case, but its main executors. They are the first to jump over the main obstacle, everyone rushes after them and blindly goes to the last line, where they lay their heads.

VIII. Decisive people. Luchka
There were few decisive people in hard labor. At first I avoided these people, but then I changed my views even on the most terrible killers. It was difficult to form an opinion about some crimes, there was so much strange in them.

The prisoners liked to boast of their "exploits". Once I heard a story about how prisoner Luka Kuzmich killed a major for his own pleasure. This Luka Kuzmich was a small, thin, young Ukrainian prisoner. He was boastful, arrogant, proud, the convicts did not respect him and called him Luchka.

Luchka told his story to a dull and narrow-minded, but kind guy, a neighbor in the bunk, prisoner Kobylin. Luchka spoke loudly: he wanted everyone to hear him. This happened during shipping. With him sat a man of 12 crests, tall, healthy, but meek. The food is bad, but the major twirls them, as his grace pleases. Luchka excited crests, they demanded a major, and he himself took a knife from a neighbor in the morning. The major ran in, drunk, screaming. "I am a king, I am a god!" Luchka crept closer, and stuck a knife in his stomach.

Unfortunately, such expressions as: "I am a king, I am a god" were used by many officers, especially those who came from the lower ranks. Before the authorities they are subservient, but for the subordinates they become unlimited masters. This is very annoying to the prisoners. Each prisoner, no matter how humiliated he may be, demands respect for himself. I saw what effect the noble and kind officers produced on these humiliated ones. They, like children, began to love.

For the murder of an officer, Luchka was given 105 lashes. Although Luchka killed six people, no one was afraid of him in prison, although in his heart he dreamed of being known as a terrible person.

IX. Isai Fomich. Bath. Baklushin's story
Four days before Christmas we were taken to the bathhouse. Isai Fomich Bumshtein rejoiced most of all. It seemed that he did not regret at all that he had ended up in hard labor. He did only jewelry work and lived richly. City Jews patronized him. On Saturdays, he went under escort to the city synagogue and waited for the end of his twelve-year term in order to get married. It was a mixture of naivety, stupidity, cunning, insolence, innocence, timidity, boastfulness and impudence. Isai Fomich served everyone for entertainment. He understood this and was proud of his importance.

There were only two public baths in the city. The first was paid, the other - dilapidated, dirty and cramped. They took us to this bath. The prisoners were glad that they would leave the fortress. In the bath, we were divided into two shifts, but despite this, it was crowded. Petrov helped me to undress - because of the shackles, this was a difficult task. The prisoners were given a small piece of state-owned soap, but right there, in the dressing room, in addition to soap, it was possible to buy sbiten, rolls and hot water.

The bath was like hell. A hundred people crowded into a small room. Petrov bought a place on a bench from some man, who immediately darted under the bench, where it was dark, dirty, and everything was occupied. All this screamed and cackled to the sound of chains dragging along the floor. Mud poured from all sides. Baklushin brought hot water, and Petrov washed me with such ceremonies, as if I were porcelain. When we got home, I treated him to a pigtail. I invited Baklushin to tea.

Everyone loved Baklushin. He was a tall guy, about 30 years old, with a dashing and ingenuous face. He was full of fire and life. Acquainted with me, Baklushin said that he was from the cantonists, served in the pioneers and was loved by some high-ranking persons. He even read books. Coming to tea with me, he announced to me that there would soon be a theatrical performance, which the prisoners staged in prison on holidays. Baklushin was one of the main instigators of the theatre.

Baklushin told me that he served as a non-commissioned officer in a garrison battalion. There he fell in love with a German woman, the washerwoman Louise, who lived with her aunt, and decided to marry her. Expressed a desire to marry Louise and her distant relative, a middle-aged and wealthy watchmaker, German Schulz. Louise was not against this marriage. A few days later it became known that Schultz had made Louise swear not to meet Baklushin, that the German was holding them with her aunt in a black body, and that the aunt would meet with Schultz on Sunday in his shop in order to finally agree on everything. On Sunday, Baklushin took a gun, went to the store and shot Schultz. For two weeks after that, he was happy with Louise, and then he was arrested.

X. Feast of the Nativity of Christ
Finally, the holiday came, from which everyone expected something. By evening, the invalids who went to the market brought a lot of provisions. Even the most thrifty prisoners wanted to celebrate Christmas with dignity. On this day, the prisoners were not sent to work, there were three such days a year.

Akim Akimych had no family memories - he grew up as an orphan in a strange house and from the age of fifteen he went to hard service. He was not especially religious, so he prepared to celebrate Christmas not with dreary memories, but with quiet good manners. He did not like to think and lived by the rules established forever. Only once in his life did he try to live with his mind - and ended up in hard labor. He deduced from this a rule - never reason.

In the military barracks, where bunks stood only along the walls, the priest held a Christmas service and consecrated all the barracks. Immediately after that, the parade-major and the commandant arrived, whom we loved and even respected. They walked around all the barracks and congratulated everyone.

Gradually, the people walked around, but there were much more sober ones, and there was someone to look after the drunk. Gazin was sober. He intended to walk at the end of the holiday, having collected all the money from the prisoner's pockets. Songs were heard throughout the barracks. Many walked around with their own balalaikas, in a special department even a choir of eight people was formed.

Meanwhile, dusk was beginning. Among the drunkenness, sadness and longing peeped through. The people wanted to have a fun great holiday - and what a heavy and sad day this day was for almost everyone. In the barracks it became unbearable and disgusting. I felt sad and sorry for all of them.

XI. Performance
On the third day of the holiday, a performance took place in our theater. We did not know whether our parade-major knew about the theatre. For such a person as a parade-major, it was necessary to take away something, deprive someone of the right. The senior non-commissioned officer did not contradict the prisoners, taking their word that everything would be quiet. The poster was written by Baklushin for the gentlemen of the officers and noble visitors who honored our theater with their visit.

The first play was called "Filatka and Miroshka Rivals", in which Baklushin played Filatka, and Sirotkin - Filatka's bride. The second play was called "Kedril the Glutton". In conclusion, a "pantomime to the music" was presented.

The theater was staged in a military barracks. Half of the room was given to the audience, the other half was the stage. The curtain stretched across the barracks was painted with oil paint and sewn from canvas. In front of the curtain there were two benches and several chairs for officers and outsiders, which were not moved during the whole holiday. Behind the benches were the prisoners, and there was incredible crowding.

The crowd of spectators, squeezed from all sides, with blissful faces, was waiting for the start of the performance. A gleam of childish joy shone on the branded faces. The prisoners were delighted. They were allowed to have fun, forget about the shackles and long years of imprisonment.

Part two
I. Hospital
After the holidays, I fell ill and went to our military hospital, in the main building of which there were 2 prison wards. Sick prisoners announced their illness to a non-commissioned officer. They were recorded in a book and sent with an escort to the battalion infirmary, where the doctor recorded the really sick in the hospital.

The appointment of drugs and the distribution of portions was carried out by the intern, who was in charge of the prison wards. We were dressed in hospital linen, I walked along a clean corridor and found myself in a long, narrow room, where there were 22 wooden beds.

There were few seriously ill patients. To my right lay a counterfeiter, a former clerk, the illegitimate son of a retired captain. He was a stocky guy of about 28, not stupid, cheeky, confident in his innocence. He told me in detail about the order in the hospital.

Following him, a patient from the correctional company approached me. It was already a gray-haired soldier named Chekunov. He began to serve me, which caused several poisonous ridicule from a consumptive patient named Ustyantsev, who, frightened of punishment, drank a mug of wine infused with tobacco and poisoned himself. I felt that his anger was directed more at me than at Chekunov.

All diseases were collected here, even venereal ones. There were also a few who came just to “relax”. The doctors let them in out of compassion. Externally, the ward was relatively clean, but we did not show off the internal cleanliness. Patients got used to it and even believed that it was necessary. Those punished by gauntlets were met with us very seriously and silently looked after the unfortunate. The paramedics knew that they were handing over the beaten man to experienced hands.

After an evening visit to the doctor, the ward was locked, bringing into it a night tub. At night, the prisoners were not allowed out of the wards. This useless cruelty was explained by the fact that the prisoner would go out to the toilet at night and run away, despite the fact that there was a window with an iron grate, and an armed sentry accompanied the prisoner to the toilet. And where to run in winter in hospital clothes. From the shackles of a convict, no disease saves. For the sick, the shackles are too heavy, and this heaviness aggravates their suffering.

II. Continuation
The doctors went around the wards in the morning. Before them, our resident, a young but knowledgeable doctor, visited the ward. Many doctors in Rus' enjoy the love and respect of the common people, despite the general distrust of medicine. When the intern noticed that the prisoner came to rest from work, he wrote down a non-existent illness for him and left him to lie. The senior doctor was much more severe than the intern, and for this we respected him.

Some patients asked to be discharged with their backs not healed from the first sticks, in order to get out of court as soon as possible. For some, habit helped to endure punishment. The prisoners spoke with unusual good nature about how they were beaten and about those who beat them.

However, not all stories were cold-blooded and indifferent. They talked about Lieutenant Zherebyatnikov with indignation. He was a man in his 30s, tall, fat, with ruddy cheeks, white teeth, and a booming laugh. He loved to whip and punish with sticks. The lieutenant was a refined gourmet in the executive business: he invented various unnatural things in order to pleasantly tickle his fat-swollen soul.

Lieutenant Smekalov, who was the commander at our prison, was remembered with joy and pleasure. The Russian people are ready to forget any torment for one kind word, but Lieutenant Smekalov has gained particular popularity. He was a simple man, even kind in his own way, and we recognized him as our own.

III. Continuation
In the hospital, I got a visual representation of all kinds of punishments. All those punished with gauntlets were reduced to our chambers. I wanted to know all the degrees of sentences, I tried to imagine the psychological state of those going to be executed.

If the prisoner could not withstand the prescribed number of blows, then, according to the doctor's sentence, this number was divided into several parts. The prisoners endured the execution itself courageously. I noticed that the rods in large quantities are the heaviest punishment. With five hundred rods, a person can be whipped to death, and five hundred sticks can be carried without danger to life.

Almost every person has the properties of an executioner, but they develop unevenly. Executioners are of two types: voluntary and forced. To the forced executioner, the people experience an unaccountable, mystical fear.

A forced executioner is an exiled prisoner who has been apprenticed to another executioner and left forever at the jail, where he has his own household and is under guard. The executioners have money, they eat well, they drink wine. The executioner cannot punish weakly; but for a bribe, he promises the victim that he will not beat her very painfully. If his proposal is not agreed, he punishes barbarously.

Being in the hospital was boring. The arrival of a newcomer has always produced a revival. They even rejoiced at the madmen who were brought to trial. The defendants pretended to be crazy in order to get rid of punishment. Some of them, after playing tricks for two or three days, subsided and asked to be discharged. The real lunatics were the punishment for the whole ward.

The seriously ill loved to be treated. Bloodletting was accepted with pleasure. Our banks were of a special kind. The machine that cuts the skin, the paramedic lost or ruined, and had to make 12 cuts for each jar with a lancet.

The saddest time came late in the evening. It became stuffy, vivid pictures of a past life were recalled. One night I heard a story that seemed to me like a feverish dream.

IV. Akulkin's husband
I woke up late at night and heard two people whispering to each other not far from me. The narrator Shishkov was still young, about 30 years old, a civilian prisoner, an empty, eccentric and cowardly man of small stature, thin, with restless or stupidly thoughtful eyes.

It was about the father of Shishkov's wife, Ankudim Trofimych. He was a wealthy and respected old man of 70 years old, had auctions and a large loan, kept three workers. Ankudim Trofimych was married a second time, had two sons and an older daughter, Akulina. Shishkov's friend Filka Morozov was considered her lover. At that time, Filka's parents died, and he was going to skip the inheritance and join the soldiers. He did not want to marry Akulka. Shishkov then also buried his father, and his mother worked for Ankudim - she baked gingerbread for sale.

One day, Filka persuaded Shishkov to smear Akulka's gates with tar - Filka did not want her to marry an old rich man who wooed her. He heard that there were rumors about Akulka, and he backtracked. Mother advised Shishkov to marry Akulka - now no one took her in marriage, and they gave her a good dowry.

Until the very wedding, Shishkov drank without waking up. Filka Morozov threatened to break all his ribs, and to sleep with his wife every night. Ankudim shed tears at the wedding, he knew that his daughter was being tortured. And Shishkov had a whip with him before the wedding, and decided to make fun of Akulka so that she would know how to get married by dishonorable deceit.

After the wedding, they left them with Akulka in a cage. She sits white, not a blood in her face from fear. Shishkov prepared a whip and laid it by the bed, but Akulka turned out to be innocent. He then knelt before her, asked for forgiveness, and vowed to take revenge on Filka Morozov for the shame.

Some time later, Filka offered Shishkov to sell his wife to him. To force Shishkov, Filka started a rumor that he did not sleep with his wife, because he was always drunk, and at that time his wife accepted others. It was a shame to Shishkov, and since then he began to beat his wife from morning to evening. Old Ankudim came to intercede, and then retreated. Shishkov did not allow his mother to interfere, he threatened to kill her.

Filka, meanwhile, completely drank himself and went as a mercenary to a tradesman, for his eldest son. Filka lived with the tradesman for his own pleasure, drank, slept with his daughters, dragged the owner by the beard. The tradesman endured - Filka had to go to the soldiers for his eldest son. When Filka was being taken to the soldiers to surrender, he saw Akulka along the way, stopped, bowed to her in the ground and asked for forgiveness for his meanness. Akulka forgave him, and then told Shishkov that now she loves Filka more than death.

Shishkov decided to kill Akulka. At dawn, he harnessed the cart, went with his wife to the forest, to a remote place, and there he cut her throat with a knife. After that, fear attacked Shishkov, he left both his wife and the horse, and he ran home to his behinds, and huddled in the bathhouse. In the evening they found dead Akulka and found Shishkov in the bathhouse. And now he has been in hard labor for the fourth year.

V. Summertime
Easter was approaching. Summer work has begun. The coming spring excited the shackled man, gave rise to desires and longing in him. At this time, vagrancy began throughout Russia. Life in the woods, free and adventurous, had a mysterious charm to those who experienced it.

One prisoner out of a hundred decides to run away, the remaining ninety-nine only dream about it. Defendants and those convicted for long terms run away much more often. After serving two or three years of hard labor, the prisoner prefers to finish his term and go to the settlement than to risk and die in case of failure. All these runners themselves come to prisons to spend the winter by autumn, hoping to run again in the summer.

My anxiety and longing grew with each passing day. The hatred that I, a nobleman, aroused in the prisoners, poisoned my life. On Easter, we got one egg and a slice of wheat bread from the authorities. Everything was exactly like at Christmas, only now it was possible to walk and bask in the sun.

Summer work was much harder than winter work. The prisoners built, dug the ground, laid bricks, and were engaged in plumbing, carpentry or painting work. I either went to the workshop, or to the alabaster, or was a brick carrier. I got stronger from work. Physical strength is necessary in penal servitude, but I wanted to live even after prison.

In the evenings, crowds of prisoners walked around the yard, discussing the most ridiculous rumors. It became known that an important general was coming from St. Petersburg to revise the whole of Siberia. At this time, an incident happened in the prison, which did not excite the major, but gave him pleasure. One prisoner in a fight poked another in the chest with an awl.

The prisoner who committed the crime was called Lomov. The victim, Gavrilka, was one of hardened vagabonds. Lomov was from the wealthy peasants of the K-sky district. All the Lomovs lived as a family, and, in addition to legal affairs, were engaged in usury, harboring vagrants and stolen property. Soon the Lomovs decided that there was no justice for them, and they began to take more and more risks in various lawless enterprises. Not far from the village they had a large farm where about six Kirghiz robbers lived. One night they were all slaughtered. The Lomovs were accused of killing their workers. During the investigation and trial, their entire fortune went to dust, and their uncle and nephew Lomov ended up in our penal servitude.

Soon, Gavrilka, a rogue and a vagabond, appeared in the prison, who took the blame for the death of the Kirghiz on himself. The Lomovs knew that Gavrilka was a criminal, but they did not quarrel with him. And suddenly Uncle Lomov stabbed Gavrilka with an awl because of the girl. The Lomovs lived in prison as rich people, for which the major hated them. Lomov was tried, although the wound turned out to be a scratch. The offender was given a term and passed through a thousand. The Major was pleased.

On the second day after our arrival in the city, the inspector came to visit us in the prison. He entered sternly and majestically, followed by a large retinue. In silence, the general walked around the barracks, looked into the kitchen, and tasted the cabbage soup. He was pointed to me: they say, from the nobility. The general nodded his head, and two minutes later he left the prison. The prisoners were blinded, puzzled, and left bewildered.

VI. convict animals
The purchase of Gnedok entertained the prisoners much more than the high visit. In the prison, a horse was supposed to be used for household needs. One fine morning she died. The major ordered the immediate purchase of a new horse. The purchase was entrusted to the prisoners themselves, among whom were real connoisseurs. It was a young, beautiful and strong horse. He soon became the favorite of the whole prison.

The prisoners loved animals, but in prison it was not allowed to breed a lot of livestock and poultry. In addition to Sharik, two more dogs lived in prison: Belka and Stump, which I brought home from work as a puppy.

We got geese by accident. They amused the prisoners and even became famous in the city. The whole brood of geese went to work with the prisoners. They always joined the largest party and grazed nearby at work. When the party moved back to the prison, they also got up. But, despite their loyalty, they were all ordered to be slaughtered.

The goat Vaska appeared in the prison as a small, white kid and became a common favorite. A big goat with long horns grew out of Vaska. He also got into the habit of going to work with us. Vaska would have lived in prison for a long time, but one day, returning at the head of the prisoners from work, he caught the eye of the major. Immediately it was ordered to slaughter the goat, sell the skin, and give the meat to the prisoners.

An eagle also lived with us in prison. Someone brought him to prison, wounded and exhausted. He lived with us for three months and never left his corner. Lonely and angrily, he expected death, not trusting anyone. In order for the eagle to die in the wild, the prisoners threw it off the rampart into the steppe.

VII. Claim
It took me almost a year to come to terms with life in prison. Other prisoners could not get used to this life either. Restlessness, vehemence and impatience were the most characteristic features of this place.

Dreaminess gave the prisoners a gloomy and gloomy look. They didn't like to put their hopes on display. Integrity and frankness were despised. And if someone began to dream aloud, then he was rudely upset and ridiculed.

In addition to these naive and simple talkers, all the rest were divided into good and evil, gloomy and bright. There were many more gloomy and evil. There was also a group of desperate people, there were very few of them. Not a single person lives without striving for a goal. Having lost purpose and hope, a person turns into a monster, and the goal for everyone was freedom.

One day, on a hot summer day, the whole penal servitude began to build up in the prison yard. I didn’t know anything about it, and yet the penal servitude had been muffled for three days already. The pretext for this explosion was food, which everyone was unhappy with.

The convicts are grumpy, but they rarely rise together. However, this time the excitement was not in vain. In such a case, there are always instigators. This is a special type of people, naively confident in the possibility of justice. They are too hot to be cunning and calculating, so they always lose. Instead of the main goal, they often rush to the little things, and this ruins them.

There were several instigators in our prison. One of them is Martynov, a former hussar, hot-tempered, restless and suspicious; the other - Vasily Antonov, smart and cold-blooded, with an insolent look and an arrogant smile; both honest and truthful.

Our non-commissioned officer was frightened. Having lined up, the people politely asked him to tell the major that hard labor wanted to talk to him. I also went out to line up, thinking that some kind of check was taking place. Many looked at me with surprise and mocked me angrily. In the end, Kulikov came up to me, took my hand and led me out of the ranks. Puzzled, I went to the kitchen, where there were a lot of people.

In the passage I met the nobleman T-vsky. He explained to me that if we were there, we would be accused of rebellion and put on trial. Akim Akimych and Isai Fomich also did not take part in the unrest. There were all the guarded Poles and a few gloomy, stern prisoners who were convinced that nothing good would come of this business.

The major flew in angry, followed by the clerk Dyatlov, who actually controlled the prison and had influence on the major, a cunning, but not a bad person. A minute later one prisoner went to the guardhouse, then another and a third. The clerk Dyatlov went to our kitchen. Here he was told that they had no complaints. He immediately reported to the major, who ordered us to be registered separately from the dissatisfied. The paper and the threat to bring the dissatisfied to justice had an effect. All of a sudden everyone was happy.

The next day the food improved, though not for long. The major began to visit the prison more often and find disturbances. The prisoners could not calm down for a long time, they were disturbed and puzzled. Many laughed at themselves, as if beating themselves up for the pretension.

That same evening I asked Petrov if the prisoners were angry with the nobles because they did not go out with everyone else. He didn't understand what I was after. But on the other hand, I realized that I would never be accepted into the partnership. In Petrov’s question: “What kind of comrade are you to us?” - Genuine naivete and ingenuous bewilderment were heard.

VIII. Comrades
Of the three nobles who were in prison, I only talked with Akim Akimych. He was a kind man, he helped me with advice and some services, but sometimes he made me sad with his even, dignified voice.

In addition to these three Russians, in my time eight Poles stayed with us. The best of them were painful and intolerant. There were only three educated people: B-sky, M-ki, and old man Zh-ki, a former professor of mathematics.

Some of them were sent for 10-12 years. With the Circassians and Tatars, with Isai Fomich, they were affectionate and friendly, but avoided the rest of the convicts. Only one Starodub Old Believer deserved their respect.

The higher authorities in Siberia treated the criminal nobles differently than the rest of the exiles. Following the higher authorities, the lower commanders also got used to this. The second category of hard labor, where I was, was much harder than the other two categories. The device of this category was military, very similar to the prisoner companies, about which everyone spoke with horror. The authorities looked at the nobles in our prison more cautiously and did not punish as often as ordinary prisoners.

They tried to make our work easier only once: B. and I went to the engineering office as clerks for three whole months. This happened even under Lieutenant Colonel G-kov. He was affectionate with the prisoners and loved them like a father. In the very first month upon arrival, G-kov quarreled with our major and left.

We were copying papers, when suddenly an order came from the top authorities to return us to our previous jobs. Then for two years we went with Bm to the same work, most often to the workshop.

Meanwhile M-cuy became more and more sad and gloomy over the years. He was inspired only by the memory of his old and sick mother. Finally, M-tsky's mother procured forgiveness for him. He went to the settlement and stayed in our city.

Of the rest, two were young people sent for short periods, poorly educated, but honest and simple. The third, A-chukovsky, was too simple, but the fourth, B-m, an elderly man, made a bad impression on us. It was a rough, philistine soul, with the habits of a shopkeeper. He was not interested in anything but his craft. He was a skilled painter. Soon the whole city began to demand B-ma for painting walls and ceilings. Other of his comrades were also sent to work with him.

Bm painted the house for our parade-major, who after that began to patronize the nobles. Soon the parade-major was put on trial and resigned. After retiring, he sold the estate and fell into poverty. We met him later in a worn frock coat. In uniform he was a god. In a frock coat he looked like a footman.

IX. The escape
Soon after the change of the parade-major, hard labor was abolished and a military prison company was founded instead. A special section also remained, and dangerous war criminals were sent to it until the opening of the most difficult hard labor in Siberia.

For us, life went on as before, only the bosses had changed. A staff officer, a company commander and four chief officers were appointed, who were on duty in turn. Twelve non-commissioned officers and a captain were appointed instead of the disabled. Corporal-corporals from among the prisoners turned up, and Akim Akimych immediately turned out to be a corporal. All this remained in the department of the commandant.

The main thing was that we got rid of the former major. The frightened look disappeared, now everyone knew that the right one would only be punished by mistake instead of the guilty one. Non-commissioned officers turned out to be decent people. They tried not to watch the vodka being carried and sold. Like the disabled, they went to the market and brought food to the prisoners.

The following years have faded from my memory. Only the passionate desire for a new life gave me the strength to wait and hope. I reviewed my past life and judged myself severely. I swore to myself that in the future I would not make past mistakes.

Sometimes we had runaways. Two were running with me. After the change of major, his spy A-v was left without protection. He was a bold, determined, intelligent and cynical man. He was noticed by the prisoner of the special department Kulikov, a middle-aged man, but strong. They became friends and agreed to run away.

It was impossible to escape without an escort. In one of the battalions stationed in the fortress, a Pole named Koller, an elderly, energetic man, served. Arriving at the service in Siberia, he fled. He was caught and kept for two years in prison companies. When he was returned to the soldiers, he began to serve zealously, for which he was made a corporal. He was ambitious, arrogant and knew his own worth. Kulikov chose him as a comrade. They agreed and set a date.

This was in the month of June. The fugitives arranged it so that they, together with the prisoner Shilkin, were sent to plaster the empty barracks. Koller with a young recruit were escorts. After working for an hour, Kulikov and A.V. told Shilkin that they were going for wine. After some time, Shilkin realized that his comrades had fled, quit his job, went straight to prison and told the sergeant everything.

The criminals were important, messengers were sent to all volosts to report the fugitives and leave their signs everywhere. They wrote to the neighboring counties and provinces, sent the Cossacks in pursuit.

This incident broke the monotonous life of the prison, and the escape echoed in all souls. The commandant himself came to the jail. The prisoners behaved boldly, with strict solidity. The prisoners were sent to work under reinforced escort, and in the evenings they were counted several times. But the prisoners behaved decorously and independently. Everyone was proud of Kulikov and Andy.

A whole week continued intensified searches. The prisoners received all the news about the maneuvers of the authorities. Eight days after the escape, they hit the trail of the fugitives. The next day, they began to say in the city that the fugitives were caught seventy miles from the prison. Finally, the sergeant-major announced that in the evening they would be brought directly to the guardhouse at the prison.

At first everyone was angry, then they became discouraged, and then they began to laugh at those who were caught. Kulikov and A-va were now humiliated to the same extent as before they were extolled. When they were brought in, bound hand and foot, all hard labor poured out to see what they would do with them. The fugitives were chained and put on trial. Having learned that the fugitives had no other choice but to surrender, everyone began to heartily follow the progress of the case in court.

Av was awarded five hundred sticks, Kulikov was given fifteen hundred. Koller lost everything, walked two thousand and was sent somewhere as a prisoner. A-va punished weakly. In the hospital, he said that now he was ready for anything. Returning to prison after punishment, Kulikov behaved as if he had never left it. Despite this, the prisoners no longer respected him.

X. Exit from hard labor
All this happened in the last year of my penal servitude. This year has been easier for me. Among the prisoners I had many friends and acquaintances. In the city, among the military, I had acquaintances, and I resumed communication with them. Through them I could write to my homeland and receive books.

The closer the release date came, the more patient I became. Many prisoners sincerely and joyfully congratulated me. It seemed to me that everyone became more friendly with me.

On the day of liberation, I walked around the barracks to say goodbye to all the prisoners. Some shook my hand in a comradely manner, others knew that I had acquaintances in the city, that I would go from here to the gentlemen and sit next to them as an equal. They said goodbye to me not as a comrade, but as a master. Some turned away from me, did not answer my farewell and looked with some kind of hatred.

About ten minutes after the prisoners left for work, I left the jail, never to return to it. I was accompanied to the smithy to loosen the shackles, not by an escort with a gun, but by a non-commissioned officer. We were unchained by our own prisoners. They fussed, wanted to do everything as best as possible. The shackles have fallen. Freedom, new life. What a glorious moment!

Considers a book about the "House of the Dead" as soon as he leaves hard labor and at the same time, apparently, writes separate chapters. Dostoevsky's Siberian Notebook has been preserved, which contains many folk expressions and sayings, subsequently used in Notes from the House of the Dead and other works of the writer. From the stories recorded by P. K. Martyanov, it follows that Dostoevsky worked on The House of the Dead while still in prison: “Notes from the House of the Dead,” as I. I. Troitsky [the senior doctor of the hospital] told one of the young men, “began write Dostoevsky in the hospital, with his permission, since the prisoners could not have any writing materials without the permission of their superiors, and their first chapters were kept by the senior hospital paramedic for a long time ”(“ Historical Bulletin ”, 1895, No. 11, p. 452 ). The Semipalatinsk friend of Dostoevsky A.E. Wrangel was a direct witness of the writer’s work on the Notes: “I was the first to be lucky to see F.M. in these moments of his work” (“Memoirs of Dostoevsky in Siberia”, 1912, p. 70).

The first detailed letter to his brother, Mikhail Dostoevsky, dated February 22, 1854, serves as a sketch for Notes from the House of the Dead, almost textually anticipating certain places in the future story: “You nobles, iron noses, have pecked us. Before he was a master, he tormented the people, but now our brother has become worse than the last "- this is a theme that has been played out for four years." Dostoevsky writes with particular emotion about the impression that the character of the simple Russian people made on him: “Would you believe it: there are deep, strong, beautiful characters, and how fun it was to find gold under the rough bark.”

F. M. Dostoevsky. Notes from the House of the Dead (Part 1). audiobook

Five years later, on October 11, 1859, already from Tver, Dostoevsky for the first time informs his brother of his intention to publish Notes from the House of the Dead. The writer himself perfectly understood the significance of his new work and had no doubts about its future success: “Do not think, dear Misha, that I turned up my nose or boasted with my“ Dead House ”, that I ask for 200 rubles. Not at all; but I understand the curiosity very well and meaning I don’t want to lose my article either.”

The attitude of readers and critics towards Notes from the House of the Dead was predominantly sympathetic and even enthusiastic. At the end of December 1861, Turgenev wrote to Dostoevsky from Paris: “I am very grateful to you for sending me two issues of Vremya, which I read with great pleasure. Especially your "Notes from the House of the Dead". Painting baths simply Dante's - and in your descriptions of various persons (for example, Petrov) - there is a lot of subtle and true psychology ”(“ F. M. Dostoevsky and I. S. Turgenev, Correspondence ”,“ Academia ”, 1928, p. 30).

A well-known review of this book belongs to Herzen, who contributed a lot to its distribution abroad: “We should not forget, in addition, that this era [of social upsurge before the reforms of the 60s] left us one terrible book, a kind carmenhorrendum, which will always show off over the exit from the gloomy reign of Nicholas, like Dante's famous inscription over the entrance to hell: this is Dostoevsky's "Dead House", a terrible story, regarding which the author himself probably did not suspect that, outlining his shackled with the hand of the figures of his fellow convicts, he created frescoes à la Buonarroti from the customs of a Siberian prison.

"Notes from the House of the Dead" brought Dostoevsky worldwide fame.

They were first published in the Russkiy Mir newspaper, in No. 67 of September 1, 1860, an introduction and chapter I were published. Although Issue 69 of September 7 announced the continuation of Zapiski in future issues, it did not follow. Printing resumed only in 1861. In No. 1 of January 4, under the heading "Notes from the House of the Dead (On hard labor)", the introduction and chapter I, as well as chapter II, were reprinted. Then came Chapters III (No. 3, January 11, 1861) and IV (No. 7, January 25, 1861). At the end of Chapter IV, it was announced: "To be continued," but that was the end of the printing of the Notes in Russkiy Mir. The publication of the second chapter in the Russkiy Mir caused some difficulties: the chairman of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee believed that Dostoevsky did not show the horrors of hard labor, and the reader might get the wrong impression of hard labor as a weak punishment for a criminal. In this regard, Dostoevsky wrote a small addition to the chapter, which, in his words, "completely paralyzes the impression made by the article in its former form, without the slightest violation, however, of the truth of the subject." Further, Dostoevsky explained: “If the reason for not allowing the article to be published could be the fear of an impression leading to a false concept among the people about hard labor, now this article aims to give the impression that, in spite of any easing of the lot of hard labor on the part of the government, “hard labor will not cease to be a moral torment, involuntarily and inevitably punishing a crime.” In the passage, again written by Dostoevsky, one of the main thoughts of the entire book was once again formulated: that the most terrible torment lies in the deprivation of a person of freedom and civil rights. This is how Dostoevsky began: “In a word, complete, terrible, real torment reigned in prison without a way out.” This excerpt was not published, since the Main Press Administration allowed the publication of the second chapter without additions. It was published only in 1922 in the collection Dostoevsky. Articles and materials”, ed. A. S. Dolinina, vol. I.

The full text of Notes from the House of the Dead was first published in the Vremya magazine. In the April book for 1861, the first four chapters appeared with the following note from the editors: “We are reprinting these four chapters from the Russkiy Mir, serving as an introduction to Notes from the House of the Dead, for those of our readers who are still unfamiliar with this work. We will begin to continue these notes immediately after the end of the novel The Humiliated and Insulted.

A continuation of Notes from the House of the Dead was published in 1861 (September, October, November) and in 1862 (January, February, March, May, December). In the May issue of Vremya, 1862, Chapter VIII of the second part (“Comrades”) was not printed due to a censorship ban. Chapter VII was followed by the number VIII and under it three lines of dots, and then chapters IX and X. Chapter VIII appeared only in the December issue. Since Dostoevsky obtained permission from the censors to publish the chapter "Comrades" only at the end of the year, chapter VIII was not included in the separate edition of "Notes", published in 1862. This year, the first part of Notes from the House of the Dead first came out as a separate edition, it was sent to subscribers as an appendix to the January book of Vremya, and then another edition appeared, including parts one and two.

In 1865, "Notes from the House of the Dead" was again reprinted and, in addition, was included in the first volume of the Complete Works of Dostoevsky.

The last time during the life of Dostoevsky "Notes" were published in 1875.

The manuscript has not reached us.

Introduction

I met Alexander Petrovich Goryanchikov in a small Siberian town. Born in Russia as a nobleman, he became a second-class exile convict for the murder of his wife. After serving 10 years of hard labor, he lived out his life in the town of K. He was a pale and thin man of about thirty-five, small and frail, unsociable and suspicious. Driving past his windows one night, I noticed a light in them and thought he was writing something.

I. Dead house

Ostrog stood at the ramparts. The large yard was surrounded by a fence of high pointed pillars. There were strong gates in the fence, guarded by sentries. Here was a special world, with its own laws, clothes, customs and customs.

II. First Impressions

I soon realized that the severity of the hard labor of work was that it was forced and useless. In winter, government work was scarce. Everyone returned to prison, where only a third of the prisoners were engaged in their craft, the rest gossiped, drank and played cards.

III. First Impressions

Prisoners valued money as much as freedom, but it was difficult to keep it. Either the major took the money, or they stole their own. Subsequently, we gave the money for safekeeping to the old Old Believer, who came to us from the Starodubov settlements.

IV. First Impressions

After the last verification from the authorities, an invalid remained in the barracks, observing order, and the eldest of the prisoners, appointed by the parade-major for good behavior. Akim Akimych turned out to be the eldest in our barracks. The prisoners paid no attention to the disabled person.

V. First month

Three days later I went to work. At that time, among the hostile faces, I could not discern a single benevolent one. Akim Akimych was the friendliest of all with me. Next to me was another person whom I got to know well only after many years. It was the prisoner Sushilov, who served me. I also had another servant, Osip, one of the four cooks chosen by the prisoners. The cooks did not go to work, and at any moment they could refuse this position. Osip was chosen for several years in a row. He was an honest and meek man, although he came for smuggling. Together with other chefs, he traded wine.

VI. First month

I had several rubles hidden in the binding of the Gospel. This book with money was presented to me in Tobolsk by other exiles. There are people in Siberia who unselfishly help the exiles. In the city where our prison was located, there lived a widow, Nastasya Ivanovna. She could not do much because of poverty, but we felt that there, behind the prison, we had a friend.

VII. New acquaintances. Petrov

I got used to it. I no longer wandered about the prison as if lost, the curious glances of the convicts did not stop at me so often. I was struck by the frivolity of convicts. A free man hopes, but he lives, acts. The hope of a prisoner is of a completely different kind. Even terrible criminals, chained to the wall, dream of walking around the prison yard.

VIII. Decisive people. Luchka

There were few decisive people in hard labor. At first I avoided these people, but then I changed my views even on the most terrible killers. It was difficult to form an opinion about some crimes, there was so much strange in them.

For the murder of an officer, Luchka was given 105 lashes. Although Luchka killed six people, no one was afraid of him in prison, although in his heart he dreamed of being known as a terrible person.

IX. Isai Fomich. Bath. Baklushin's story

Four days before Christmas we were taken to the bathhouse. Isai Fomich Bumshtein rejoiced most of all. It seemed that he did not regret at all that he had ended up in hard labor. He did only jewelry work and lived richly. City Jews patronized him. On Saturdays, he went under escort to the city synagogue and waited for the end of his twelve-year term in order to get married. It was a mixture of naivety, stupidity, cunning, insolence, innocence, timidity, boastfulness and impudence. Isai Fomich served everyone for entertainment. He understood this and was proud of his importance.

X. Feast of the Nativity of Christ

Finally, the holiday came, from which everyone expected something. By evening, the invalids who went to the market brought a lot of provisions. Even the most thrifty prisoners wanted to celebrate Christmas with dignity. On this day, the prisoners were not sent to work, there were three such days a year.

XI. Performance

On the third day of the holiday, a performance took place in our theater. We did not know whether our parade-major knew about the theatre. For such a person as a parade-major, it was necessary to take away something, deprive someone of the right. The senior non-commissioned officer did not contradict the prisoners, taking their word that everything would be quiet. The poster was written by Baklushin for the gentlemen of the officers and noble visitors who honored our theater with their visit.

Part two

I. Hospital

After the holidays, I fell ill and went to our military hospital, in the main building of which there were 2 prison wards. Sick prisoners announced their illness to a non-commissioned officer. They were recorded in a book and sent with an escort to the battalion infirmary, where the doctor recorded the really sick in the hospital.

II. Continuation

The doctors went around the wards in the morning. Before them, our resident, a young but knowledgeable doctor, visited the ward. Many doctors in Rus' enjoy the love and respect of the common people, despite the general distrust of medicine. When the intern noticed that the prisoner came to rest from work, he wrote down a non-existent illness for him and left him to lie. The senior doctor was much more severe than the intern, and for this we respected him.

III. Continuation

In the hospital, I got a visual representation of all kinds of punishments. All those punished with gauntlets were reduced to our chambers. I wanted to know all the degrees of sentences, I tried to imagine the psychological state of those going to be executed.

The saddest time came late in the evening. It became stuffy, vivid pictures of a past life were recalled. One night I heard a story that seemed to me like a feverish dream.

IV. Akulkin's husband

I woke up late at night and heard two people whispering to each other not far from me. The narrator Shishkov was still young, about 30 years old, a civilian prisoner, an empty, eccentric and cowardly man of small stature, thin, with restless or stupidly thoughtful eyes.

V. Summertime

Easter was approaching. Summer work has begun. The coming spring excited the shackled man, gave rise to desires and longing in him. At this time, vagrancy began throughout Russia. Life in the woods, free and adventurous, had a mysterious charm to those who experienced it.

VI. convict animals

The purchase of Gnedok entertained the prisoners much more than the high visit. In the prison, a horse was supposed to be used for household needs. One fine morning she died. The major ordered the immediate purchase of a new horse. The purchase was entrusted to the prisoners themselves, among whom were real connoisseurs. It was a young, beautiful and strong horse. He soon became the favorite of the whole prison.

VII. Claim

It took me almost a year to come to terms with life in prison. Other prisoners could not get used to this life either. Restlessness, vehemence and impatience were the most characteristic features of this place.

VIII. Comrades

Of the three nobles who were in prison, I only talked with Akim Akimych. He was a kind man, he helped me with advice and some services, but sometimes he made me sad with his even, dignified voice.

We were copying papers, when suddenly an order came from the top authorities to return us to our previous jobs. Then for two years we went with Bm to the same work, most often to the workshop.

IX. The escape

Soon after the change of the parade-major, hard labor was abolished and a military prison company was founded instead. A special section also remained, and dangerous war criminals were sent to it until the opening of the most difficult hard labor in Siberia.

X. Exit from hard labor

All this happened in the last year of my penal servitude. This year has been easier for me. Among the prisoners I had many friends and acquaintances. In the city, among the military, I had acquaintances, and I resumed communication with them. Through them I could write to my homeland and receive books.

The closer the release date came, the more patient I became. Many prisoners sincerely and joyfully congratulated me. It seemed to me that everyone became more friendly with me.

Chapter III

DOSTOYEVSKY'S WAY FROM "POOR PEOPLE"

TO THE NOVEL OF THE 60'S. "NOTES FROM A DEAD HOUSE"

After the end of The Double, which was met with criticism much more coldly than the novel Poor People, Dostoevsky for a while departs from work on a large narrative form. Only in 1849 did the beginning of his new novel (the last written before hard labor) appear in print - "Netochka Nezvanova", conceived, as Dostoevsky's letters to his older brother testify, back in 1847.

Due to the arrest of Dostoevsky in the case of the Petrashevites, the novel remained unfinished. Of the five planned parts, the writer managed to carry out three. Later, he abandoned the idea of continuing Netochka Nezvanova. Having revised the chapters written in 1860 and excluding several passages from them, Dostoevsky published the work in a new abridged edition, turning it from a novel into a story. However, although we cannot judge with complete clarity the further plot development of the novel and the denouement conceived by the writer from the fragment printed in 1849, the chapters of Netochka Nezvanova still provide enough data so that we can draw conclusions about the general nature of Dostoevsky’s intention, evaluate the originality of this idea in comparison with the earlier works of the writer.

The hero of the first two major works of Dostoevsky was a "little" man - Devushkin or Golyadkin. The choice of a "little" person to play the role of the hero of a great work reflected the democratic tendencies of Dostoevsky's work in the 1940s. Following the precepts of Belinsky and Gogol, the young Dostoevsky made his favorite character not a romantically exceptional, "chosen" person, but a man of the "crowd", an ordinary and even an ordinary representative of the unprivileged social strata, who experienced the oppression of the ruling class and the bureaucratic state machine of the autocracy.

And yet, the choice of a “little” person as the main positive hero - a downtrodden official like Devushkin - testified not only to the democratic tendencies of the young Dostoevsky’s work, but, as Dostolyubov later blamed, and to a certain immaturity and limitations of the writer’s democracy. Devushkin or Golyadkin, due to the narrowness of their outlook on life, the lack of social activity, the limited scope of their relationships with the outside world, by their very nature, could hardly become the main characters of such a novel, the social significance of which could be compared with the meaning of "Eugene Onegin" or "Hero of Masha time." The narrowness of Devushkin's inner world leaves an inevitable imprint on the social problems of Poor People, and the tightness of his horizons limits the breadth of the outside world accessible to the novelist's image. It is no coincidence that Herzen and the young Nekrasov, who at the same time as the young Dostoevsky in the 1940s strove to create a novel of a democratic direction (“and, moreover, unlike Gogol, a novel not satirical”), but who stood on different, revolutionary positions, went in their experiments to create romance with a new, democratic hero in a different way.Both of them put forward in a central place in their novels the images of not "downtrodden" (in the words of Dobrolyubov), but thinking, inquisitively and consciously relating to life representatives of democratic circles - such as Tikhon Trosnikov or Lyubonka Kruciferskaya As the experience of these writers testifies, the choice of such a protagonist (or heroine) allowed them to approach the task of creating a large problematic social novel more closely than the nomination of an “ordinary” hero, a downtrodden and close-minded official like Devushkin, to the central position in the novel.

Devushkin was a "small" person not only in his social nature, but also in terms of his level of development, in terms of his conscious requirements for life. And this not only reduced the democratism of such a hero, but also made Devushkin an unsuitable figure for the role of the organizing center of a large, problematic, socially significant novel. The latter circumstance apparently became gradually to some extent obvious to Dostoevsky himself. It is no coincidence, therefore, that after The Double, the central character of Dostoevsky in his stories and feuilletons of the 1940s becomes not an official like Devushkin, but a different character. This is a "dreamer", whose spiritual world in its content is fundamentally different from the spiritual world of a "little" person like Devushkin. The nomination by Dostoevsky in his stories to the central, organizing place of a new (compared to his first works) hero prepared the appearance of those most significant and large-scale works that Dostoevsky created in 1848-1849 - the "sentimental novel" "White Nights" and unfinished "Netochka Nezvanova". The hero of "White Nights" and the heroine of "Netochka Nezvanova" in spiritual development, in terms of their interests and aspirations immeasurably surpass not only Devushkin, but also Varenka. For all their originality, they are closer to such "big", intellectual heroes of the previous Russian novel as Onegin, Pechorin, Tatyana, than to Devushkin or Golyadkin.

Subsequently, returning in the 60s to work on the creation of a large, socially problematic novel, Dostoevsky follows in principle - from the point of view of the general structure of his novels - along the path that he outlined in White Nights and Netochka Nezvanova. He makes their central, pivotal character not a downtrodden and close-minded "small" person, not an ordinary bourgeois official like Devushkin, but an actively thinking and feeling hero who lives a tense and deep intellectual life - a person who seeks to consciously clarify his purpose and his place. in fact, subjecting to this analysis the foundations of the surrounding social life and morality. The activity of thought, the pathos of an analytical attitude to life, intellectual quests and doubts unite such heroes of Dostoevsky's novels of the 60s and 70s, different in specific content and direction of these quests, as Raskolnikov and Stavro-Gkn, Arkady Dolgoruky and the three brothers Karamazov . Thus, if already in "Poor People" and "The Double" Dostoevsky's psychological method, the originality of his problems and the nature of his democracy, were already determined to a certain extent, then "White Nights" and "Netochka Nezvanova" were the next step in the development of the writer, who brought closer him to the creation of the form of the novel characteristic of the mature Dostoevsky. And yet, Dostoevsky's novel finally took shape typologically not in the 40s, but in the 60s, when the central, pivotal problem for the great Russian novelist was the problem of the relationship between the hero and the people, which had not yet risen to its full height in front of the writer in the 40s .

In Otechestvennye Zapiski, Netochka Nezvanova was published with the subtitle The Story of a Woman. Indeed, this whole novel is written in the form of the heroine's notes, which depict a series of successive stages of her spiritual development. In this sense, "Netochka Nezvanova" is a direct continuation of such earlier experiments of Dostoevsky as the autobiographical notes of Varenka Dobroselova, which form part of "Poor People", and "The Story of Nastenka", which occupies an important place in the "sentimental novel" completed immediately before "Netochka Nezvanova" "White Nights" (1848). But if in "Poor People" and "White Nights" the theme of the formation of a female character was only outlined by Dostoevsky, then in "Netochka Nezvanova" it became central, determined the general problematics and construction of the novel.

Interest in the topic of the fate of a woman, her position in society, and the analysis of female psychology was determined in Russian literature as early as the 1920s. In "Eugene Onegin" Pushkin - the first of the great Russian novelists - depicted the process of mental and moral development of a Russian woman, showed the potentially huge spiritual forces inherent in her. In the 1940s, the theme of a woman was closely intertwined in Russian literature with the theme of the struggle against domestic and family slavery, acquiring a sharply social connotation. In this regard, the interest of the advanced public in the novels of J. Sand, with which Russian readers began to get acquainted back in the 30s, is growing. As is known from his letters and The Diary of a Writer, the young Dostoevsky was enthusiastic about the novels of the French writer, which he perceived as a vivid expression of the ideas of utopian socialism of the 40s. An important role in strengthening the "women's" theme in literature at that time was played by women writers, in particular, Zinaida R-va (E. A. Gan; 1814-1842), highly appreciated by Belinsky. This theme is also raised in "Who is to blame?" and "The Thieving Magpie" by A. I. Herzen. Almost simultaneously with Netochka Nezvanova, A. Ya. Panaeva’s story The Talnikov Family (1848) was written, also built in the form of a woman’s notes and printed before Dostoevsky’s novel appeared in print. In the same year as Netochka Nezvanova, Otechestvennye Zapiski published a Russian translation of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre1 (which Dostoevsky met after his arrest, in the fortress, and about which he wrote to his brother on September 14, 1849, that "English the novel is exceedingly good”; Letters, I, 127).

The originality of "Netochka Nezvanova" in a number of other works of the 40s devoted to the topic of woman's self-determination is that the childhood and youth of a woman from a democratic heterogeneous environment are depicted here from the point of view of the formation of the complex and contradictory nature of the future "dreamer". The daughter of an old official and a governess (who, after the death of her first husband, married a failed musician and had to work hard to support her husband and daughter), Netochka grew up in a cold attic, among poverty and quarrels, and was left an orphan early And, although she was later brought up in the prince's house, she forever remained spiritually alien to the aristocratic world into which she accidentally fell. And in the family of the prince, where she is taken after the death of her parents, and in the house of the eldest daughter of the princess, where she finishes her upbringing and enters into her first conscious encounter with life, Netochka constantly feels the distance between herself and her benefactors, looks at them curious, intent and with the captious gaze of a person who was spiritually alien to them, who early recognized poverty and humiliation, which forever left an unhealed wound in her soul.

Dostoevsky chose for "Netochka Nezvanova" a compositional construction that is fundamentally different from the construction of "Poor People" and "Double". In The Poor People, the action unfolds over six months - from April to September - and ends with a decisive turning point in the lives of both main characters of the novel. The purpose of acquainting the reader with the events that preceded the beginning of the action is here by the heroine's notes introduced into the novel by the author, which shed light on her past. In "The Double" the action is focused on an even shorter period of time than in "Poor Folks", a period of time - only four days from the life of the hero, which, as it were, at once draw a line under his entire previous existence. In Netochka Nezvanova, this method of construction, which is more characteristic of a drama or a "short story" than of the traditional forms of the novel, gives way to a different one, reminiscent of the composition of "educational novels" of the late 18th century.

The novel unfolds consistently a single story of the formation of the character of the heroine throughout her life, and each part of it, constituting a link in the overall compositional construction, forms at the same time an internally complete and closed whole, a short story of its own with a special plot, a special plot, a climax and denouement. There are three such parts-short stories in the extant fragment of the novel. When Netochka Nezvanova was first published in Otechestvennye Zapiski, each of them had a special title (“Childhood”, “New Life” and “Mystery”). While highlighting a certain stage in the life and spiritual formation of the heroine, each of the three parts of the novel is at the same time played out in a different place and has its own heroes (who no longer appear in the other parts or are secondary, episodic persons). In the first part, the action takes place in the attic, where Netochka's mother and her stepfather live; the main character of this part, besides Netochka herself, is her stepfather, the musician Efimov; with the death of her mother and stepfather (after which Netochka ends up in the prince's house), this part ends, drawing the first memories of the heroine. In the second part of the novel

Netochka lives in the prince's house; the protagonist of this part is the daughter of Prince Katya, and the plot is connected here with the depiction of the complex relationship that arises between Netochka and her new environment. Finally, the third part opens with Netochka moving in with the princess's daughter from her first marriage, Alexandra Mikhailovna. No longer a child, but a girl and a maturing woman, Netochka here becomes a witness and an unwitting participant in the drama hidden in the relationship between Alexandra Mikhailovna and her husband. The catastrophe that ends this part completes Netochka's moral education: from a half-child she becomes an adult and boldly performs her first conscious and active act, challenging the husband of Alexandra Mikhailovna, an egoist and tyrant, who deliberately turned his wife's life into continuous moral torture. As can be judged from the last pages of the fragment published in Otechestvennye Zapiski, in the future Netochka, according to Dostoevsky's plan, was to leave the house of her caregivers in order to start an independent life. The main characters of the subsequent parts of the novel were to become (along with Netochka) the characters of the second part - Katya and the boy Larya. Netochka, who has a voice and who attends singing lessons at the end of the fragment, was supposed to become a singer in the future.

Of the three short story episodes that form the plot of Netochka Nezvanova, the first, dedicated to the early childhood of the heroine, is the most artistically complete. The image of Netochka's stepfather, the musician Efimov, belongs to the outstanding artistic achievements of the early Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky here refers to one of the most stable and traditional themes of romantic literature of the 1930s - the theme of an artist unrecognized by society, but contrasts the romantic interpretation of this theme with a different one, fundamentally different from it. It is no coincidence that in the story about Efimov, Dostoevsky introduces an ironic mention of the romantic dramas of the Dollmaker, dedicated to the theme of the artist, which Efimov and his friend, the same loser, dancer Karl Fedorovich admire.

Unlike the heroes of the dramas of the Dollmaker or the central characters of romantic stories about the artist of the 1930s, the musician Efimov is depicted by Dostoevsky not just as a noble, dreamy, poetic nature, opposed to "rough" earthly prose. Dostoevsky interprets the very psychology of Efimov as a kind of reflection of the life circumstances that shaped him. Yefimov is a talented and richly gifted Russian man from the people, “whose hell is burdened by the curse of that “Russian life”, about the stupefying power of which, arguing with the Slavophiles, Belinsky relied on the poems of the young Apollon Grigoriev in his description of “Russian life”. 3 The conditions of Russian provincial life, service in the landowner's orchestra awakened Efimov's talent, but they also killed his young years, instilled in him a frivolous attitude towards his talent, a thirst for quick and easy success, did not accustom him to serious and hard work. In the future, constant need, humiliation and grief morally broke Efimov. Thus, the tragic fate of Netochka's stepfather in Dostoevsky's image is not a symbol of some timeless, "eternal" tragedy of the artist, but a reflection of the specific everyday and social circumstances of the life of the people. Efimov, in the writer's understanding, is one of the social and psychological variants of the type of "dreamer" that Dostoevsky, in his feuilletons The Petersburg Chronicle (1847), considers as a characteristic figure of Russian life and whose psychology in the same feuilletons he seeks to explain by the influence of cultural, historical and social conditions (XIII, 29, 30).

The image of Efimov clearly reveals the complex connection between Dostoevsky's realism and the heritage of Russian and Western European romanticism. In his work of the 1940s, as can be seen already from the analysis of The Double, Dostoevsky constantly again and again encounters the legacy of romanticism. But, with the exception of individual cases where he suffers an ideological and artistic defeat (as was the case, for example, in the story "The Mistress", 1847), Dostoevsky does not follow the romantics directly, but seeks to rethink their tradition in a realistic spirit. Dostoevsky is attracted in the works of romantics by the drama, interest in complex and tragic conflicts, in the depiction of internal moral and psychological contradictions and spiritual struggle. But the method of depicting such complex psychological contradictions in the works of romantic writers does not satisfy Dostoevsky, it seems to him simplified, since this method leads to the substitution of the true harsh content of real life problems with conditional rhetoric and abstract idealization (for example, the idealized tragedy of the poet-dreamer Jacobo Sannazar by the Dollmaker , parodied in Netochka Nezvanova, replaces, as the writer shows, the genuine harsh and tragic, despite all the external “prosaism” inherent in it, the drama of losers like Efimov).

The image of Efimov, which contradictory combines the inclinations of a genius and ignorance of the ABC of art, pride and the awareness of the death of talent that undermines it from within, moral exactingness and licentiousness, the need for love and selfish alienation, turning into cruelty to his wife and daughter, reflects the originality of the psychological method of the early Dostoevsky, based on the constant discovery of internal contradictions in the spiritual life of the characters.

It is interesting to compare Efimov with Gogol's Chartkov (from the second edition of the story "Portrait", 1842). Gogol acquaints the reader with the contradictions of the inner world of the artist, who ruined his talent, before his “fall” and after a sudden insight that took place many years later. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, makes the leitmotif, the psychological core of the image of Efimov, the never-ending moral torture caused by the doubt in himself and his talent, constantly living in Efimov, tormenting him. Despite the pride of Efimov and his pride of the poor, Efimov does not leave the feeling of moral guilt in front of himself and loved ones. From this duality stems the "fantastic" nature of Efimov's image and, at the same time, his inner psychological volume.

Dostoevsky applies a similar method of analysis, which reveals the inconsistency, psychological bizarreness, eccentricity and "abnormality" of the inner world of a thinking person contemporary to him, to Ne-tschke itself. Already in childhood, she becomes an adult beyond her years thanks to the need and those tragic conflicts in the relationship between her mother and stepfather, which she has to “observe and in which she is forced to involuntarily take part, not yet understanding their meaning. In a manner close to Balzac, Dostoevsky depicts those complex, “chemical” transformations that human feelings undergo in an atmosphere of constantly pressing need and hopeless grief. Netochka's love for her stepfather develops into a painful hatred for her mother, who loves her passionately and endures her unbearably hard life without a murmur; dreams of a better life give birth in the mind of the child to a monstrous dream of the death of the mother. With her death, Netochka, under the influence of her stepfather, connects the beginning of another, better life for both of them.

The method of analysis characteristic of Dostoevsky is especially vividly expressed in the second part of the novel. The image of the mutual relationship that develops between two girls - Netochka and Katya - Dostoevsky turns into a picture of a whole spiritual drama, replete with psychological conflicts and complex turns, a drama in which love, jealousy, envy, consciousness of various social origins, pride, repentance and many various other motives. From the interaction of all these complex psychological motifs, a unique picture of the “dialectics of the soul” of both main characters is formed in the literature of the 40s, anticipating many pages of Leo Tolstoy’s Childhood and Adolescence.

The last episode of Netochka Nezvanova, dedicated to the family drama of Alexandra Mikhailovna, remained unfinished. However, as it has been rightly noted more than once, for Dostoevsky this episode is of great importance, since it outlines a number of motifs characteristic of the writer's later novels. Already in the story "The Mistress" there is - still in a conditional, romantic form - the theme of the psychological clash of "predatory" and "meek" characters, typical of the mature Dostoevsky. This theme, sketchy and semi-symbolically outlined in "The Mistress", in "Netochka Nezvanova" loses its romantic conventionality. It now unfolds into a realistically depicted everyday psychological drama with several participants, each of whom has his own vitally authentic individual character. In addition to the owner of the house, Pyotr Alexandrovich, a despot and hypocrite (his character was to some extent prepared by the images of Bykov in Poor People, Murin in The Mistress, Yulian Mastakovich in the story The Christmas Tree and the Wedding, 1848), Alexandra Mikhailovna, convicted by her husband and society, but “in the depths of his soul, conscious of his innocence and dreaming of forgiveness, Dostoevsky outlines the character of the third participant in the drama. This is a young dreamy commoner with a "weak heart", whose image is revealed to the reader by an old letter found by Netochka in the book. Sketches of all three characters have already been met in Dostoevsky's earlier stories and novellas, but in Netochka Nezvanova the writer outlined them more fully and combined them in a plot.

In the last chapter of Netochka Nezvanova, the heroine, who until then had been a silent observer of the drama played out around “her family drama, becomes first involuntarily, and then a consciously active character in it. She openly declares her sympathy for Alexandra Mikhailovna and hatred for her husband (this latter, apparently, was later to act as a pursuer of Netochka herself, whom he, as Alexandra Mikhailovna suspects, wants to seduce). In the transition of Netochka on the last pages of the fragment from contemplation to instantaneous determination and to active action, echoes of what Dostoevsky the Petrashevsky felt, who experienced a period of a new upsurge in his revolutionary moods in the months when the novel was being written - a takeoff caused by the social upsurge of 1848 - 1849.

Dostoevsky did not manage to finish Netochka Nezvanova in 1849. Exiled to hard labor in the case of the Petrashevists, he got the opportunity to take up the pen again only six years later. From a letter to A. N. Maikov dated January 18, 1856, we know that already in hard labor Dostoevsky pondered and created “in his head” a “big” story, but, as the writer reports in the same letter, almost two years after leaving hard labor he "could not write" (Letters, I, 166). Only in 1856 did Dostoevsky inform his brother and friends that he was writing a “long novel”, which should consist of several “separate from each other and completed in itself episodes” and tell about “the adventures of one person.” According to the writer, the first part of this novel that he destroyed was written in rough form (Letters, I, 184, 221; II, 585, 586). But soon Dostoevsky interrupted work on it, deciding first to complete other plans. Thus, the stories "Uncle's UN" (she preceded, perhaps, by the plan of the "comic novel"; Letters, I, 167) and "The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants" (1859). The writer hesitated for a long time in determining the genre of both of these works: not only in the letters written during the period of work on them , but even some time later he smeared each of them more than once with a "story" or "novel", not attaching much importance at that time to the question of the difference between these terms (Letters, I, 241-249; II, 589). However, already by contemporaries, both of these works against the background of the development of the Russian novel of the 50s (and also against the background of the subsequent work of Dostoevsky himself as a novelist) were perceived as stories, not only because of their small volume, but primarily due to their inherent nature of psychological studies, devoted to the analysis of one complex character, more private and narrower than in the "big" novels of Dostoevsky, public problems.

Having finished work on The Village of Stepanchikov, Dostoevsky intended to return to work on a "big" novel "with an idea", but instead, in October 1859, he began "Notes from the House of the Dead", the idea of which arose in his penal servitude (Letters, I , 139, 256; II, 605).

"Notes from the House of the Dead" (1860-1862), which summed up the thoughts and impressions brought to life by Dostoevsky's four-year stay in the Omsk prison and reflected his new ideological concepts, occupy a special place in Dostoevsky's work. “Notes from the House of the Dead” is a work that, in its “intermediate” genre, in many respects resembles such works of Russian literature of the 50s and 60s as Tolstoy’s Sevastopol Tales, Herzen’s Past and Thoughts, or (if we take an example from the work writer of a different artistic warehouse) "Family Chronicle" and "Childhood of Bagrov-grandson" Aksakov. In all these works, "poetry" is combined with "truth", fiction - with a conscious, documentary accurate, sketchy reproduction of people and events, which gives these works, in addition to their artistic value, the value of a historical document.

The relatively wide development in Russia in the 50s and 60s of this complex and peculiar form of literary narration, the appeal to it at the same time of writers, very different in the nature of their talent and direction, indicates that the need to combine "poetry" and " truth” in the literature of this era was not prompted by the individual characteristics of the development of this or that writer. The appearance of books of this kind was the result of a broader historical and literary pattern.

The example of Dostoevsky in many ways makes it possible to understand those more general reasons that prompted a number of major Russian writers at a certain stage of their development, at the turn of the 50s and 60s, to discard the more or less established, canonical narrative genres that they developed before and turn to the form , outwardly emphasized modest, standing, as it were, in the middle between a novel and an essay or memoirs, but which, in given historical conditions, allowed them to solve the most important, new not only for themselves, but also for all the literature of that time, artistic tasks.

As Dostoevsky’s experience testifies, the form of the “notes” of the prisoner, which Dostoevsky used in Notes from the House of the Dead, was valuable for the writer, first of all, for its artlessness, because it allowed the author to compose the story, and the reader to perceive the entire content of the Notes. not as fiction, as a "novel" in the usual sense of the word, but as something real, "reliable", directly seen and experienced. Indeed, if the reader were to treat the narrator of Notes from the House of the Dead or his fellow convicts—Sushilov, Alei, Baklushin, and other prisoners about whom he is telling his story—not as real, living persons, but as ordinary literary characters created by the creative imagination of a novelist, then the whole impression of the reader from the Notes would be completely different! Without the perception of the persons and events described in the "Notes from the House of the Dead" as real, real persons and events, the originality of the "Notes", their artistic effect, would be lost. Thus, the attitude towards the perception of "Notes from the House of the Dead" not as a work with ordinary, fictional characters, but as a description of what was actually seen and experienced by the author in hard labor, is not something accidental for the genre of "Notes hj of the House of the Dead" and external. This setting was decisive for the entire construction of the Notes; it dictated the original "essay" form of this book, which distinguishes it from Dostoevsky's novels written before and after Notes from the House of the Dead. This form led to an unusual for Dostoevsky depiction of characters not by including them in a single developing plot, but by direct characterization of them through the mouth of the narrator-observer, as well as a significantly different than in Dostoevsky’s novels, a calmer, slower and more detailed manner of storytelling.

Thus, the example of Dostoevsky testifies that the organic fusion into a single whole of elements of fiction, autobiography and essay - where it took place in the work of various Russian writers of the 50s - was caused by the need awakened by the era to tell the reader about such things and phenomena (usually directly experienced by the writer himself), which, while possessing high social content and relevance, at the same time, by their very nature, required the artist to use other artistic means than the form of a novel with an ordinary, fictional plot and characters. Herzen's goal in The Past and Thoughts was to widely acquaint the reader, and especially the younger generation, with the real revolutionary traditions and ideological quests of Russian society, to introduce the reader to a living revolutionary cause, and to outline the specific tasks and prospects of the liberation movement. Dostoevsky's task in Notes from the House of the Dead was to acquaint the reader in an artistic form with the tsarist penal servitude as a very concrete, living and real phenomenon, terrible and outrageous in this life reality. Thus, the tasks that Herzen and Dostoevsky set themselves in this case, from the very beginning (excluded the possibility of turning them to the form of a novel with an ordinary, fictional plot (although in other cases - both earlier and later - they used in their literary activity of this more generalized art form.) Essay or autobiography, the actual reliability of events, actions, characters of the story was dictated in "The Past and Thoughts" or "Notes from the House of the Dead" by the very tasks and subject of the narrative.

The conscious attitude towards the reader's perception of the entire content of "Notes from the House of the Dead" as an image of what was actually seen and experienced by the narrator explains the originality of the genre and composition of "Notes" in comparison with other works of Dostoevsky. And at the same time, this attitude allows us to understand the reasons why Dostoevsky the novelist, in the years after the completion of Notes from the House of the Dead, did not continue on the same path, did not deepen and develop the autobiographical essay genre of Notes, but returned to work. over a more "conventional" type of novel, with traditional, fictional characters and plot.

The genre of "Notes from the House of the Dead" did not find continuation in the work of Dostoevsky as a novelist because this genre was most suitable for solving quite definite and specific ideological and artistic tasks that faced Dostoevsky on the threshold of the 60s, but which were no longer for him the main ones in subsequent novels. Other, excellent artistic tasks evoked in these novels a different genre solution.

The "essay" form of "Notes from the House of the Dead" was designed to truthfully and artistically convincingly acquaint the reader with little-known (or unknown) circles of the "hell" of pre-reform Russia, acquaintance with which made it possible, to a certain extent, to take a fresh approach to solving many problems. more general, fundamental social and moral issues put forward by Russian life on the threshold of the 60s, provided rich material for reflection on “them, for their clarification and revision. But this "essay" form - precisely because of its inherent autobiographical-essay character - was not suitable for novels with fictional plots and characters, which, being the product of the novelist's creative imagination, at the same time would be artistic generalizations of the same great capacity and impressive power, as fictional plots and characters of "Eugene Onegin", "Dead Souls" or "The Noble Nest".

"Notes from the House of the Dead" was the first book devoted to the description of the royal penal servitude. The very great historical significance of this book is connected with this. According to the definition of N. V. Shelgunov, “Notes from the House of the Dead” “acquainted society with the fate of a whole category of unfortunate people”, showed one of the unknown “corners of Russian life”. 5 The great social significance of the "Notes" was noted by D. I. Pisarev and A. I. Herzen, who compared the "Notes" in terms of the strength of the impression made with Dante's "Hell" and the frescoes of "The Last Judgment" by Michelangelo. Herzen called "Notes from the House of the Dead" "a terrible book", "which will always show off over the exit from the gloomy reign of Nicholas, like Dante's inscription over the entrance to hell ...". 6

Unlike the Decembrists sentenced to hard labor, who were sent to one prison and were subject to a special administration, the Petrashevites were sent to different fortresses and prison companies and were subordinate to the local general criminal administration. Thus, according to the plan of the tsarist government, they were supposed to be divided, deprived of the possibility of mutual support, and at the same time they had to end up in hard labor in the same difficult conditions in which the whole mass of prisoners was. 7 This made it more difficult for Dostoevsky during his stay in hard labor, but at the same time brought him into close contact with the serfs and soldiers and made it possible to learn “from his own experience the unbearable cruelty of the pre-reform hard labor, the rudeness and arbitrariness of the prison administration.

"Notes from the House of the Dead" was written on behalf of Alexander Petrovich Goryanchikov, who was sentenced to hard labor for a criminal offense - the murder of his wife. About the crime of Goryanchikov and about himself is told in the "Introduction" to the "Notes". However, this introduction was written by Dostoevsky only in order to satisfy the requirements of censorship. After prescribing it to the text of the Notes, Dostoevsky subsequently did not take it into account at all. Already in the second chapter, the reader learns that the hero was exiled to hard labor not for a criminal, but for a political crime. This is repeated many times in the course of the following story. Dostoevsky mentions in his Notes about his meeting with the Decembrists in Siberia and about the beneficial influence of the Decembrists on the customs of the Siberian administration, sympathetically talks about the Polish revolutionary émigrés whom he met in hard labor, introduces a number of individual biographical touches into the story (a meeting with "long-standing school comrades" - the military; the gospel donated in Tobolsk by the wives of the Decembrists; voracious reading of books in the last years of hard labor, etc.). All this made contemporaries perceive "Notes from the House of the Dead" not only as an exciting story about the suffering of the people, about the horrors and injustice of tsarist hard labor, but also as a book about the plight of political exiles, about the trials that befell one of the leaders of the Russian liberation movement. This contributed to the success that Zapiski had with the advanced democratic part of Russian society in the early 60s.

But the main place in the "Notes" is given not to the narrator himself, but to the situation and the people he had to face in hard labor. Despite the artless tone of the story, the narrator's frequent digressions and returns to what he had already spoken about on the previous pages, Notes from the House of the Dead is distinguished by a clear and thoughtful composition. Gradually, Dostoevsky introduces the reader to all the main aspects and characteristic moments of hard labor. The reader is present when the narrator is shackled, enters the barracks with him and sees through his eyes the life and customs of the prisoners for the first time, gets acquainted with the administration and the diverse population of hard labor, with winter and summer work in prison. He ends up in a bathhouse, in a prison hospital, learns not only the usual hard life of prisoners, but also their holiday entertainment. "Notes from the House of the Dead" contains a realistic picture of the prisoner's entire life - from admission to prison to release. The reader gets acquainted not only with the external side of this life, but together with the hero gradually learns the deeper features of the human characters and environment surrounding him, acquaintance with which often destroys the initial, superficial impression and provides rich food for generalizing conclusions and conclusions.

In contrast to Dostoevsky's usual nervous and dramatic manner of narration, in "Notes from the House of the Dead" the story is imbued with outward calm and epic objectivity. The writer, as it were, is afraid to give the story a personal, subjective coloring and wants the facts to speak for themselves. Dostoevsky almost always expounds the narrator's reasoning and visions extremely briefly, giving them not so much the form of general abstract conclusions as the form of reflections directly excited by what he has seen and experienced. Very often, these reflections break off and do not end: they only formulate in a more generalized form certain private observations of the narrator, indicate the complexity of the phenomenon he is considering, which requires special attention from society (for example, “and the difference in crimes for which those who committed them are subjected to one and the same punishments), but do not indicate the solution of the issue.

Despite the outward calmness and restraint of the story, in every line of Notes from the House of the Dead one can guess a deep, agitated feeling. The entire narrative in the Notes is imbued with indignation against the cruelty of the tsarist administration and the unjust practices of hard labor, warmed by love and sympathy for the people, who are the main victims of these practices.

Dostoevsky with severe simplicity describes the dirty, stupefying atmosphere of the prison barracks, the severity of forced labor, the arbitrariness of the administration representatives, intoxicated by their power and impunity (like the parade-major Krivtsov described in the Notes). The pages dedicated to the prison hospital, where soldiers punished with gauntlets are treated with great force, are written with great force.<и где больные месяцами болеют и умирают в кандалах. Достоевский показывает, что каторжная система, основанная на постоянном насилии и издевательстве над заключенными, на подавлении всякого свободного проявления личности, на ежеминутном ощущении ими стеснения и гнета, порождала со стороны арестантов упорный, непрерывный протест. Не находя для себя других форм проявления, этот протест «скал выхода в пьянстве, драках, тайном и открытом разврате. Если безнаказанность каторжной администрации развращала се и порождала дикое издевательство над арестантами, то постоянное ощущение своего бесправия, стеснение и гнет, испытываемые арестантами, имели на многих из них такое же развращающее, гибельное влияние.

In serf Russia in the 1940s and 1950s, a significant number of those sentenced to hard labor were serfs and soldiers convicted for resisting the arbitrariness of their landlords and officers. For reasons of censorship, Dostoevsky could not touch on that category of prisoners whose crimes were caused by the oppression of the landlords. Dostoevsky's story about one of these imprisoned peasants, who killed his master with an ax for violence against his young wife, was not included in the text of the Notes, but was preserved in the memory of the writer's friend A.P. Milyukov and transmitted by the latter in his memoirs of Dostoevsky. 8

And yet the theme of serfdom runs like a red thread through all the Notes. Already on the first pages of the Notes, Dostoevsky emphasizes that the bulk of the prisoners in the prison were serfs and soldiers who had endured from their previous life before hard labor a stubborn and irreconcilable hatred of the nobility. The narrator encounters this hatred for the ruling class on the day he enters prison, and it accompanies him throughout his life in hard labor. “You are iron noses, you have pecked us!” (III, 497) - the prisoners from the people say to the hero and his fellow nobles, rejecting with indignation any thought of the possibility of camaraderie between them. Dostoevsky does not hide, but directly points out to the reader the social reason for this hatred. “... They were all previously either landlords or from a military rank. Judge for yourself, can they fall in love with you?” (III, 328), - declares to the hero one of the nobles with whom he meets “in hard labor, Akim Akimovich.

It should be emphasized that "Notes from the House of the Dead" was written by Dostoevsky simultaneously with the "Series of Articles on Russian Literature" and other articles in which the writer tried to prove that in Russia the nobility and the people were a single whole, that the spirit of Russian society was "wider than class enmity" (XIII, 41). Echoes of these statements are also found on separate pages of Notes from the House of the Dead. On the whole, however, the Notes serve as a clear refutation of Dostoevsky's Slavophile, "soil" ideas, clearly showing the deep and irreconcilable nature of the people's hatred of the nobility. It is characteristic that the climax of the theatrical performance of the prisoners described by Dostoevsky is the scene in which the devils take the master to hell and his servant Kedril joyfully declares that now he is "alone: .. without the master." Dostoevsky emphasizes that these meaningful words aroused "boundless" delight among the audience (III, 441). Drawing the deep hatred of the serfs for the nobility, Dostoevsky shows that the people treated the serf administration with the same deep distrust and alienation, considering those guilty of crimes against the authorities always right. the murders of officers and persons of the prison administration, caused by unbearable bullying “hell of subordinates, are told several times (Sirotkin, Luchka).

In The Diary of a Writer, Dostoevsky repeatedly argued with the materialist theory, which explains the causes of crime by the influence of the environment. Dostoevsky argued that such a view allegedly leads to the justification of the criminal, because it transfers the blame from his personality to society and thereby relieves him of responsibility for the crime committed (XI, 11-22).

At the same time, Dostoevsky made many correct remarks against the naturalistic understanding of the environment and against the sophistry of liberal lawyers who tried to casuistically use the doctrine of the social nature of crime to protect the interests of their clients. man to sin, about the need for "suffering" and religious repentance for him. The rudiments of this reactionary view slip here and there in Notes from the House of the Dead, especially in the initial chapters of the second part, devoted to the description of the hospital. But they do not determine the main thing in In the vast majority of cases, Dostoevsky clearly shows that their crimes were determined by their life situation, the feudal system, and the policy of oppression of nationalities pursued by tsarism in the vast majority of cases, by depicting numerous figures of convicts on the pages of the Notes.

The writer points to the connection of crime with vagrancy, with poverty and lawlessness of the broad masses of the population. He notes that hard labor often does not exceed in difficulty, but is inferior to the work of a serf peasant, that many of the prisoners, having fallen into hard labor, feel more well-fed and even more free in the atmosphere of hard labor "partnership" than they were before hard labor. This side of Notes from the House of the Dead aroused special fears of the censors during the publication of the first chapters, who were afraid that the hard labor described by Dostoevsky could serve as a temptation for “undeveloped people” in the conditions of Tsarist Russia (III, 567).

Dostoevsky condemns in Notes from the House of the Dead the cruelty of the policy of religious and national oppression pursued by tsarism. With great sympathy, the Starodubov old schismatic, the Lezghian Nurra, and the Dagestan Tatar Aley are described in the Notes. Without concealing his ideological differences with the Polish revolutionary nobles, Dostoevsky at the same time describes the latter with deep sympathy, is ardently indignant at the mockery of them by the prison authorities, and highly appreciates their moral stamina.

Despite the originality of the “corner of Russian life” described in Notes from the House of the Dead, this book in many respects adjoins the series of realistic books about the people that was opened by Turgenev’s Notes of a Hunter. Following Turgenev, Grigorovich, Pisemsky, Dostoevsky displays on the pages of the Notes a gallery of people from the people, whose amazing talent and humor sparkle brightly against the dark background of hard labor.

Even in a letter to his brother dated February 22, 1854, talking about the impressions of his life in hard labor, Dostoevsky wrote: “How much folk types and characters I learned from hard labor! I got used to them, and therefore, it seems, I know them decently. How many stories of vagabonds and robbers, and in general of all black, miserable life. Enough for whole volumes. What a wonderful people” (Letters, I, 139). Dostoevsky always considered contact with the people, close acquaintance and communication with them during the years of hard labor the main event of his life.

Like other leading Russian and Western European realist writers of the 1950s and 1960s, Dostoevsky in his Notes on the House of the Dead strives to expand the traditional boundaries of the old aesthetics, breaks the usual canonical forms of narration in order to introduce a gallery of folk types into literature, outline pictures of labor and Instead of a story or a novel with a narrowly family plot and one main character, Dostoevsky creates a work in which the reader’s attention is focused on the whole motley mass of prisoners, numerous folk types, diverse in their social, moral and psychological properties, each of which he demanded from the author a separate chapter or episode specially dedicated to him.

Dostoevsky depicts in the Notes the industriousness and energy of people from the people, their high self-esteem and justice. The artistic sensitivity, the bright talent of the inhabitants of the prison are shown in the description of the theatrical performance, which constitutes the ideological and artistic pinnacle of the first part of the Notes. The episodes of the purchase of Gnedok and the release of the serf eagle characterize the thriftiness of the prisoners, their love of life and indestructible love for freedom. Reproducing the jokes of his comrades, characteristic folk expressions, proverbs and sayings that have entered their language, Dostoevsky notes the optimism and humor, the accuracy and accuracy of the definitions given by the people to the surrounding people and objects.

With great warmth, the quiet and simple-hearted Sirotkin, the hardworking, economic Sushilov, Baklushin are described in the Notes, whose humor and bright talent are revealed in the scene of the performance. At the same time, the figures of the "desperate" - Petrov, Orlov show that enormous potential internal energy, strength, determination, which were characteristic of many prisoners and which, under other conditions, could have been used differently, as V. B. Shklovsky very subtly showed, through "Notes from the House of the Dead" runs through a series of pessimistically colored, tragic leitmotifs. 9 Such, for example, is the image of an eagle with broken wings - an image that switches the main theme of "Notes" - the theme of bondage - into an epic plan, enriching it with folklore, song associations. The “Notes” reflect the tragic defeat of the 1848 revolution, the reflection of Dostoevsky’s personal hard feelings and doubts, they show the author’s disbelief in the possibility of an active revolutionary transformation of the existing order. But the years of hard labor were for Dostoevsky not only years of disillusionment with utopian socialist ideals; they were also years of liberation from many romantic illusions, both ideological and literary-aesthetic. Hence the sober attitude of the author of the Notes to his comrades, the complete absence in them of elements of the romantic idealization of the inhabitants of hard labor, characteristic of Hugo, Sue, and partly of Balzac (the image of Vautrin) in the West. Giving portraits of the inhabitants of the prison, introducing their stories about his past into the narrative, Dostoevsky, in contrast to the romantic writers, seeks to reveal the real psychological and social diversity of the characters of the prisoners. He shows that each of “them is what made him, on the one hand, the previous life, and on the other, hard labor. Dostoevsky does not hide the fact that among the prisoners he had to see repulsive people, corrupted by the destructive influence of the criminal environment, senselessly cruel, cowards and fanfarons. Such are Gazin, the boastful and self-admiring Luchka. Convicts for Dostoevsky are people from the people, whose characters reflect not only the bright inclinations, but also the dark sides of people's life in the conditions of tsarist Russia - the lack of rights and ignorance of the masses, their prejudices and vices generated by the existing order.

The stay in hard labor led Dostoevsky to the pessimistic conclusion that the revolutionaries, like the entire upper “cultural” layer of society, are tragically cut off from the people, from the “soil”. This view of Dostoevsky was reflected in Notes from the House of the Dead. And yet, the depiction of the relationship between the people and the intelligentsia in the Notes is still devoid of that false tendentious coloring that it often acquired in Dostoevsky's later works. In the epilogue of "Crime and Punishment", describing Raskolnikov's life in hard labor, Dostoevsky explains the hostility of the people's environment towards Raskolnikov by the fact that he is a "godless", an atheist. In "Notes from the House of the Dead", the image of the relationship between the people and political prisoners is sustained in a different spirit. The people here look at political prisoners with distrust insofar as they see in them the nobles, whom life has taught them to treat with distrust. This "does not prevent people from" the people from taking part in the fate of the narrator, the friendly relations between him and Alei, Sushilov. Drawing the love of freedom of the masses, their hostility to the nobility and serf administration, Dostoevsky thereby objectively shows that the political struggle against autocracy and serfdom is not was groundless, but reflected the interests of the people.

Summing up his impressions, Dostoevsky emphasized that most of the people from the people's environment with whom he had to meet in hard labor did not belong to the worst, but to the best elements of the people. He points out that more than half of the convicts were literate, which was in sharp contrast to the illiteracy of the vast majority of the population of serf Russia. The concluding words of the Notes sounded a severe reproach to the existing system: “And how much youth was buried in these walls in vain, how many great forces died here in vain! After all, everything must be said: after all, this people was an extraordinary people. After all, this, perhaps, is the most gifted, the most powerful people of all our people. But mighty forces perished in vain, they perished abnormally, illegally, irrevocably. And who is to blame? (III, 559).

Although Dostoevsky himself did not give a direct answer to this question, the whole logic of his book led to the only correct conclusion drawn from it by the advanced democratic part of the society of the 60s, who saw in Notes from the House of the Dead an accusation against the autocracy and feudal system of the then Russia. Not without reason, V. I. Lenin, according to V. Bonch-Bruevich, saw in Notes from the House of the Dead "an unsurpassed work of Russian and world fiction, so wonderfully depicting not only hard labor, but also the" dead house "in which the Russian lived people under the tsars from the house of the Romanovs.” 10

Refusing to continue the mixed, semi-essay genre of Notes from the House of the Dead, turning again (even before the completion of Notes) to work on a novel, Dostoevsky did not renounce the development of that most important and valuable from a fundamental point of view that he had first found in work "hell" Notes ". This applies especially to the development of the main theme of the Notes—the theme of the people. If we do not consider the early, unsuccessful story "The Mistress", this theme quite organically entered the work of Dostoevsky and really sounded in him in "Notes from the House of the Dead". The experience of developing a folk theme did not pass without a trace on the work of Dostoevsky the novelist. This experience had a strong influence on the poetics of his subsequent novels, although in none of them do folk types and folk life directly occupy such a large place as in Notes from the House of the Dead.

Already in the early stories and novels of Dostoevsky, the characters are immersed in the atmosphere of St. Petersburg, they act against the backdrop of a carefully described social situation, they encounter people belonging to different, sometimes opposite social strata. And yet, the themes of the people and the nation as special, independent themes, in their broad philosophical and historical setting, in which they sounded in Pushkin and Gogol, are still absent in Dostoevsky's early work. Only in the failed "Mistress" and in those initial chapters of "Netochka Nezvanova", which tells the story of the musician Yegor Efimov, can one find the first timid approaches to the development of these themes, so important for Dostoevsky's subsequent work. In The Humiliated and Insulted, as in the stories of Dostoevsky of the late 50s and early 60s (Uncle's Dream, The Village of Stepanchikovo, etc.), the fate and experiences of the central characters are also depicted without direct, conscious correlation with problems of a philosophical, national-historical order.

In Notes from the House of the Dead, things are fundamentally different. Here the problem of the relationship of the hero - a representative of an educated minority - not just with individual people from the people's environment, but with the people, considered as the main force in the historical life of the country, as an exponent of the most important features of the national character and the basis of the whole life of the nation, is brought to the fore by Dostoevsky. This problem becomes decisive both for the subjective impressions and reflections of the narrator, and for an objective analysis of his personal, individual fate.

The principle of depicting and analyzing individual psychology and the fate of the central characters in relation to psychology, moral consciousness, the fate of the people was the main achievement of Notes from the House of the Dead, which since that time has been firmly included in the artistic system of Dostoevsky the novelist, becoming one of the defining elements of this systems. This principle was further developed in that special, original form in which it is realized in Dostoevsky's novels in Crime and Punishment.

Comparing here and in his subsequent novels ideas about the experience of the protagonist with the moral consciousness of the masses, based on his understanding of nationality as the main criterion in assessing the psychology and fate of the main characters, Dostoevsky, under the influence of his reactionary "soil" ideas, often brought into the coverage of psychology and the ideals of the people a false, one-sided trend. But the very principle of Dostoevsky's artistic analysis and evaluation of the ideas and actions of his heroes, inseparably united with the analysis of the ideas and moral feeling of the masses, was Dostoevsky's greatest achievement as a novelist, an achievement without which such masterpieces as Crime and Punishment would not have been possible. The Brothers Karamazov. The principle of a conscious assessment of the hero and his mental quest against the background of folk life in comparison with the practical life experience and ideals of the people unites Dostoevsky with Turgenev, Tolstoy and other great Russian novelists of his era, each of whom in his own way, in accordance with the individual characteristics of his talent and originality. of his artistic system, developed in his novels this most important aesthetic principle of Russian realistic art, discovered by Pushkin and Gogol.

Something else should also be pointed out. The fact that in the subsequent works of Dostoevsky, and in particular in his novels of the 60s and 70s, folk life has never been depicted anywhere by the novelist so broadly, versatile, realistically full-blooded, as in Notes from the House of the Dead, is a mere coincidence. Recognizing the people as the “soil” of all national life, Dostoevsky at the same time had an extremely one-sided idea of the psychology of the Russian masses. In his understanding of people's needs and ideals, Dostoevsky relied on the past of the people, consciously not wanting to see those changes in the psychology and moods of the masses that were taking place before his eyes. That is why in his works written after Notes from the House of the Dead, people from the people always act invariably in the same role - as bearers of the ideals of humility, silent submission to fate, uncomplaining moral stamina in need and suffering. A realistic depiction of the picture of the life of the people and the folk characters of the post-reform era in all their real historical complexity - a depiction that takes into account the struggle of opposing tendencies in the life of the people, the spontaneous awakening of a part of the masses, their transition to a conscious struggle with the oppressors, was not available to Dostoevsky. The belief in the immutability and constancy of the basic properties of the folk character (which Dostoevsky considered humility and forgiveness) obscured the picture of folk life with its real historical trends and contradictions from the great Russian novelist.

Therefore, having created one of the first epic works on a large scale in Russian literature of the 60s, dedicated to depicting the immediate conditions of life and experiences of the masses, Dostoevsky could not continue to develop the theme of the people in his further work with the same realistic fullness and freshness that characterizes the lighting. this topic in Notes from the House of the Dead. Of course, in Dostoevsky's novels written after Notes from the House of the Dead, the images of people from people are also extremely important and artistically significant. But they appear in them in the same light, helping the writer to carry out a moral judgment on the heroes from the environment of an educated minority from the point of view of the ideals of meekness and humility. This introduced into the folk characters portrayed by Dostoevsky the novelist the features of artistic convention and "idealizing schematism, which are equally inherent in the images of Sonya Marmeladova, Lizaveta, the painter Mikolka in Crime and Punishment, Marya Timofeevna in The Possessed, Makar Dolgoruky in The Teenager. Not Dostoevsky himself in his novels of the 60s and 70s, and Leo Tolstoy and writers of a democratic trend, especially Reshetnikov and Gleb Uspensky, continued in their novels and essays from folk life a broad realistic development of the theme of the people, in which Dostoevsky made a serious and significant contribution "Notes from the House of the Dead".

Notes:

1 The beginning of "Jen Eyre" was printed in vol. LXIV of "Notes of the Fatherland", in the same volume where the third part of "Netochka Nezvanova" was placed.

2 See about this in the book: V. Ya. Kirpotin. Young Dostoevsky. Goslitizdat, Moscow, 1947, p. 355.

3 V. G. Belinsky, Complete Works, vol. IX, Ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, M., 1955, p. 497.

4 See about this in the book: L. Ginzburg. "The Past and Thoughts" by Herzen. Goslitizdat, 1957, pp. 45-80.

5 N.V. Shelgunov. Memories. M.-Pgr., 1923, p. 117.

6 A. I. Herzen, Collected Works, vol. XVIII, Ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, M., 1959, p. 219.

7 M. N. Gernet. History of the royal prison, vol. 2. Ed. 2nd, M., 1951, pp. 230-231.

8 A. P. Milyukov. Literary meetings and acquaintances. SPb., 1890, pp. 211-220.

9 V. Shklovsky. Pros and cons. Ed. "Soviet writer", M., 1957, pp. 85-125.

10 Vlad. Bonch-Bruevich. Lenin on books and writers (from memoirs). Literary newspaper, 1955, No. 48 (3393), April 21.

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

Notes from the House of the Dead

Part one

Introduction

In the remote regions of Siberia, among the steppes, mountains or impenetrable forests, one occasionally comes across small towns, with one, many with two thousand inhabitants, wooden, nondescript, with two churches - one in the city, the other in a cemetery - cities that look more like a good suburban village than in the city. They are usually very adequately equipped with police officers, assessors and all the rest of the subaltern rank. In general, in Siberia, despite the cold, it is extremely warm to serve. People live simple, illiberal; orders are old, strong, consecrated for centuries. Officials who rightly play the role of the Siberian nobility are either natives, hardened Siberians, or visitors from Russia, mostly from the capitals, seduced by the salary that is not set off, double runs and tempting hopes in the future. Of these, those who know how to solve the riddle of life almost always remain in Siberia and take root in it with pleasure. Subsequently, they bear rich and sweet fruits. But others, a frivolous people who do not know how to solve the riddle of life, will soon get bored with Siberia and ask themselves with anguish: why did they come to it? They impatiently serve their legal term of service, three years, and after it has expired, they immediately bother about their transfer and return home, scolding Siberia and laughing at her. They are wrong: not only from official, but even from many points of view, one can be blessed in Siberia. The climate is excellent; there are many remarkably rich and hospitable merchants; many extremely sufficient foreigners. Young ladies bloom with roses and are moral to the last extreme. The game flies through the streets and stumbles upon the hunter itself. Champagne is drunk unnaturally much. Caviar is amazing. Harvest happens in other places fifteen times ... In general, the land is blessed. You just need to know how to use it. In Siberia, they know how to use it.

In one of these cheerful and self-satisfied towns, with the sweetest people, the memory of which will remain indelible in my heart, I met Alexander Petrovich Goryanchikov, a settler who was born in Russia as a nobleman and landowner, who later became a second-class exile convict for the murder of his wife and, after the expiration of a ten-year term of hard labor determined for him by law, he humbly and inaudibly lived out his life in the town of K. as a settler. He, in fact, was assigned to one suburban volost, but he lived in the city, having the opportunity to get at least some kind of livelihood in it by teaching children. In Siberian cities one often comes across teachers from exiled settlers; they are not shy. They teach mainly the French language, which is so necessary in the field of life and which without them in the remote regions of Siberia would have no idea. For the first time I met Alexander Petrovich in the house of an old, honored and hospitable official, Ivan Ivanovich Gvozdikov, who had five daughters, of different years, who showed great promise. Alexander Petrovich gave them lessons four times a week, thirty silver kopecks a lesson. His appearance intrigued me. He was an extremely pale and thin man, not yet old, about thirty-five, small and frail. He was always dressed very cleanly, in a European way. If you spoke to him, he looked at you extremely intently and attentively, listening with strict politeness to your every word, as if pondering it, as if you had asked him a task with your question or wanted to extort some secret from him, and, finally, he answered clearly and briefly, but weighing every word of his answer to such an extent that you suddenly felt awkward for some reason, and you yourself finally rejoiced at the end of the conversation. I then asked Ivan Ivanovich about him and found out that Goryanchikov lives impeccably and morally, and that otherwise Ivan Ivanovich would not have invited him for his daughters; but that he is terribly unsociable, hiding from everyone, extremely learned, reads a lot, but speaks very little, and that in general it is quite difficult to get into conversation with him. Others claimed that he was positively insane, although they found that, in fact, this was not such an important shortcoming, that many of the honorary members of the city were ready to show kindness to Alexander Petrovich in every possible way, that he could even be useful, write requests and so on. It was believed that he must have decent relatives in Russia, maybe not even the last people, but they knew that from the very exile he stubbornly cut off all relations with them - in a word, he hurt himself. In addition, everyone here knew his story, they knew that he had killed his wife in the first year of his marriage, killed him out of jealousy and himself denounced himself (which greatly facilitated his punishment). The same crimes are always looked upon as misfortunes and regretted. But, in spite of all this, the eccentric stubbornly avoided everyone and appeared in public only to give lessons.

At first I did not pay much attention to him, but, I do not know why, he gradually began to interest me. There was something mysterious about him. There was no way to talk to him. Of course, he always answered my questions, and even with an air as if he considered this his first duty; but after his answers I somehow found it hard to question him longer; and on his face, after such conversations, one could always see some kind of suffering and fatigue. I remember walking with him one fine summer evening from Ivan Ivanovich. It suddenly occurred to me to invite him over for a minute to smoke a cigarette. I cannot describe the horror expressed on his face; he was completely lost, began to mutter some incoherent words, and suddenly, looking angrily at me, rushed to run in the opposite direction. I was even surprised. Since then, when meeting with me, he looked at me as if with some kind of fear. But I did not let up; something drew me to him, and a month later, for no apparent reason, I myself went to Goryanchikov. Of course, I acted stupidly and indelicately. He lodged on the very edge of the city, with an old bourgeois woman who had a sick, consumptive daughter, and that illegitimate daughter, a child of ten years old, a pretty and cheerful girl. Alexander Petrovich was sitting with her and teaching her to read the minute I went in to see him. When he saw me, he became so confused, as if I had caught him in some kind of crime. He was completely at a loss, jumped up from his chair and looked at me with all his eyes. We finally sat down; he closely followed my every glance, as if he suspected some special mysterious meaning in each of them. I guessed that he was suspicious to the point of madness. He looked at me with hatred, almost asking: “Will you leave here soon?” I talked to him about our town, current news; he remained silent and smiled maliciously; it turned out that he not only did not know the most ordinary, well-known city news, but was not even interested in knowing them. Then I started talking about our region, about its needs; he listened to me in silence and looked into my eyes so strangely that I finally felt ashamed of our conversation. However, I almost teased him with new books and magazines; I had them in my hands, fresh from the post office, and I offered them uncut to him. He gave them a greedy look, but immediately changed his mind and declined the offer, responding with lack of time. Finally I said goodbye to him and, leaving him, I felt that some unbearable weight had been lifted from my heart. I was ashamed and it seemed extremely stupid to molest a person who sets his main task - to hide as far as possible from the whole world. But the deed was done. I remember that I hardly noticed his books at all, and, therefore, it was unfairly said about him that he reads a lot. However, driving twice, very late at night, past his windows, I noticed a light in them. What did he do, sitting up until dawn? Did he write? And if so, what exactly?

Circumstances removed me from our town for three months. Returning home already in the winter, I learned that Alexander Petrovich died in the autumn, died in seclusion and never even called a doctor to him. The town has almost forgotten about him. His apartment was empty. I immediately made the acquaintance of the mistress of the dead man, intending to find out from her; What was her lodger particularly busy with, and did he write anything? For two kopecks, she brought me a whole basket of papers left over from the deceased. The old woman confessed that she had already used up two notebooks. She was a gloomy and silent woman, from whom it was difficult to get anything worthwhile. She had nothing new to tell me about her tenant. According to her, he almost never did anything and for months did not open a book and did not take a pen in his hands; but whole nights he paced up and down the room and kept thinking something, and sometimes talking to himself; that he was very fond of and very fond of her granddaughter, Katya, especially since he found out that her name was Katya, and that on Catherine's day every time he went to someone to serve a memorial service. Guests could not stand; he went out from the yard only to teach children; he even looked askance at her, the old woman, when she, once a week, came at least a little to tidy up his room, and almost never said a single word to her for three whole years. I asked Katya: does she remember her teacher? She looked at me silently, turned to the wall and began to cry. So, this man could at least make someone love him.