Works by Pleshcheev. Poems by Pleshcheev A

Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev (1825 - 1893) - Russian poet, writer, translator, critic. Pleshcheev's works were included in the anthology of Russian poetry, prose, and children's literature and became the basis for about a hundred romances by Russian composers.

Childhood and youth

Alexey Pleshcheev came from a noble family, which by the time the future poet was born in 1825 was impoverished. The boy, being the only son of his parents, was born in Kostroma and spent his childhood in Nizhny Novgorod. He received his primary education at home and knew three languages.

In 1843, Pleshcheev entered the Faculty of Oriental Languages ​​at St. Petersburg University. In St. Petersburg, his social circle is developing: Dostoevsky, Goncharov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, the Maykov brothers. By 1845, Pleshcheev became acquainted with the circle of Petrashevites professing the ideas of socialism.

The poet's first collection of poems was published in 1846 and was imbued with revolutionary aspirations. The verse “Forward!” published in it. Without fear or doubt” the youth perceived it as “Russian Marseillaise”. Pleshcheev's poems of the early period are the first Russian response to the events of the French Revolution, some of them were banned by censorship until the beginning of the twentieth century.

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The Petrashevsky circle, of which Pleshcheev was an active participant, was closed by the police in the spring of 1849. Pleshcheev and other members of the circle were imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The result of the investigation was a death sentence for 21 of the 23 prisoners, involving execution.

On December 22, a mock execution took place, at the last moment of which the imperial decree on pardon and exile of the convicted was read out. Pleshcheev was sent as a private to the Southern Urals, near Orenburg. The poet's military service lasted 7 years; during the first years he wrote practically nothing.

For the courage shown during the Turkestan campaigns and the siege of Ak-Mosque, Pleshcheev was promoted to rank and retired. In 1859 he returned to Moscow, and from 1872 he lived in St. Petersburg.

Creativity after exile

The poet's second collection of poems was published in 1858 with Heine's prefaced words, “I was unable to sing...”. Upon returning to Moscow, Pleshcheev actively collaborated with the Sovremennik magazine and published poems in various publications in Moscow. The turn to prose dates back to this time. The stories were created (“Inheritance”, “Father and Daughter”, “Pashintsev”, “Two Careers”, etc.).

In 1859-66. Pleshcheev joined the group of leaders of Moskovsky Vestnik, directing it towards liberalism. Many critics considered Pleshcheev’s publication of the works and autobiography of T. Shevchenko, whom the poet met in exile, to be a bold political act. Poetic creativity was also politicized, for example, the poems “Prayer”, “Honest people, along the thorny road...”, “To Youth”, “False Teachers”, etc.

In the 60s, Pleshcheev fell into a depressive state. His comrades leave, the magazines where he published are closed. The titles of the poems created during this period speak eloquently about the change in the poet’s inner state: “Without hopes and expectations,” “I walked quietly along a deserted street.”

In 1872, Pleshcheev returned to St. Petersburg and headed the journal Otechestvennye zapiski, and then Severny Vestnik. Returning to a circle of like-minded people contributed to a new creative impulse.

In the last years of his life, the poet wrote a lot for children: the collections “Snowdrop”, “Grandfather’s Songs”.

Pleshcheev's pen includes translations of poems and prose by a number of foreign authors. The poet's works in dramaturgy are significant. His plays “The Happy Couple”, “Every Cloud Has a Cloud”, “The Commander” are successfully staged in theaters.

Alexey Pleshcheev died on September 26, 1893 in Paris, while there on his way to Nice for treatment. Buried in Moscow.

Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev(November 22, 1825, Kostroma - September 26, 1893, Paris) - Russian writer, poet, translator; literary and theater critic. In 1846, the very first collection of poems made Pleshcheev famous among revolutionary youth; as a member of the Petrashevsky circle, he was arrested in 1849, and some time later sent into exile, where he spent almost ten years in military service. Upon returning from exile, Pleshcheev continued his literary activity; Having gone through years of poverty and hardship, he became an authoritative writer, critic, publisher, and at the end of his life, a philanthropist. Many of the poet’s works (especially poems for children) have become textbooks and are considered classics. More than a hundred romances were written by the most famous Russian composers based on Pleshcheev’s poems.

Biography

Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev was born in Kostroma on November 22 (December 4), 1825 into an impoverished noble family that belonged to the ancient Pleshcheev family (among the poet’s ancestors was Saint Alexy of Moscow). The family honored literary traditions: there were several writers in the Pleshcheev family, including the famous writer S.I. Pleshcheev at the end of the 18th century.

The poet's father, Nikolai Sergeevich, served under the Olonets, Vologda and Arkhangelsk governors. A. N. Pleshcheev spent his childhood in Nizhny Novgorod, where since 1827 his father served as a provincial forester. After the death of Nikolai Sergeevich Pleshcheev in 1832, his mother, Elena Aleksandrovna (nee Gorskina), raised her son.

Until the age of thirteen, the boy studied at home and received a good education, mastering three languages; then, at the request of his mother, he entered the St. Petersburg School of Guards Ensigns, moving to St. Petersburg. Here the future poet had to face the “stultifying and corrupting” atmosphere of the “Nicholas military clique,” ​​which forever instilled “the most sincere antipathy” in his soul. Having lost interest in military service, Pleshcheev left the school of guards ensigns in 1843 (formally, having resigned “due to illness”) and entered St. Petersburg University in the category of oriental languages. Here Pleshcheev’s circle of acquaintances began to form: university rector P. A. Pletnev, A. A. Kraevsky, Maikovs, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Gradually, Pleshcheev made acquaintances in literary circles (formed mainly at parties in the house of A. Kraevsky). Pleshcheev sent his very first selection of poems to Pletnev, the rector of St. Petersburg University and the publisher of the Sovremennik magazine. In a letter to J. K. Grot, the latter wrote: “Have you seen poems signed by A. P-v in the Contemporary? I found out that this is our 1st year student, Pleshcheev. His talent is visible. I called him to me and caressed him. He walks along the eastern branch, lives with his mother, whose only son is..."

In 1845, A. N. Pleshcheev, carried away by socialist ideas, met through the Beketov brothers with members of the circle of M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky, which included writers - F. M. Dostoevsky, N. A. Speshnev, S. F. Durov , A. V. Khanykova. N. Speshnev had a great influence on Pleshcheev during these days, whom the poet later spoke of as a man of “strong will and extremely honest character.”

Petrashevites paid significant attention to political poetry, discussing issues of its development on “Fridays”. It is known that at a dinner in honor of Charles Fourier, a translation of Bérenger’s “Les fous”, a work dedicated to the utopian socialists, was read. Pleshcheev not only took an active part in discussions and the creation of propaganda poems, but also delivered forbidden manuscripts to members of the circle. Together with N.A. Mordvinov, he undertook the translation of the book by the ideologist of utopian socialism F.-R. de Lamennais "The Word of the Believer", which was supposed to be printed in an underground printing house.

In the summer of 1845, Pleshcheev left the university due to his cramped financial situation and dissatisfaction with the educational process itself. After leaving the university, he devoted himself exclusively to literary activities, but did not give up hopes of completing his education, intending to prepare the entire university course and pass it as an external student. At the same time, he did not interrupt contacts with the members of the circle; Petrashevites often met at his house; They perceived Pleshcheev as “a poet-fighter, his own Andre Chenier.”

In 1846, the first collection of the poet’s poems was published, which included the popular poems “At the Call of Friends” (1845), as well as “Forward! without fear and doubt..." (nicknamed the "Russian Marseillaise") and "By feelings, we are brothers"; both poems became anthems of revolutionary youth. The slogans of Pleshcheev’s anthem, which later lost their sharpness, had a very specific content for the poet’s peers and like-minded people: “the teaching of love” was deciphered as the teaching of the French utopian socialists; “valiant feat” meant a call to public service, etc. N. G. Chernyshevsky later called the poem “a wonderful hymn,” N. A. Dobrolyubov characterized it as “a bold call, full of such faith in oneself, faith in people, faith to a better future." Pleshcheyev’s poems had a wide public response: he “began to be perceived as a poet-fighter.”

V. N. Maikov, in a review of Pleshcheev’s first collection of poems, wrote with particular sympathy about the poet’s faith in “the triumph of truth, love and brotherhood on earth,” calling the author “our first poet at the present time”: “Poems to the maiden and the moon are over forever . Another era is coming: doubt and endless torments of doubt are in progress, suffering from universal human issues, bitter crying at the shortcomings and misfortunes of mankind, at the disorder of society, complaints about the pettiness of modern characters and a solemn recognition of one’s insignificance and powerlessness, imbued with a lyrical pathos for the truth... In that pitiful the situation in which our poetry has found itself since the death of Lermontov, Mr. Pleshcheev is undoubtedly our first poet at the present time... He, as can be seen from his poems, took up the work of a poet by vocation, he strongly sympathizes with the issues of his time, suffers from all the ailments of the century, painfully tormented by the imperfections of society..."

Poems and stories by A. Pleshcheev, who during these years was charged with faith in the coming kingdom of “humane cosmopolitanism” (as Maykov put it), were also published in “Notes of the Fatherland” (1847-1849).

Pleshcheev's poetry turned out to be actually the first literary reaction in Russia to the events in France. This is largely why his work was so valued by the Petrashevites, who set as their immediate goal the transfer of revolutionary ideas to domestic soil. Subsequently, Pleshcheev himself wrote in a letter to A.P. Chekhov: And for our brother - a man of the second half of the 40s - France is very close to his heart. Back then it was not allowed to pry into domestic politics - and we were brought up and developed on French culture, on the ideas of 1948. You can’t exterminate us... In many ways, of course, we had to be disappointed later - but we remained faithful to many things

A. Pleshcheev - A. Chekhov, 1888.

The poem “New Year” (“Clicks are heard - congratulations ...”), published with the “secret” subtitle “Cantata from Italian”, was a direct response to the French Revolution. Written at the end of 1848, it could not deceive the vigilance of the censor and was published only in 1861.

In the second half of the 1840s, Pleshcheev began to publish as a prose writer: his stories “The Raccoon Coat. The story is not without a moral" (1847), "Cigarette. The True Incident" (1848), "Protection. Experienced History" (1848) were noticed by critics, who discovered the influence of N.V. Gogol in them and classified them as a "natural school." During these same years, the poet wrote the stories “Prank” (1848) and “Friendly Advice” (1849); in the second of them, some motifs from the story “White Nights” by F. M. Dostoevsky, dedicated to Pleshcheev, were developed.

In the winter of 1848-1849, Pleshcheev organized meetings of Petrashevites at his home. They were attended by F. M. Dostoevsky, M. M. Dostoevsky, S. F. Durov, A. I. Palm, N. A. Speshnev, A. P. Milyukov, N. A. Mombelli, N. Ya. Danilevsky (future conservative author of the work “Russia and Europe”), P. I. Lamansky. Pleshcheev belonged to the more moderate part of the Petrashevites. He was left indifferent by the speeches of other radical speakers who replaced the idea of ​​a personal God with “truth in nature,” who rejected the institution of family and marriage and professed republicanism. He was alien to extremes and sought to harmonize his thoughts and feelings. The ardent passion for new socialist beliefs was not accompanied by a decisive renunciation of one’s former faith and only merged the religion of socialism and the Christian teaching about truth and love for one’s neighbor into a single whole. It is not for nothing that he took the words of Lamennay as his epigraph to the poem “Dream”: “The earth is sad and parched, but it will turn green again. The breath of the evil will not forever sweep over her like a scorching breath."

In 1849, while in Moscow (house number 44 on 3rd Meshchanskaya Street, now Shchepkina Street), Pleshcheev sent F. M. Dostoevsky a copy of Belinsky’s letter to Gogol. The police intercepted the message. On April 8, following the denunciation of the provocateur P. D. Antonelli, the poet was arrested in Moscow, transported in custody to St. Petersburg and spent eight months in the Peter and Paul Fortress. 21 people (out of 23 convicted) were sentenced to death; Pleshcheev was among them.

On December 22, along with the rest of the convicted Petrashevites, A. Pleshcheev was brought to the Semyonovsky parade ground to a special scaffold for civil execution. A re-enactment followed, which was later described in detail by F. Dostoevsky in the novel “The Idiot,” after which a decree of Emperor Nicholas I was read out, according to which the death penalty was replaced by various terms of exile to hard labor or to prison companies. A. Pleshcheev was first sentenced to four years of hard labor, then transferred as a private to Uralsk to the Separate Orenburg Corps.

On January 6, 1850, Pleshcheev arrived in Uralsk and was enlisted as an ordinary soldier in the 1st Orenburg Line Battalion. On March 25, 1852 he was transferred to Orenburg to the 3rd linear battalion. The poet's stay in the region lasted eight years, seven of which he remained in military service. Pleshcheev recalled that the first years of service were difficult for him, largely due to the hostile attitude of the officers towards him. “At first, his life in the new place of exile was downright terrible,” testified M. Dandeville. He was not given leave, and creative activity was out of the question. The steppes themselves made a painful impression on the poet. “This boundless steppe distance, expanse, callous vegetation, dead silence and loneliness are terrible,” wrote Pleshcheev.

The situation changed for the better after Governor-General Count V.A. Perovsky, an old acquaintance of his mother, began to provide patronage to the poet. Pleshcheev gained access to books, became friends with the family of Lieutenant Colonel (later General) V.D. Dandeville, who was fond of art and literature (to whom he dedicated several poems of those years), with Polish exiles, Taras Shevchenko, one of the creators of literary masks of Kozma Prutkov by A. M. Zhemchuzhnikov and revolutionary poet M. L. Mikhailov.

In the winter of 1850, in Uralsk, Pleshcheev met Sigismund Serakovsky and his circle; they met later, in Ak-Mosque, where both served. In Serakovsky’s circle, Pleshcheev again found himself in an atmosphere of intense discussion of the same socio-political issues that worried him in St. Petersburg. “One exile supported another. The highest happiness was being in the circle of your comrades. After the drill, friendly discussions often took place. Letters from home and news brought by newspapers were the subject of endless discussion. Not a single one lost courage or hope of returning...”, its member Br. said about the circle. Zalessky. Sierakovsky’s biographer clarified that the circle discussed “issues related to the liberation of peasants and the provision of land to them, as well as the abolition of corporal punishment in the army.”

On March 2, 1853, Pleshcheev, at his own request, was transferred to the 4th linear battalion, which was setting off on a dangerous steppe campaign. He took part in the Turkestan campaigns organized by Perovsky, in particular, in the siege and assault of the Kokand fortress Ak-Mechet). In a letter to an Orenburg friend, Pleshcheev explained this decision by saying that “the goal of the campaign was noble - the protection of the oppressed, and nothing inspires more than a noble goal.” For his bravery, he was promoted to non-commissioned officer, and in May 1856 he received the rank of ensign and with it the opportunity to enter the civilian service. Pleshcheev resigned in December “with renaming to collegiate registrars and with permission to join the civil service, except in the capitals” and joined the Orenburg Border Commission. Here he served until September 1858, after which he moved to the office of the Orenburg civil governor. From the Orenburg region, the poet sent his poems and stories to magazines (mainly Russky Vestnik).

In 1857, Pleshcheev married (the daughter of the caretaker of the Iletsk salt mine, E. A. Rudneva):12, and in May 1858 he and his wife went to St. Petersburg, receiving a four-month vacation “to both capitals” and the return of the rights of the hereditary nobility.

Resumption of literary activity

Already during the years of exile, A. Pleshcheev again resumed his literary activity, although he was forced to write in fits and starts. Pleshcheev's poems began to be published in 1856 in the Russian Bulletin under the characteristic title: “Old songs in a new way.” Pleshcheev of the 1840s was, according to the remark of M. L. Mikhailov, prone to romanticism; In the poems of the period of exile, romantic tendencies were preserved, but criticism noted that here the inner world of a person who “dedicated himself to the struggle for the people’s happiness” began to be more deeply explored.

In 1857, several more of his poems were published in the Russian Messenger. For researchers of the poet’s work, it remained unclear which of them were truly new and which belonged to the years of exile. It was assumed that G. Heine’s translation of “Life’s Path” (Pleshcheev’s - “And laughter, and songs, and the shine of the sun!..”), published in 1858, is one of the latter. The same line of “loyalty to ideals” was continued by the poem “In the Steppe” (“But let my days pass without joy...”). An expression of the general sentiments of the Orenburg exiled revolutionaries was the poem “After Reading the Newspapers,” the main idea of ​​which - condemnation of the Crimean War - was consonant with the sentiments of the Polish and Ukrainian exiles.

In 1858, after an almost ten-year break, the second collection of Pleshcheev’s poems was published. The epigraph to it, the words of Heine: “I was not able to sing...”, indirectly indicated that in exile the poet was almost not engaged in creative activity. No poems dated 1849-1851 have survived at all, and Pleshcheev himself admitted in 1853 that he had long “lost the habit of writing.” The main theme of the 1858 collection was “pain for the enslaved homeland and faith in the righteousness of one’s cause,” the spiritual insight of a person who renounces a thoughtless and contemplative attitude to life. The collection opened with the poem “Dedication”, which in many ways echoed the poem “And laughter, and songs, and the shine of the sun!..”. Among those who sympathetically appreciated Pleshcheev’s second collection was N. A. Dobrolyubov. He pointed out the socio-historical conditioning of melancholy intonations by the circumstances of life, which “ugly break the most noble and strong personalities...”. “In this regard, Mr. Pleshcheev’s talent bears the same imprint of the bitter consciousness of his powerlessness before fate, the same flavor of “painful melancholy and joyless thoughts” that followed the ardent, proud dreams of his youth,” the critic wrote.

In August 1859, after a short return to Orenburg, A. N. Pleshcheev settled in Moscow (under the “strictest supervision”) and devoted himself entirely to literature, becoming an active contributor to the Sovremennik magazine. Taking advantage of his Orenburg acquaintance with the poet M. L. Mikhailov, Pleshcheev established contacts with the updated editorial staff of the magazine: with N. A. Nekrasov, N. G. Chernyshevsky, N. A. Dobrolyubov. Among the publications where the poet published poems were also “Russian Word” (1859-1864), “Time” (1861-1862), the newspapers “Vek” (1861), “Den” (1861-1862) and “Moskovsky Vestnik” "(an editorial position in which he held in 1859-1860), St. Petersburg publications ("Svetoch", "Iskra", "Time", "Russian Word"). On December 19, 1859, the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature elected A. Pleshcheev as a full member.

At the end of the 1850s, A. Pleshcheev turned to prose, first to the short story genre, then published several stories, in particular, “Inheritance” and “Father and Daughter” (both 1857), partly autobiographical “Budnev” (1858) , “Pashintsev” and “Two Careers” (both 1859). The main target of Pleshcheev’s satire as a prose writer was pseudo-liberal denunciation and romantic epigonism, as well as the principles of “pure art” in literature (the story “Literary Evening”). Dobrolyubov wrote about the story “Pashintsev” (published in “Russian Bulletin” 1859, No. 11 and 12): “The social element constantly penetrates them and this distinguishes them from the many colorless stories of the thirties and fifties... In the history of each hero of Pleshcheev’s stories you see how he is bound by his environment, just as this little world weighs down on him with its demands and relationships - in a word, you see in the hero a social being, and not a solitary one.”

"Moskovsky Vestnik"

In November 1859, Pleshcheev became a shareholder in the newspaper Moskovsky Vestnik, in which I. S. Turgenev, A. N. Ostrovsky, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. I. Lazhechnikov, L. N. Tolstoy and N. G. Chernyshevsky. Pleshcheev energetically invited Nekrasov and Dobrolyubov to participate and fought to shift the political orientation of the newspaper sharply to the left. He defined the publication’s mission as follows: “All nepotism aside. We must beat the serf owners under the guise of liberals.”

The publication in the Moskovsky Vestnik of T. G. Shevchenko’s “Dream” translated by Pleshcheev (published under the title “The Reaper”), as well as the poet’s autobiography, was regarded by many (in particular, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov) as a bold political act. Moskovsky Vestnik, under the leadership of Pleshcheev, became a political newspaper that supported the positions of Sovremennik. In turn, Sovremennik, in “Notes of a New Poet” (I. I. Panaeva), positively assessed the direction of Pleshcheev’s newspaper, directly recommending its reader to pay attention to translations from Shevchenko.

1860s

Collaboration with Sovremennik continued until its closure in 1866. The poet has repeatedly declared his unconditional sympathy for the program of Nekrasov’s magazine and the articles of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. “I have never worked so hard and with such love as at that time when all my literary activity was devoted exclusively to the magazine headed by Nikolai Gavrilovich and whose ideals were and will forever remain my ideals,” the poet later recalled.

In Moscow, Nekrasov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, A.F. Pisemsky, A.G. Rubinstein, P.I. Tchaikovsky, and actors of the Maly Theater attended literary and musical evenings at Pleshcheev’s house. Pleshcheev was a participant and was elected elder of the “Artistic Circle”.

In 1861, Pleshcheev decided to create a new magazine, Foreign Review, and invited M. L. Mikhailov to participate in it. A year later, with Saltykov, A. M. Unkovsky, A. F. Golovachev, A. I. Evropeus and B. I. Utin, he developed a project for the magazine “Russian Truth”, but in May 1862 he was refused permission from the magazine. At the same time, an unrealized plan arose to purchase the already published newspaper “Vek”.

Pleshcheev's position regarding the reforms of 1861 changed over time. At first, he received the news about them with hope (evidence of this is the poem “Poor you worked, knowing no rest...”). Already in 1860, the poet rethought his attitude towards the liberation of the peasants - largely under the influence of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. In letters to E.I. Baranovsky, Pleshcheev noted: the “bureaucratic and plantation” parties are ready to give up “the poor peasant as a victim of bureaucratic robbery,” renouncing the previous hopes that the peasant “will be freed from the heavy paw of the landowner.”

Period of political activity

Pleshcheev's poetic work of the early 1860s was marked by the predominance of socio-political, civic themes and motives. The poet tried to appeal to a wide democratically minded audience; propaganda notes appeared in his poetic works. He finally stopped collaborating with Russkiy Vestnik and personal communication with M. N. Katkov, moreover, he began to openly criticize the direction headed by the latter. “The damned questions of reality are the true content of poetry,” the poet asserted in one of his critical articles, calling for the politicization of the publications in which he participated.

Characteristic poems in this sense were “Prayer” (a kind of reaction to the arrest of M. L. Mikhailov), the poem “New Year” dedicated to Nekrasov, in which (as in “Malice boiled in my heart ...”) liberals and their rhetoric were criticized. One of the central themes in Pleshcheev’s poetry in the early 1860s was the theme of the citizen-fighter and revolutionary feat. The poet in Pleshcheev’s poems is not the former “prophet” suffering from the crowd’s misunderstanding, but a “warrior of the revolution.” The poem “Honest people on the thorny road...”, dedicated to the Chernyshevsky trial (“Let him not weave victorious wreaths for you...”) had direct political significance.

The poems “To Youth” and “False Teachers”, published in Sovremennik in 1862, also had the nature of a political speech, connected with the events of the autumn of 1861, when the arrests of students were met with complete indifference of the broad masses. From Pleshcheev’s letter to A.N. Supenev, to whom the poem “To Youth” was sent for delivery to Nekrasov, it is clear that on February 25, 1862, Pleshcheev read “To Youth” at a literary evening in favor of twenty expelled students. The poet also took part in collecting money for the benefit of the affected students. In the poem “To Youth,” Pleshcheev urged students “not to retreat in front of the crowd, to throw stones ready.” The poem “To the False Teachers” was a response to a lecture by B. N. Chicherin, given on October 28, 1861, and directed against the “anarchy of minds” and the “violent revelry of thought” of students. In November 1861, Pleshcheev wrote to A.P. Milyukov: Have you read Chicherin’s lecture in Moskovskie Vedomosti? No matter how little you sympathize with the students, whose antics are indeed often childish, you will agree that one cannot help but feel sorry for the poor youth, condemned to listen to such flabby nonsense, such worn-out platitudes as soldiers’ trousers, and empty doctrinaire phrases! Is this the living word of science and truth? And this lecture was applauded by the comrades of the venerable doctrinaire Babst, Ketcher, Shchepkin and Co.

In secret police reports during these years, A. N. Pleshcheev continued to appear as a “conspirator”; it was written that although Pleshcheev “behaves very secretly,” he is still “suspected of disseminating ideas that disagree with the views of the government.” There were some reasons for such suspicion.

By the time A. N. Pleshcheev moved to Moscow, N. G. Chernyshevsky’s closest associates were already preparing the creation of an all-Russian secret revolutionary organization. Many of the poet’s friends took an active part in its preparation: S. I. Serakovsky, M. L. Mikhailov, Y. Stanevich, N. A. Serno-Solovyevich, N. V. Shelgunov. For this reason, the police considered Pleshcheev as a full participant in the secret organization. In Vsevolod Kostomarov’s denunciation, the poet was called a “conspirator”; It was he who was credited with creating the “Letter to the Peasants,” Chernyshevsky’s famous proclamation.

It is known that on July 3, 1863, a note was drawn up in the III Department, reporting that the poet-translator F.N. Berg visited Pleshcheev at his dacha and saw leaflets and typographical font from him. “Fyodor Berg responded that Pleshcheev... is positively one of the leaders of the Land and Freedom society,” the note said. On July 11, 1863, a search was carried out at Pleshcheev’s place, which did not bring any results. In a letter to the manager of the 1st expedition of the III Division, F.F. Kranz, the poet was indignant about this, explaining the presence in the house of portraits of Herzen and Ogarev, as well as several prohibited books, by literary interests. There is no exact information about Pleshcheev’s participation in “Land and Freedom”. Many contemporaries believed that Pleshcheev not only belonged to a secret society, but also ran an underground printing house, which, in particular, P. D. Boborykin wrote about. M. N. Sleptsova, in her memoirs “Navigators of the Coming Storm,” stated that among the people who were members of “Land and Freedom” and personally known to her was Pleshcheev: “In the 60s, he was in charge of a printing house in Moscow, where it was published “Young Russia”, and, in addition, participated in the “Russian Vedomosti” that had just begun in Moscow, it seems, as a columnist of foreign literature. He was a member of “Land and Freedom,” which for a long time connected him with Sleptsov,” she claimed. These statements are indirectly confirmed by letters from Pleshcheev himself. Thus, he wrote to F.V. Chizhov about his intention to “start a printing house” on September 16, 1860. A letter to Dostoevsky dated October 27, 1859, said: “I am starting a printing house myself - although not alone.”

Literary activity in the 1860s

In 1860, two volumes of Pleshcheev’s Tales and Stories were published; in 1861 and 1863 - two more collections of poems by Pleshcheev. Researchers noted that as a poet Pleshcheev joined the Nekrasov school; Against the backdrop of the social upsurge of the 1860s, he created socially critical, protest and appealing poems (“Oh youth, youth, where are you?”, “Oh, don’t forget that you are a debtor,” “A boring picture!”). At the same time, in terms of the nature of his poetic creativity, in the 1860s he was close to N.P. Ogarev; the work of both poets was formed on the basis of common literary traditions, although it was noted that Pleshcheev’s poetry is more lyrical. Among his contemporaries, the prevailing opinion was that Pleshcheev remained “a man of the forties,” somewhat romantic and abstract. “Such a mental disposition did not quite coincide with the character of the new people, the sober sixties, who demanded work and, above all, work,” noted N. Bannikov, the poet’s biographer.

N. D. Khvoshchinskaya (under the pseudonym “V. Krestovsky” in a review of Pleshcheev’s collection of 1861, highly appreciating in retrospect the work of the poet, who wrote “living, warm modern things that made us sympathize with him,” sharply criticized the “uncertainty” of feelings and ideas, in some poems catching decadence, in others - sympathy for liberalism. Pleshcheev himself indirectly agreed with this assessment, in the poem “Thought” he admitted about “pathetic loss of faith” and “conviction in the futility of the struggle...”.

Researchers noted that in a new literary situation for Pleshcheev, it was difficult for him to develop his own position. “We need to say a new word, but where is it?” - he wrote to Dostoevsky in 1862. Pleshcheev sympathetically perceived diverse, sometimes polar, social and literary views: thus, while sharing some of the ideas of N.G. Chernyshevsky, at the same time he supported both the Moscow Slavophiles and the program of the magazine “Time”.

Literary earnings brought the poet a meager income; he led the existence of a “literary proletarian,” as F. M. Dostoevsky called such people (including himself). But, as contemporaries noted, Pleshcheev behaved independently, remaining faithful to the “high humanistic Schiller idealism acquired in his youth.” As Yu. Zobnin wrote, “Pleshcheev, with the courageous simplicity of an exiled prince, endured the constant need of these years, huddled with his large family in tiny apartments, but did not compromise one iota either on his civic or literary conscience.”

Years of disappointment

In 1864, A. Pleshcheev was forced to enter the service and received the position of auditor of the control chamber of the Moscow Post Office. “Life has completely beaten me up. At my age, it’s so hard to fight like a fish on ice and wear a uniform for which I’ve never prepared,” he complained two years later in a letter to Nekrasov.

There were other reasons that determined the sharp deterioration in the poet’s general mood, which was evident by the end of the 1860s, and the predominance of feelings of bitterness and depression in his works. His hopes for nationwide protests in response to the reform suffered a collapse; many of his friends died or were arrested (Dobrolyubov, Shevchenko, Chernyshevsky, Mikhailov, Serno-Solovyevich, Shelgunov). The death of his wife on December 3, 1864 was a heavy blow for the poet. After the closure of the magazines “Sovremennik” and “Russkoe Slovo” in 1866 (the magazines of the Dostoevsky brothers “Time” and “Epoch” were closed even earlier), Pleshcheev found himself among a group of writers who practically lost their magazine platform. The main theme of his poems of this time was the exposure of betrayal and treason (“If you want it to be peaceful...”, “Apostaten-Marsch”, “I feel sorry for those whose strength is dying...”).

In the 1870s, revolutionary sentiments in Pleshcheev’s work acquired the character of reminiscences; Characteristic in this sense is the poem “I quietly walked along a deserted street...” (1877), considered one of the most significant in his work, dedicated to the memory of V. G. Belinsky. The poem “Without Hopes and Expectations...” (1881), which was a direct response to the state of affairs in the country, seemed to draw a line under a long period of disappointment and frustration.

Pleshcheev in St. Petersburg

In 1868, N.A. Nekrasov, having become the head of the journal Otechestvennye zapiski, invited Pleshcheev to move to St. Petersburg and take the post of editorial secretary. Here the poet immediately found himself in a friendly atmosphere, among like-minded people. After Nekrasov's death, Pleshcheev took over the leadership of the poetry department and worked in the magazine until 1884.

At the same time, together with V.S. Kurochkin, A.M. Skabichevsky, N.A. Demert, he became an employee of Birzhevye Vedomosti, a newspaper in which Nekrasov dreamed of secretly “carrying out the views” of his main publication. After the closure of Otechestvennye Zapiski, Pleshcheev contributed to the creation of a new magazine, Severny Vestnik, where he worked until 1890.

Pleshcheev actively supported aspiring writers. He played a vital role in the life of Ivan Surikov, who was begging and was ready to commit suicide; his life changed after the first publication arranged by Pleshcheev. Having enormous influence in editorial offices and publishing houses, Pleshcheev helped V. M. Garshin, A. Serafimovich, S. Ya. Nadson, A. Apukhtin. Pleshcheev played the most important role in the literary fate of D. S. Merezhkovsky during the years of his literary debut. He kept the latter as a relic in his archives with a short note: “I offer membership<Литературного>society of Semyon Yakovlevich Nadson (Krondstadt, corner of Kozelskaya and Kronstadt, house of the Nikitin heirs, Grigoriev’s apartment) Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (Znamenskaya, 33, apartment 9) A. Pleshcheev.” A deep friendship connected Pleshcheev with the aspiring A.P. Chekhov, whom Pleshcheev considered the most promising of the young writers. The poet greeted Chekhov's first major story, “The Steppe,” with admiration.

In his bibliographic notes, Pleshcheev defended realistic principles in art, developing the ideas of V. G. Belinsky and the principles of “real criticism,” especially N. A. Dobrolyubov. Each time, based on the social significance of literature, Pleshcheev tried to identify in his critical reviews the social meaning of the work, although “he relied, as a rule, on vague, too general concepts, such as sympathy for the disadvantaged, knowledge of the heart and life, naturalness and vulgarity.” In particular, this approach led him to underestimate the works of A.K. Tolstoy. As the head of the literary department of the Northern Messenger, Pleshcheev openly clashed with the populist editorial group, primarily with N.K. Mikhailovsky, from whose criticism he defended Chekhov (especially his “Steppe”) and Garshin. Ultimately, Pleshcheev quarreled with A. M. Evreinova (“... I don’t intend to cooperate with her after her rude and impudent attitude towards me,” he wrote to Chekhov in March 1890) and stopped collaborating with the magazine.

Creativity of the 1880s

With the relocation to the capital, Pleshcheev’s creative activity resumed and did not stop almost until his death. In the 1870-1880s, the poet was mainly engaged in poetic translations from German, French, English and Slavic languages. As the researchers noted, it was here that his poetic skill was most manifested.

A. Pleshcheev translated major dramatic works (“Ratcliffe” by Heine, “Magdalene” by Hebbel, “Struensee” by M. Behr), poems by German poets (Heine, M. Hartmann, R. Prutz), French (V. Hugo, M. Monier ), English (J. G. Byron, A. Tennyson, R. Southey, T. Moore), Hungarian (S. Petőfi), Italian (Giacomo Leopardi), works of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko and such Polish poets as S. Witvitsky (“The grass is turning green, the sun is shining...”, from the collection “Rural Songs”), Anthony Sova (Eduard Zheligovsky) and Vladislav Syrokomlya.

A. Pleshcheev also translated fiction; some works (“Belly of Paris” by E. Zola, “Red and Black” by Stendhal) were first published in his translation. The poet also translated scientific articles and monographs. In various magazines, Pleshcheev published numerous compilation works on Western European history and sociology (“Paul-Louis Courier, his life and writings,” 1860; “The Life and Correspondence of Proudhon,” 1873; “The Life of Dickens,” 1891), monographs on the work of W. Shakespeare, Stendhal, A. de Musset. In his journalistic and literary-critical articles, largely following Belinsky, he promoted democratic aesthetics and called for searching among the people for heroes capable of self-sacrifice in the name of common happiness.

In 1887, the complete collection of poems by A. N. Pleshcheev was published. The second edition, with some additions, was made after his death by his son, in 1894, and subsequently Pleshcheev’s “Tales and Stories” were also published.

A. N. Pleshcheev was actively interested in theatrical life, was close to the theatrical environment, and was familiar with A. N. Ostrovsky. At various times, he held the positions of foreman of the Artistic Circle and chairman of the Society of Stage Workers, actively participated in the activities of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, and often gave readings himself.

A. N. Pleshcheev wrote 13 original plays. Basically, these were small in volume and “entertaining” in plot, lyrical and satirical comedies from provincial landowner life. Theatrical productions based on his dramatic works “Service” and “Every cloud has a silver lining” (both 1860), “The Happy Couple”, “The Commander” (both 1862) “What often happens” and “Brothers” (both 1864), etc.) were shown in the leading theaters of the country. During these same years, he revised about thirty comedies by foreign playwrights for the Russian stage.

Children's literature

Children's poetry and literature occupied an important place in Pleshcheev's work in the last decade of his life. His collections “Snowdrop” (1878) and “Grandfather’s Songs” (1891) were successful. Some poems have become textbooks (“Old Man”, “Grandmother and Granddaughter”). The poet took an active part in publishing, precisely in line with the development of children's literature. In 1861, together with F. N. Berg, he published the anthology “Children's Book,” and in 1873 (with N. A. Alexandrov) a collection of works for children’s reading, “For the Holidays.” Also, thanks to the efforts of Pleshcheev, seven school textbooks were published under the general title “Geographical Sketches and Pictures.”

Researchers of Pleshcheev's creativity noted that Pleshcheev's children's poems are characterized by a desire for vitality and simplicity; they are filled with free conversational intonations and real imagery, while maintaining the general mood of social discontent (“I grew up in my mother’s hallway ...”, “A boring picture”, “Beggars”, “Children”, “Native”, “Old people”, “Spring” ", "Childhood", "Old Man", "Grandmother and Granddaughter").

Romances based on Pleshcheev's poems

A. N. Pleshcheev was characterized by experts as “a poet with a smoothly flowing, romance-like” poetic speech and one of the most “melodious lyric poets of the second half of the 19th century.” About a hundred romances and songs were written based on his poems - both by his contemporaries and by composers of subsequent generations, including N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov (“The Night Flew Over the World”), M. P. Mussorgsky, Ts. A. Cui , A. T. Grechaninov, S. V. Rachmaninov.

Pleshcheev's poems and children's songs became a source of inspiration for P. I. Tchaikovsky, who appreciated their “sincere lyricism and spontaneity, excitement and clarity of thought.” Tchaikovsky's interest in Pleshcheev's poetry was largely due to the fact of their personal acquaintance. They met in the late 1860s in Moscow in the Artistic Circle and maintained good friendships throughout their lives.

Tchaikovsky, who turned to Pleshcheev’s poetry at different periods of his creative life, wrote several romances based on the poet’s poems: in 1869 - “Not a word, oh my friend...”, in 1872 - “Oh, sing the same song...”, in 1884 - “Only you alone...”, in 1886 - “Oh, if only you knew...” and “The meek stars shone for us...”. Fourteen songs by Tchaikovsky from the cycle “Sixteen Songs for Children” (1883) were created based on poems from Pleshcheev’s collection “Snowdrop”

“This work is easy and very pleasant, because I took the text from Pleshcheev’s Snowdrop, where there are many lovely little things,” the composer wrote to M. I. Tchaikovsky while working on this cycle. In the House-Museum of P. I. Tchaikovsky in Klin, in the composer’s library, a collection of Pleshcheev’s poems “Snowdrop” is preserved with a dedicatory inscription from the poet: “To Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as a sign of favor and gratitude for his wonderful music on my bad words. A. N. Pleshcheev. 1881 February 18th St. Petersburg.”

A. N. Pleshcheev and A. P. Chekhov

Pleshcheev became an admirer of Chekhov even before he met him personally. Memoirist Baron N.V. Drizen wrote: “How now I see the handsome, almost biblical figure of an old man - the poet A.N. Pleshcheev, talking with me about the book At Twilight, just published by Suvorin. “When I read this book,” said Pleshcheev, “the shadow of I. S. Turgenev hovered invisibly before me. The same pacifying poetry of the word, the same wonderful description of nature...” He especially liked the story “On the Holy Night.”

Pleshcheev’s first acquaintance with Chekhov took place in December 1887 in St. Petersburg, when the latter, together with I. L. Leontiev (Shcheglov), visited the poet’s house. Shcheglov later recalled this first meeting: “...less than half an hour had passed when dear Alexei Nikolaevich was in complete “spiritual captivity” with Chekhov and was worried in turn, while Chekhov quickly entered his usual philosophical and humorous mood. If someone had happened to look into Pleshcheev’s office then, he would probably have thought that long-time close friends were talking...” A month later, intensive friendly correspondence began between the new friends, which lasted five years. In letters to his other acquaintances, Chekhov often called Pleshcheev “grandfather” and “padre.” At the same time, he himself was not an admirer of Pleshcheev’s poetry and did not hide his irony towards those who idolized the poet.

Chekhov wrote the story “The Steppe” in January 1888 for “Severny Vestnik”; at the same time, he shared in detail his thoughts and doubts in his letters (“I’m timid and afraid that my Steppe will turn out to be insignificant... Frankly speaking, I’m pushing myself, I’m straining and pouting, but still, in general, it doesn’t satisfy me, although in some places I come across her poems in prose"). Pleshcheev became the first reader of the story (in manuscript) and repeatedly expressed delight in letters (“You wrote or almost wrote a great thing. Praise and honor to you!.. It pains me that you wrote so many lovely, truly artistic things - and are less famous, than writers unworthy to untie the belt at your feet”).

Chekhov first of all sent Pleshcheev stories, novels and the play “Ivanov” (in the second edition); shared in correspondence the idea of ​​the novel he was working on in the late 1880s, and gave him the first chapters to read. On March 7, 1889, Chekhov wrote to Pleshcheev: “I dedicate my novel to you... in my dreams and plans, my best thing is dedicated to you.” Pleshcheev, highly appreciating Chekhov’s internal independence, was himself frank with him: he did not hide his sharply negative attitude towards “New Time” and even towards Suvorin himself, with whom Chekhov was close.

In 1888, Pleshcheev visited Chekhov in Sumy (the Lintvarevs’ dacha on Luka), and the latter spoke about this visit in a letter to Suvorin:

He<Плещеев>he is slow-moving and senilely lazy, but this does not prevent the fair sex from taking him on boats, taking him to neighboring estates and singing romances to him. Here he pretends to be the same as in St. Petersburg, that is, an icon that is prayed for because it is old and once hung next to miraculous icons. I personally, in addition to the fact that he is a very good, warm and sincere person, I see in him a vessel full of traditions, interesting memories and good commonplaces.

Mikhail Chekhov left memories of Pleshcheev’s visit to the dacha on Luka.

Pleshcheev criticized Chekhov’s “Name Day,” in particular, its middle part, with which Chekhov agreed (“...I wrote it lazily and carelessly. Having become accustomed to small stories consisting only of a beginning and an end, I get bored and start chewing when I feel that I’m writing the middle”), then spoke sharply about the story “Leshy” (which Merezhkovsky and Urusov had previously praised). On the contrary, his story “A Boring Story” received his highest praise.

The correspondence began to fizzle out after Chekhov, having gone to Tyumen, did not respond to several of the poet’s letters, however, even after receiving an inheritance and subsequent relocation to Paris, Pleshcheev continued to describe in detail his life, illnesses and treatment. In total, 60 letters from Chekhov and 53 letters from Pleshcheev have survived. The first publication of the correspondence was prepared by the poet's son, writer and journalist Alexander Alekseevich Pleshcheev and was published in 1904 by the St. Petersburg Diary of a Theater Goer.

last years of life

For the last three years of his life, Pleshcheev was freed from worries about earning money. In 1890, he received a huge inheritance from a Penza relative, Alexei Pavlovich Pleshcheev, and settled with his daughters in the luxurious apartments of the Parisian Mirabeau Hotel, where he invited all his literary acquaintances and generously gave them large sums of money. According to the memoirs of Z. Gippius, the poet changed only externally (having lost weight from the onset of the illness). He accepted the enormous wealth that suddenly fell on him “from the sky” “with noble indifference, remaining the same simple and hospitable owner as in the small cell on Preobrazhenskaya Square.” “What is this wealth to me? It’s just a joy that I was able to provide for my children, and I myself sighed a little... before I died,” this is how the poetess conveyed his words. Pleshcheev himself took guests to the sights of Paris, ordered luxurious dinners in restaurants and “respectfully asked” to accept an “advance” from him for travel - a thousand rubles.

The poet contributed a significant amount to the Literary Fund, established funds named after Belinsky and Chernyshevsky to encourage talented writers, began to support the families of G. Uspensky and S. Nadson, and undertook to finance the magazine of N. K. Mikhailovsky and V. G. Korolenko “Russian Wealth”.

On January 2, 1892, from Nice, Pleshcheev wrote to Chekhov that his son Nikolai bought himself an estate in the Smolensk province, that in July in Lucerne his left arm and leg were paralyzed, he described in detail consultations with famous doctors (including “... the famous Kusmaul, whom Botkin prescribed before his death” - the latter forbade him to return to Russia in the winter), and also mentioned treatment with “electricity and massage”: “... But it is still far from a perfect correction. I can’t walk a lot or walk soon. I'm getting tired. Although I still walk with a stick. Shortness of breath and palpitations are very rare here. I stopped smoking completely. I drink a glass of wine at lunch and breakfast” - A. N. Pleshcheev - A. P. Chekhov. January 2(14), 1892, Nice.

Pleshcheev wrote that he avoided the elite, mentioning among those with whom communication gave him pleasure only Professor M. Kovalevsky, zoologist Korotnev, Vice-Consul Yurasov, and the Merezhkovsky couple.

In 1893, already seriously ill, A. N. Pleshcheev once again went to Nice for treatment and on the way, on September 26 (October 8), 1893, he died of apoplexy. His body was transported to Moscow and buried in the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent.

The authorities prohibited the publication of any “panegyric word” on the poet’s death, but a huge number of people gathered at the farewell ceremony on October 6. At the funeral, as contemporaries testified, there were mainly young people present, including many then unknown writers, in particular K. Balmont, who delivered a farewell speech over the coffin.

Reviews from critics and contemporaries

Researchers of the poet’s work noted the enormous resonance that one of his first poems, “Forward,” had, which laid the foundation for “the social, civic side of his poetry...”. What was noted, first of all, was the strength of Pleshcheev’s civic position and the complete correspondence of the personal qualities of the ideals they proclaimed. Pyotr Weinberg, in particular, wrote: “Pleshcheev’s poetry is in many ways an expression and reflection of his life. He belongs to the category of poets with a completely definite character, the essence of which is exhausted by some one motive, grouping around itself its modifications and ramifications, always preserving, however, the main foundation inviolate. In the poetry of the Pleshcheevs, this motive is humanity in the broadest and noblest meaning of the word. Being applied primarily to the social phenomena surrounding the poet, this humanity naturally had to take on an elegiac character, but his sadness is always accompanied by an unshakable faith in the victory - sooner or later - of good over evil ... "

P. Weinberg.

At the same time, many critics reservedly assessed the early works of A. Pleshcheev. It was noted that it was “colored by the ideas of socialist utopianism”; traditional romantic motifs of disappointment, loneliness, and melancholy “were interpreted by him as a reaction to social ill-being,” in the context of the theme of “holy suffering” of the lyrical hero (“Dream,” “Wanderer,” “At the Call of Friends”). The humanistic pathos of Pleshcheev’s lyrics was combined with a prophetic tone characteristic of the mood of the utopians, fueled by the hope of “seeing the eternal ideal” (“Poet”, 1846). Belief in the possibility of a harmonious world order and the expectation of imminent changes were expressed in P.’s most famous poem, extremely popular among the Petrashevites (as well as among the revolutionary-minded youth of subsequent generations, “Forward! Without Fear and Doubt...” (1846).

Writers and critics associated with the Social Democratic movement often spoke skeptically about the pessimistic mood that prevailed in the poet’s poetry after his return from exile. However, the same Dobrolyubov, noting that in Pleshcheev’s poems one can hear “some kind of internal heavy grief, a sad complaint of a defeated fighter, sadness about the unfulfilled hopes of youth,” nevertheless noted that these moods have nothing to do with “the plaintive groans of the whiny people of the past time." Noting that such a transition from the initial loftiness of hopes to disappointment is generally characteristic of the best representatives of Russian poetry (Pushkin, Koltsov, etc.), the critic wrote that “... the poet’s sadness about the failure of his hopes is not without... social significance and gives Mr. Pleshcheev’s poems the right to be mentioned in the future history of Russian literature, even completely regardless of the degree of talent with which they express this sadness and these hopes.”

Critics and writers of later generations assessed the poet's minor intonations somewhat differently, finding them consonant with the time in which he lived. “He held a torch of thought on a rainy day. Sobs sounded in his soul. In his stanzas there was the sound of native sadness, the sad groan of distant villages, a call for freedom, a gentle sigh of greeting and the first ray of the coming dawn,” wrote K. Balmont in his posthumous dedication.

A. N. Pleshcheev was not an innovator of form: his poetic system, formed in line with the Pushkin and Lermontov traditions, relied on stable phrases, established rhythmic-syntactic patterns, and a well-developed system of images. Some critics saw this as evidence of genuine taste and talent, while others gave reason to call some of his poems “colorless” and accuse him of “lack of independence” and “monotony.” At the same time, contemporaries, for the most part, highly valued the “social significance” of Pleshcheev’s poetry, its “noble and pure direction,” deep sincerity, and call for “honest service to society.”

Pleshcheev was often reproached for being carried away by abstract concepts and pompous metaphors (“To all the enemies of black untruth, rebelling against evil,” “The sword of the people is stained,” “But they sacrificed high aspirations to human vulgarity...”). At the same time, the poet’s supporters noted that didacticism of this kind was a form of Aesopian speech, an attempt to circumvent censorship. M. Mikhailov, who at one time criticized Pleshcheev, wrote already in 1861 that “... Pleshcheev had only one power left - the power of a call to honest service to society and his neighbors.”

Over the years, critics paid more and more attention to the individual, “special purity and transparency of Pleshcheev’s poetic language,” sincerity and sincerity; the softness of the tones of his poetic palette, the emotional depth of outwardly extremely simple, ingenuous lines.

Among literary historians of the 20th century, a negative assessment of Pleshcheev’s work belongs to D. P. Svyatopolk-Mirsky; he wrote in the preface to the poetic anthology that Pleshcheev “introduces us into the true Sahara of poetic mediocrity and lack of culture,” and in his “History of Russian Literature” he notes: “Civil poetry in the hands of its most significant representatives has become truly realistic, but ordinary civic bards often They were just as eclectic as the poets of “pure art,” but they were even superior to them in their obedience to conventions. Such, for example, is the flat and boring poetry of the very sweet and respectable A. N. Pleshcheev.”

Influences

Most often, critics attributed Pleshcheev’s poetry to the Nekrasov school. Indeed, already in the 1850s, the poet began to appear poems that seemed to reproduce the satirical and social lines of Nekrasov’s poetry (“The children of the century are all sick…”, 1858, etc.). The first comprehensive satirical image of a liberal appeared in Pleshcheev’s poem “My Acquaintance” (1858); critics immediately noted that many of the attributes of imagery were borrowed from Nekrasov (the father who went broke “on dancers”, the provincial career of the hero, etc.). The same accusatory line continued in the poem “Lucky” (“Slander! I am a member of various godly societies. Philanthropists take five rubles from me every year.”) An unusual symbiosis of Nekrasov’s accusatory and Turgenev’s theme of “The Extra Hero” appeared in the story “She and He "(1862).

The poet wrote a lot about folk life (“A boring picture”, “Native”, “Beggars”), and about the life of the urban lower classes - “On the Street”. Impressed by the plight of N. G. Chernyshevsky, who had been in Siberian exile for five years, the poem “I feel sorry for those whose strength is dying” (1868) was written. Nekrasov’s influence was noticeable in everyday sketches and in folklore and verse imitations of Pleshcheev (“I grew up in my mother’s garden…”, 1860s), and in poems for children. Pleshcheev forever retained feelings of personal affection and gratitude towards Nekrasov. “I love Nekrasov. There are aspects of him that attract you to him involuntarily, and for them you forgive him a lot. In these three or four years that I've been here<в Петербурге>, I had the opportunity to spend two or three evenings with him - those that leave a mark on the soul for a long time. Finally, I will say that I personally owe him a lot..." he wrote to Zhemchuzhnikov in 1875. Some contemporaries, in particular M. L. Mikhailov, drew attention to the fact that Pleshcheev failed to create convincing pictures of people's life; the craving for the Nekrasov school was, for him, rather an unrealized tendency.

Lermontov motives

V.N. Maikov was one of the first to classify Pleshcheev as a follower of Lermontov. Subsequently, modern researchers also wrote about this: V. Zhdanov noted that Pleshcheev, in a sense, “took over the baton” from Lermontov, one of whose last poems narrated the fate of Pushkin’s prophet, who set out to bypass “the seas and lands” (“I began to proclaim love / And pure teachings of truth: / All my neighbors / Madly threw stones at me...”). One of Pleshcheev’s first published poems was “Duma,” which denounced the public’s indifference “to good and evil,” consonant with Lermontov’s theme (“Alas, he is rejected! The crowd does not find the teaching of love and truth in his words...”).

The theme of the poet-prophet, borrowed from Lermontov, became the leitmotif of Pleshcheev’s lyrics, expressing “a view of the role of the poet as a leader and teacher, and of art as a means of restructuring society.” The poem “Dream,” which repeated the plot of Pushkin’s “Prophet” (a dream in the desert, the appearance of a goddess, transformation into a prophet), according to V. Zhdanov, “allows us to say that Pleshcheev not only repeated the motives of his brilliant predecessors, but tried to give his own interpretation Topics. He sought to continue Lermontov, as Lermontov continued Pushkin.” The Pleshcheevsky prophet, for whom “stones, chains, prison” await, inspired by the idea of ​​truth, goes to the people (“My fallen spirit has risen... and to the oppressed again / I went to proclaim freedom and love...”). From Pushkin and Lermontov sources comes the theme of personal, family happiness, developed in the poetry of the Petrashevites, and in the work of Pleshcheev, which received a new interpretation: as the theme of the tragedy of a marriage that breaks love (“Bai”), as a preaching of “reasonable” love, based on similarities of views and beliefs (“We are close to each other... I know, but alien in spirit...”).

Like-minded people and followers

Critics noted that in the nature and type of his poetic activity, Pleshcheev in the 1860s was closest to N.P. Ogarev. He himself insisted on this creative “kinship.” On January 20, 1883, the poet wrote to S. Ya. Nadson that P. I. Weinberg, in a report about him, “approached the topic perfectly, connecting me in his characterization with Ogarev.” Pleshcheev’s landscape and landscape-philosophical lyrics were considered by critics as “interesting,” but rational and in many ways secondary, in particular, in relation to the work of A. A. Fet.

Already researchers of the 20th century noted that the idea of ​​Pleshcheev, propagated by the liberal press, as a “poet of the 40s” who outlived his time, or Nekrasov’s epigone, was largely motivated by political intrigue, the desire to belittle the authority of a potentially dangerous, oppositional author. Biographer N. Bannikov noted that Pleshcheev’s poetic creativity was developing; in his later poems there was less romantic pathos, more - on the one hand, contemplation and philosophical reflection, on the other - satirical motives ("My Acquaintance", "Lucky Man"). Such protest works of the poet as “Honest people, on the thorny road...”, “I feel sorry for those whose strength is perishing” had completely independent value; poems that ridiculed the “superfluous people” who had degenerated in their passive “opposition” (the poetic short story “She and He”, the poem “The Children of the Century Are All Sick...”, 1858).

Critics noted that Pleshcheev’s poetry was clearer and more specific than the civil lyrics of the 60-70s by Ya. P. Polonsky and A. M. Zhemchuzhnikov, although some lines of creativity of the three poets intersected. Polonsky's lyrics (as M. Polyakov noted) were alien to the pathos of revolutionary duty; Unlike Pleshcheev, who blessed the revolutionary, he lived with the dream of “overpowering time - going into prophetic dreams” (“Muse”). Closer to Pleshcheev’s poetic system are the lyrics of “civil motives” by A. M. Zhemchuzhnikov. But their commonality was reflected rather in what constituted (in the opinion of the revolutionary democrats) the weak side of Pleshcheev’s poetry. The similarity with Zhemchuzhnikov was due to the ideological “vagueness” and sentimental didacticism of individual poems by Pleshcheev, mainly from 1858-1859. Both were brought together by the motives of civil repentance and the allegorical perception of nature. Zhemchuzhnikov’s distinctly liberal position (in particular, the latter’s recognition of the ideals of “pure poetry”) was alien to Pleshcheev.

The most obvious and prominent follower of Pleshcheev was considered S. Ya. Nadson, who in the same tones protested against the “kingdom of Baal”, glorified the shedding of the “righteous blood of fallen soldiers”, and used a similar didactic style, symbols and signs. The main difference was that the feelings of despair and doom in Nadson’s poetry took on almost grotesque forms. It was noted that Pleshcheev’s poetry had a noticeable influence on the poems of N. Dobrolyubov of 1856-1861 (“When a bright ray of knowledge penetrated to us through the darkness of ignorance...”), on the work of P. F. Yakubovich, the early N. M. Minsky, I. Z. Surikova, V. G. Bogoraza. Pleshcheev’s direct retelling was G. A. Machtet’s poem “The Last Forgiveness!” Pleshcheev’s lines were quoted by F. V. Volkhovsky (“To Friends”), S. S. Sinegub (“To the Bust of Belinsky”), P. L. Lavrov, in in his poem “Forward!” who used part of Pleshcheev’s program poem.

In the 1870s, Pleshcheev's landscape poetry developed; the poems were filled with “sparkling play of colors”, accurate descriptions of the elusive movements of nature (“Ice shackles do not weigh down the sparkling wave”, “I see the transparent blue vault of heaven, the jagged peaks of huge mountains”), which was interpreted by experts as the influence of A. A. Fet . Pleshcheev's landscape lyrics, however, one way or another served as a symbolic interpretation of the motives of social life and ideological quests. At the heart of, say, the “Summer Songs” cycle was the idea that the harmony of nature opposes the world of social contradictions and injustice (“A Boring Picture,” “Fatherland”). Unlike Fet and Polonsky, Pleshcheev did not experience a conflict in the separation of two themes: landscape and civil.

Criticism from the left

Pleshcheev was criticized not only by liberals, but also - especially in the 1860s - by radical writers, whose ideals the poet tried to live up to. Among the poems that, according to critics, showed sympathy for liberal ideas, was noted: “You poor ones worked, knowing no rest...” (from which it followed that the peasants, “submissive to fate,” patiently carried “their cross, like a righteous man carries,” but the “it’s time for the holy rebirth”, etc.). This liberal “prayer” evoked a sharp response from Dobrolyubov, who, in general, always had a sympathetic attitude towards the poet. He also parodied (in the poem “From the Motifs of Modern Russian Poetry”) what seemed to him a liberal “praise” by Pleshcheev of the “tsar-liberator.” However, the parody was not published for ethical reasons. Dobrolyubov criticized Pleshcheev for “abstract didacticism” and allegorical images (entry in the critic’s diary dated February 8, 1858).

Radical authors and publicists criticized Pleshcheev for, in their opinion, excessive “breadth of views.” Often he supported contradictory ideas and movements, sympathizing only with their “opposition”; breadth of views “often turned into uncertainty of judgment.”

N. A. Dobrolyubov about Pleshcheev’s prose

Pleshcheev the prose writer was considered a typical representative of the “natural school”; he wrote about provincial life, denouncing bribe-takers, serf owners and the corrupting power of money (the story “The Raccoon Coat”, 1847; “Cigarette”, “Protection”, 1848; the stories “Prank” and “Friendly Advice”, 1849). Critics noticed the influence of N.V. Gogol and N.A. Nekrasov in his prose works.

N.A. Dobrolyubov, reviewing a two-volume book in 1860, which included 8 stories by A.N. Pleshcheev, noted that they “... were published in all our best magazines and were read in their time. Then they were forgotten about. His stories never aroused speculation or controversy either in the public or in literary criticism: no one particularly praised them, but no one scolded them either. For the most part, they read the story and were satisfied; that was the end of the matter...” Comparing Pleshcheev’s stories and stories with the works of second-rate contemporary writers, the critic noted that “... the social element constantly permeates them and this distinguishes them from the many colorless stories of the thirties and fifties.”

The world of Pleshcheev's prose is the world of "petty officials, teachers, artists, small landowners, semi-secular ladies and young ladies." In the history of each hero of Pleshcheev’s stories, however, there is a noticeable connection with the environment, which “gravitates over him with its demands.” This, according to Dobrolyubov, is the main advantage of Pleshcheev’s stories, however, it is not a unique advantage, it belongs to him “along with many of the modern fiction writers.” The dominant motive of Pleshcheev’s prose, according to the critic, can be reduced to the phrase: “the environment eats up a person.” However, when reading... the stories of Mr. Pleshcheev, a fresh and sensible reader immediately has a question: what exactly do these well-intentioned heroes want, why are they being killed?.. Here we do not find anything definite: everything is so vague, fragmentary, petty, that you can’t come up with a general idea, you can’t form an idea about the purpose of life of these gentlemen... All that is good in them is the desire for someone to come, pull them out of the swamp in which they are stuck, put them on their shoulders and drag them to a clean and bright place.” — N. A. Dobrolyubov. "Good intentions and activity."

Characterizing the main character of the story of the same name, Dobrolyubov notes: “This Pashintsev - neither this nor that, neither day nor night, neither darkness nor light,” like many other heroes of stories of this kind, “does not represent a phenomenon at all; the entire environment that eats him up consists of exactly the same people.” The cause of the death of Gorodkov, the hero of the story “Blessing” (1859), according to the critic, is “...His own naivety.” Ignorance of life, uncertainty in means and goals and poverty of means also distinguish Kostin, the hero of the story “Two Careers” (1859), who dies of consumption (“The irreproachable heroes of Mr. Pleshcheev, like those of Mr. Turgenev and others, die from debilitating diseases,” the author of the article sneers), “having done nothing anywhere; but we don’t know what he could have done in the world even if he had not suffered from consumption and had not been constantly eaten up by the environment.” Dobrolyubov notes, however, the fact that the shortcomings of the poet’s prose also have a subjective side: “If Mr. Pleshcheev with exaggerated sympathy draws us his Kostins and Gorodkovs, it’s<следствие того, что>other, more practically consistent types in the same direction have not yet been represented by Russian society.”

The Meaning of Creativity

It is believed that the significance of A. N. Pleshcheev’s work for Russian and Eastern European social thought significantly exceeded the scale of his literary and poetic talent. Since 1846, the poet's works have been assessed by critics almost exclusively in terms of socio-political significance. The collection of poems by A. N. Pleshcheev in 1846 became, in fact, a poetic manifesto for the Petrashevites circle. In his article, Valeryan Maikov, explaining what Pleshcheev’s poetry was for people of the 40s, inspired by socialist ideals, placed the latter at the center of modern poetry and was even ready to consider him the immediate successor of M. Yu. Lermontov. “In the pitiful situation in which our poetry has found itself since the death of Lermontov, Mr. Pleshcheev is undoubtedly our first poet at the present time...” he wrote.

Subsequently, it was the revolutionary pathos of Pleshcheev’s early poetry that determined the scale of his authority in the revolutionary circles of Russia. It is known that in 1897, one of the first social democratic organizations, the South Russian Workers' Union, used the poet's most famous poem in its leaflet.

In January 1886, the 40th anniversary of A. N. Pleshcheev’s activities was celebrated. Not only old comrades-in-arms of Petrashevites reacted to this celebration with great sympathy (in particular, N.S. Kashkin, who wrote to the poet on April 12, 1886 that he followed the anniversary “with sincere joy and lively sympathy”). Participants in the revolutionary movement of the new generation reacted to this event even more vividly: some of them, in particular, the one who signed himself “editor of Echoes,” called the poet their teacher.

Pleshcheev was known and highly valued by revolutionary democratic circles in Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria, where he was perceived exclusively as a political poet. The founder of the new Bulgarian literature, Petko Slaveykov, translated “Forward! Forward!” in 1866. without fear and doubt...", after which the verse became the anthem of the Bulgarian revolutionaries. Emanuel Vavra mentioned Pleshcheev, Shevchenko, Ogarev and Mikhailov among the “most honored, talented, truly valuable” Slavic poets. The Bulgarian revolutionary Lyuben Karavelov in the Serbian magazine “Matica” in 1868 ranked Pleshcheev among the largest poets of our time. Demanding that poetry that moves “the people forward” be “humanistic, truthful and reasonable,” he listed Burns, Byron, Beranger, Pleshcheev and Taras Shevchenko in the same row. The Slovenian writer Fran Celestin gave a high assessment of Pleshcheev’s work in 1893. In 1871, Pleshcheev's first translations were published in Ukraine. Since 1895, P. A. Grabovsky became his permanent translator here. Ivan Franko wrote about Pleshcheev that he “worthily takes his place in the galaxy of the most outstanding writers in Russian literature of the 40s...”

Meanwhile, in general, the significance of A. N. Pleshcheev’s work was not limited to his contribution to the development of Russian revolutionary poetry. Critics noted that the poet did a tremendous amount of work (mainly on the pages of Otechestvennye zapiski and Exchange Gazette), analyzing the development of European literature, accompanying the publications with his own translations (Zola, Stendhal, the Goncourt brothers, Alphonse Daudet). Pleshcheev’s poems for children (“On the Shore,” “The Old Man”) are recognized as classics. Along with Pushkin and Nekrasov, he is considered one of the founders of Russian poetry for children.

Translations by Pleshcheev

Pleshcheev's influence on the poetry of the second half of the 19th century was largely due to his translations, which had, in addition to artistic, socio-political significance: partly through poetry (Heine, Beranger, Barbier, etc.) revolutionary and socialist ideas penetrated into Russia. More than two hundred translated poems make up almost half of Pleshcheev’s entire poetic heritage. Modern criticism saw him as one of the greatest masters of poetic translation. “In our extreme conviction, Pleshcheev is even more of a poet in translations than in the originals,” wrote Vremya magazine, also noting that “in foreign authors he looks first of all for his thoughts and takes his goodness wherever it may be... " Most of Pleshcheev's translations were translations from German and French. Many of his translations, despite specific liberties, are still considered textbooks (from Goethe, Heine, Rückert, Freiligrath).

Pleshcheev did not hide the fact that he did not see any particular differences in the methods of working on the translation and his own, original poem. He admitted that he used translation as a means of promoting the most important ideas for a given period, and in a letter to Markovich dated December 10, 1870, he directly stated: “I prefer to translate those poets in whom the universal element takes precedence over the folk one, in whom culture has an effect.” ! The poet knew how to find “democratic motives” even among poets with clearly expressed conservative views (Southie - early poems “The Blenheim Battle” and “Complaints of the Poor”). Translating Tennyson, he especially emphasized the English poet’s sympathy for the “fighter for an honest cause” (“Funeral Song”), for the people (“The May Queen”).

At the same time, Pleshcheev often interpreted the possibilities of translation as a field of improvisation, in which he often departed from the original source. The poet freely reworked, shortened or enlarged the work being translated: for example, the poem by Robert Prutz “Did you look at the Alps at sunset...” turned from a sonnet into a triple quatrain; Syrokomlya’s large poem “Plowman to the Lark” (“Oracz do skowronku”, 1851), which consisted of two parts, he retold under the arbitrary title “Bird” in abbreviation (24 lines in the original, 18 in translation). The poet considered the genre of poetic translation as a means of promoting new ideas. He freely interpreted, in particular, Heine’s poetry, often introducing his own (or Nekrasov’s) ideas and motives (translation of “Countess Gudel von Gudelsfeld”). It is known that in 1849, having visited Moscow University, the poet told students that “... it is necessary to awaken self-awareness among the people, and the best way for this would be to translate foreign works into Russian, adapting to the vernacular way of speech, disseminating them in manuscript ...”, and that a society has already arisen in St. Petersburg for this purpose.

Character and personal qualities

Everyone who left memories of Pleshcheev characterized him as a man of high moral qualities. Peter Weinberg wrote about him as a poet who “... amidst the harsh and frequent shocks of reality, even exhausted under them, ... still continued to remain a pure idealist and called others to the same ideal service to humanity,” never betrayed himself, “ nowhere and never (as was said in the poetic address on the occasion of his fortieth anniversary) without sacrificing good feelings before the world.”

“A man of the forties in the best sense of this concept, an incorrigible idealist,<Плещеев>He put his living soul, his meek heart into his songs, and that’s why they are so beautiful,” wrote publisher P. V. Bykov. A. Blok, reflecting on old Russian poetry in 1908, especially noted Pleshcheev’s poems, which “awakened some dormant strings, brought to life high and noble feelings.”

Contemporaries and subsequently researchers of creativity noted Pleshcheev’s extraordinary clarity of mind, integrity of nature, kindness and nobility; characterized him as a person who “was distinguished by an unclouded purity of soul”; retained “despite all the dashing convict and soldier decades... a childish faith in the purity and nobility of human nature, and was always inclined to exaggerate the talent of the next debut poet.”

Z. Gippius, who was “completely charmed” by Pleshcheev at their first personal meeting, wrote down her first impressions of him:

“He is a large, somewhat overweight old man, with smooth, rather thick hair, yellow-white (gray blond), and a magnificent, completely white beard, which gently spreads over his vest. Regular, slightly blurred features, a thoroughbred nose and seemingly stern eyebrows... but in the bluish eyes there is such Russian softness, special, Russian, to the point of scattering, kindness and childishness, that the eyebrows seem stern - on purpose" - Zobnin Yu. Merezhkovsky: Life and deeds.

Noting that, as if without effort, “wonderful poems for children” came from the pen of A. Pleshcheev, N. Bannikov noted: “Apparently, there was something in the poet’s heart that easily opened up the world of a child to him.” As P. Bykov wrote, Pleshcheev “... was completely reflected in his poetry, all with his clear, crystal-like conscience, fiery faith in goodness and people, with his integral personality, ... deeply sympathetic, kind, soft.”

Findings of researchers

Numerous propaganda poems were created among the Petrashevites, but only a few have survived. Presumably, many of Pleshcheev’s propaganda poems also disappeared. There is an assumption that some unsigned works published in emigrant collections of the “Lute” series may belong to Pleshcheev; These include the poem “The Righteous,” marked: “S. Petersburg. January 18, 1847."

The poem “According to our feelings, you and I are brothers...” (1846) was attributed for a long time to K. F. Ryleev. Its affiliation with Pleshcheev was established in 1954 by E. Bushkanets, who found out that its addressee was V. A. Milyutin (1826-1855), a member of Petrashevsky’s circle, an economist, whose work was paid attention to by Belinsky and Chernyshevsky.

The poem “Autumn has come, the flowers have dried...”, attributed to Pleshcheev in all collections of children's poetry, but absent in all collections of his works, does not actually belong to Pleshcheev. As the literary critic M. N. Zolotonosov established, the author of this text is the inspector of the Moscow educational district Alexey Grigorievich Baranov (1844-1911), the compiler of the collection in which this poem was first published.

The poem “I feel sorry for her...” (“Give me your hand. I understand your ominous sadness...”) was published with a dedication to D. A. Tolstoy, with whom the poet was friends in his youth. Tolstoy, however, subsequently acquired a reputation as a “reactionary” and even became the chief of the gendarme corps. In this regard, as it turned out later, A. A. Pleshcheev, the son of the poet, urgently asked P. V. Bykov not to include the poem in the collection or to cross out the dedication.

For a long time there were disputes about who could be addressed to the poem “S...u” (1885), which began with the words: “Before you lies a wide new path...”. The most convincing was the version of S. A. Makashin, according to which his addressee was Saltykov-Shchedrin. In the magazine publication it had the subtitle: “When entering the field.” Pleshcheev valued Shchedrin as “a truly enormous talent” and considered him one of the “best people in his country.”

Poems by Pleshcheev A.N.

Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev was born on December 4, 1825 in Kostroma into a noble family. He spent his childhood in Nizhny Novgorod (now Gorky), on the banks of the Volga. Pleshcheev often recalled his childhood, funny games, the old garden, the wide Volga, and his kind, affectionate mother in poetry.

At the age of fifteen, Pleshcheev entered military school. But he soon left it and became a university student. Pleshcheev published his first poems when he was eighteen years old.

Since then, he decided to devote himself to literature. Pleshcheev knew literature well, especially loved Lermontov and Pushkin. All his life, Pleshcheev believed that the poet’s duty was to serve his people. He wrote poems about the grief of the people, about the lack of rights and poverty of the peasantry, and called for knowledge. Pleshcheev dedicated many poems to children. To the writers who wrote for children in his time, Pleshcheev said: “Remember that little readers are the future builders of life.” Teach them to love goodness, their homeland, and remember their duty to the people.

The service of a children's writer is a great service. This book contains poems by Pleshcheev, which he wrote for children. Life was different for the kids back then, school was different. But these poems are also interesting for modern schoolchildren. Some of the poems published here are well known to students, as they are included in school anthologies. And the poems “To Spring” “My Garden” were set to music by composer Tchaikovsky, and they can often be heard on the radio.

Poems by Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev

We present to you another number of sections with vertices: Poems about spring Vershi Top children

Alexey Pleshcheev is a Russian poet who signed his works with the pseudonym “The Extra Man.” The work of this master of words, who created textbook works, is undeservedly little studied in school. However, proof of popular recognition can be considered that about a hundred songs and romances are based on his poems. In addition to poetry, Pleshcheev was actively involved in social activities, made translations and was fond of drama.
The most famous lines from a positive poem glorifying spring are known to everyone: “The grass is turning green, the sun is shining...” Pleshcheev’s lyrics delight with their melody, purity and, perhaps, a certain ingenuousness. However, some notice that beneath such apparent simplicity lies hidden social dissatisfaction with the poor peasant lot.
Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev has always been interested in children's themes. He wrote poems for the younger generation and carefully compiled anthologies that included, in his opinion, the best children's poems. Thanks to him, school textbooks containing geographical essays were published. His works, written for children, teach them to enjoy every day, hope for the best, and see beauty in ordinary, ordinary things. Of course, you need to introduce your children to the work of this poet as early as possible.

Alexander Blok wrote in the article “Evenings of the Arts” in October 1908: “The other day, one writer (not of my generation) told me about previous literary evenings: they happened very rarely and were always distinguished by special solemnity... But why did they shake hearts: Maikov with with his dry and graceful declamation, Polonsky with a solemnly outstretched and romantically trembling hand in a dirty white glove, Pleshcheev in silver gray hair, calling “forward without fear and doubt”? Yes, because, the writer told me, they seem to reminded about something, awakened some dormant strings, brought to life high and noble feelings. Is there anything like that now, is it possible?”

The significance of a writer in the life of his time does not always correspond to the scale of his talent and the importance of his contribution to the development of Russian literature. Often in the history of poetry we see how, even if incomplete, answers to burning questions give strength to the artist’s voice. Readers are no less influenced by the life and character of the writer, his personal charm, his convictions and sincerity. This was exactly the poetic appearance of A. N. Pleshcheev.

Blok’s thought about the significance of the civic principle in poetry awakened memories of Pleshcheev. And indeed, the handsome figure of the revolutionary poet evoked warm sympathy in the younger generation until the end of his days. Pleshcheev's participation in the revolutionary movement determined equally the main motives and features of his works, and his personal fate. On the day of his fortieth anniversary, Pleshcheev received many congratulations, and among them were letters from participants in the revolutionary movement and revolutionary-minded youth. Thus, an art student enthusiastically noted the “glorious, obscure feat” of the poet’s service under “the same banner” as amazing for the years of reaction.

It is also characteristic that for the reactionary press and the tsarist government, Pleshcheev until the end of his days remained the living embodiment of the revolutionary sentiments of the Russian people. It is not for nothing that on the day of his death, newspapers were forbidden to print any kind of “panegyric word for the late poet.”

The poems of A. N. Pleshcheev are a poetic biography of the best people of the 40-60s of the last century, for whom revolutionary ideals remained unchanged. In this sense, the poetry of Petrashevets is inseparable from the history of Russian democratic poetry and the history of the liberation struggle of the second half of the 19th century. Pleshcheev appreciated and understood the importance of new generations of Russian revolutionaries and, over the course of a very long life and career, sought to answer the questions posed by the course of social development - that is why his influence on modern times was so great.

Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev was born on November 22, 1825 in Kostroma. His father, Nikolai Sergeevich, a descendant of an ancient and famous noble family in the history of Russia, served under the Olonets, Vologda and Arkhangelsk governors. The poet spent his childhood in Nizhny Novgorod, where his father was transferred. Having received an excellent education at home, in 1839, at the request of his mother, he was assigned to the school of guards ensigns in St. Petersburg. Here the future poet had a chance to encounter the stultifying and corrupting atmosphere of the Nicholas military, which forever instilled in his soul “the most sincere antipathy” (letter to V.D. Dandeville dated May 24, 1855). After a year and a half he left school. In 1843, the future poet entered the Eastern Faculty of St. Petersburg University, where he stayed until the summer of 1845. At the same time, N. Speshnev, A. Khanykov, D. Akhsharumov and others studied here with him. In this circle of comrades, most of whom would later join Petrashevsky’s society, Pleshcheev’s literary and political interests took shape. It is significant that around the same time, the poetic activity of many future participants in Petrashevsky’s circle began: Saltykov-Shchedrin, Palm, Durov, etc. It was during this “disadvantageous time for poets” (as Nekrasov put it) that the first poems by A. N. appeared in print. Pleshcheeva. In the February issue of Sovremennik for 1844, he published the poem “Night Thoughts.” The publisher of Sovremennik and rector of St. Petersburg University P. A. Pletnev wrote to J. K-Groth on March 16, 1844: “Have you seen poems in Sovremennik signed by A. P-v? I found out that this is our 1st year student Pleshcheev. His talent is visible. I called him to me and caressed him. He goes to the eastern department, lives with his mother, whose only son he is, and transferred to the university from the school of guards ensigns, not feeling any inclination towards military life.” Soon, Pleshcheev’s ideological differences with Sovremennik were revealed, which Pletnev himself explained by the influence of Belinsky’s ideas or, as he writes, “Kraevsky’s doctrine.” Belinsky played an important role in the formation of the political and literary views of Pleshcheev the student. In his articles, the poet recalled with ardent feeling the significance of Belinsky’s articles in his time, “when with some feverish impatience the public awaited every book of the magazine in which Belinsky wrote. The heart of the younger generation beat stronger in response to his powerful, passionate, energetic voice, which spoke of love for truth, science and humanity, mercilessly pursuing everything base and contrary to human dignity in life, and everything false, pompous, rhetorical in art.” And then he defined Belinsky’s role in the fate of his generation this way: “How many people owe their development to him; how many he taught to consciously look at the reality around them, how many he helped to understand the vulgarity and ugliness of some of its phenomena, despite their upbringing, which taught them to slavishly bow their heads before these phenomena...”

Denial of the vulgarity and ugliness of the society of that time, democratic and socialist ideas - this is one of the results of the student period. It was not without reason that in the summer of 1845 he left the university and in a letter to P. A. Pletnev explained his departure with dissatisfaction with the university course and the desire to “devote himself to living sciences... close to life and, therefore, to the interests of our time...”. It is no coincidence that he names history and political economy among these sciences. This change in Pleshcheev’s mood also led him to refuse to cooperate in the well-intentioned (Donekrasov) Sovremennik. In the same 1845, he tried to take away his poems from Pletnev under a plausible pretext, explaining that they could not be published without “significant amendments and changes.”

Apparently, this explains his transition from 1845 to other publications - “Repertoire and Pantheon” and “Illustration”. In any case, it is characteristic that in 1844 he published 13 poems in Sovremennik, in 1845 - two, and in 1846 only one appeared - “For Memory”, with the date 1844. From the beginning of 1845, Pleshcheev essentially stopped participating in Pletnev’s journal. This also explains the fact that he republished the poems published in Sovremennik in 1845–1846 in other organs, and some appeared simultaneously in Sovremennik and Repertoire and Pantheon. The very nature of his poetic activity changes in many ways.

It is extremely significant that the departure from Sovremennik and the university coincides with the emergence of Petrashevsky’s secret society. The commonality of literary, philosophical and political interests brings Pleshcheev together with N.V. Khanykov, P.V. Verevkin, I.M. Debu, M.V. Petrashevsky, the Maykov brothers, Milyutins and others. From them a secret society was formed in 1845 Petrashevsky. Pleshcheev was one of the most prominent participants in Petrashevsky’s “Fridays” (or, as the participants called them, “committees” or “gatherings”). He had been a visitor to “Fridays” since their inception, that is, from the beginning of 1845. Together with Khanykov, Balasoglo, Durov, Vl. Milyutin, Saltykov, Speshnev, Engelson, Pleshcheev was part of the main core of this political society already in 1845–1846. In addition, he was connected with other circles of the opposition-minded intelligentsia of St. Petersburg. Among his acquaintances were the Beketov brothers, in whose house one could also “hear an indignant noble impulse against oppression and injustice.” Here he became friends with the critic Valeryan Maikov, who died early, and F. M. Dostoevsky. In the spring of 1846, Pleshcheev introduced F. Dostoevsky to Petrashevsky. In the fall of 1848, at the initiative of Pleshcheev and Dostoevsky, a special circle of S. F. Durov, A. I. Palm and Pleshcheev arose. The police report says: “Grigoriev said that they<вечера у Дурова>were of a political nature." According to the testimony of A. N. Baranovsky, in the winter of 1846–1847, “Petrashevsky and Pleshcheev differed mainly” in telling various anti-government jokes.