UDC 93/99 (4/9)
The Silver Age of Russian culture.
V. L. Semigin
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Faculty of History
The Silver Age is a period of flourishing spiritual culture: literature, philosophy, music, theater and fine arts.
It took place from the 90s of the XIX century until the end of the 20s of the XX century.
At this stage of history, spiritual development in Russia took place on the basis of the relationship between individual and collective principles.
Initially, the individual principle was predominant, next to it there was a collective principle, pushed into the background.
After the October Revolution, the situation changed.
The collective principle became the main one, and the individual principle began to exist in parallel with it.
The beginning of the Silver Age was laid by the symbolists, a small group of writers who carried out at the end of the XIX beginning of the XX century.
"aesthetic revolution".
Symbolists in the 90s of the XIX century came up with the idea of revaluing all values.
It was based on the problem of the correlation of individual and collective principles in public life and in art.
This problem was not new.
It arose immediately after the abolition of serfdom and the implementation of Great Reforms, when civil society began to form actively.
The Narodniks were among the first to try to solve it.
Considering the collective principle as the determining one, they subordinated the individual principle to it, the individual to society.
A person had value only if he brought benefit to the team.
The narodniks considered socio political activity to be the most effective.
In it, a person had to reveal himself.
The strengthening of the populist approach to man and his activities in society, which occurred in the 60s 80s of the XIX century, led to the fact that literature, philosophy and art began to be viewed as a secondary phenomenon, less necessary compared to political activity.
The symbolists directed their "aesthetic revolution" against the Narodniks and their ideology.
Symbolists: both the older ones (V. Ya.
Bryusov, F. K. Sologub, Z. N. Gippius, etc.) and the younger ones (A. Bely, A. A. Blok, V. V. Gippius, etc.) claimed the individual principle as the main one.
They revised the relationship between the individual and the collective.
The symbolists took man outside of society and began to consider him as an independent quantity, equal in importance to society and God.
They determined the value of an individual by the wealth and beauty of his inner world.
The thoughts and feelings of a person were turned into objects of research.
They became the basis of creativity.
The inner world of a person was considered as the result of his spiritual development.
Along with the assertion of the individual principle, symbolists and writers close to them (A. L. Volynsky, V. V. Rozanov, A. N. Benois, etc.) were engaged in the formation of the aesthetic taste of the public.
They opened the world of Russian and Western European literature to the reader in their works, introduced them to the masterpieces of world art.
Artistic works of symbolists, in which previously prohibited topics were touched upon: individualism, amoralism, eroticism, demonism - provoked the public, forced it to pay attention not only to politics, but also to art, to a person with his feelings, passions, light and dark sides of his soul.
Under the influence of the symbolists, the attitude of society to spiritual activity has changed.
Following the symbolists, the idealist philosophers and acmeists continued the assertion of the individual principle in art and social life.
Idealist philosophers (N. A. Berdyaev, L. I. Shestov, S. L. Frank, etc.) opposed the utilitarian perception of the individual by society.
They restored the value of philosophy and placed in the center of it a person whose life they sought to arrange on a religious basis.
Through a change of personality, they wanted to transform the entire society.
Supporters of acmeism (M. Kuzmin, N. Gumilev, G. Ivanov, etc.), a literary trend that emerged in the 10s of the twentieth century, treated the personality as a given that requires not formation and approval, but disclosure.
Religious search and the desire to transform society were alien to them.
They felt the world was beautiful and wanted to portray it in their works in the same way.
In the 10s of the twentieth century, along with acmeism, another literary direction was born - futurism.
Its development is associated with the re affirmation of the collective principle in art and public life.
The Futurists (V. V. Mayakovsky, D. Burlyuk, A. Kruchenykh, etc.) rejected man as an object of study and an independent quantity.
He was seen only as a completely faceless part of society.
Machines, machine tools, and airplanes were turned into objects.
Declaring themselves the creators of true works of art, the futurists conducted their own re evaluation of values.
They completely rejected the achievements of the old culture and offered to throw them off the " steamship of modernity” Religion was rejected as a basic element of the old culture.
The futurists intended to build a new culture “without moralism and devilry”.
The emergence of a trend in culture that actively affirms the collective principle coincided with the breakdown of the socio political system in Russia.
The First World War, its consequences: famine, anarchy, political ferment led to two revolutions.
During the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks came to power, proclaiming the dictatorship of the proletariat in the country.
In the minds of many people, political changes have combined with innovations in culture.
It was especially difficult for those who had been fighting against the collective principle for many years.
They faced him again in art and in politics.
It seemed to them that everything that they had created with hard work was destroyed in an instant, that the end had come not only to the old political regime, but also to culture.
“We are experiencing the end of the Renaissance, we are living out the last remnants of the era when human forces were released and their ebullient play generated beauty.
- Nikolai Berdyaev wrote in 1918.
- Today, this free play of human forces has passed from rebirth to degeneration, it no longer creates beauty.” [ 1 ]
The old kulturtragers, convinced that art "grows out of the spiritual depth of a person”" had a negative attitude to the avant garde.
They didnot consider it art.
The negative attitude towards the avant garde was strengthened in the minds of old cultural figures after many Futurists declared their support for the new government, and the Bolsheviks, in turn, recognized Futurism as art.
The attitude of the Bolsheviks to the vanguard was twofold.
The new government gave the avant gardists credit for the struggle against the” decadent " bourgeois culture, but could not accept a departure to pointlessness and zaumi.
She relied on art, “which is clear and understandable to everyone”" Orientation to the masses was one of the main attitudes of the Bolsheviks in culture.
But the installation was vague and did not have a specific content.
The cultural policy of the Bolsheviks in the 20s was just beginning to take shape.
There were still no cultural management bodies, there were no myths about Lenin, the revolution and the party - the structuring element of Soviet culture, covering all aspects of public and private life.
All this appeared later.
In the 20s, party ideologists made general guidelines for the elimination of illiteracy, increasing the cultural level of the masses.
Ideologists argued the need to combine art with production and anti religious propaganda.
But they did not have a single view on what kind of culture should be built by the class that found itself in power.
It appeared later, in the thirties.
All this contributed to the emergence of disputes about the ways of cultural development.
They were attended by representatives of the new government (L. D. Trotsky, A.V. Lunacharsky, etc.) and writers, artists, theater figures who sympathized with them.
They declared the need to build a culture that would meet the tastes and needs of the whole society and each individual person in it.
Representatives of the old traditional culture also took part in the disputes, who wanted to proceed from an individual beginning in the construction of art and public life.
Disputes about the ways of developing culture stopped in the thirties, when there was a powerful strengthening of the Soviet power and the degree of its impact on society increased.
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[1] Berdyaev N. A.
The crisis of art. M., 1990.
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UDC 93/99 (4/9)
The Silver Age of Russian culture.
V. L. Semigin
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Faculty of History
Annotation
The report considers the Silver Age as a period of flourishing of spiritual culture, which began in the 90s of the XIX century and ended in the late 20s of the XX century.
At this stage of history, the spiritual development of Russia took place on the basis of the relationship between individual and collective principles.
Initially, the spiritual principle was predominant, next to it there was a collective principle, pushed into the background.
After the October Revolution, the situation changed.
The collective principle became the main one, and the individual principle began to exist in parallel with it.
