[Literature]: "What to do?" Question in modern society

Hello friends!

 

There is always literature in the world that has entered the history of mankind for a lifetime. A worthy place is occupied by Chernyshevsky's revolutionary novel " What to do?" At any time, people often ask themselves this question. What to do? Has anything changed now? No! We are constantly solving the problem, asking ourselves the question: What to do?

 

 

What to do? is undoubtedly one of the greatest novels of Russian literature of the XIX century, along with War and peace and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Neither the madman Dostoevsky, nor the romantic and Westerner Turgenev, nor even the great Gogol: "What to do?» not reach. Chernyshevsky is good in that, on the one hand, he raises significant General, what is called "universal" questions, and on the other hand, he is very talented and correctly describes different types of people found in the book.

 

In my line of work, I have to communicate with hundreds of young people today. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but it seems to me that only 1-2% of today's young people WANT to spend their lives doing SOMETHING , while the rest would prefer to rest. Chernyshevsky's novel can only interest POLITICIANS – idlers are unlikely to find something in it for themselves.

 

 

Chernyshevsky is very, very modern. When he describes the family in which Vera Pavlovna grew up, there is a feeling that he is writing about today's people, about the current situation. I myself lived for several years in Petersburg, lived for a while on Gorokhovaya street, also between Sadovaya and Semyonovsky bridge, like Vera Pavlovna, and saw women who were guided by the same morality as Marya Alekseyevna, and even looked eerily like her in everyday life. I've seen fewer people like Julie, but I've seen them more than once. And talk Serge, Jean and Stoleshnikov is not among the many young people of today business as usual? In short, Chernyshevsky's Petersburg lives and thrives!

 

The novel "What to do" has an unusual fate. Not everyone knows this. February 8, 1863 in St. Petersburg, a simple official on the street found a package with a manuscript. He had no idea what a miracle he had performed. The manuscript was Chernyshevsky's novel "What to do".

 

 After showing the most ordinary people of the most ordinary Petersburg, Chernyshevsky notes that it is not very pleasant to look at such people and participate in their lives. And we fully share this position! And then it shows us that it is possible to live in this reality, in these social conditions, much more interesting and better, if you make some effort to do so. In fact, Chernyshevsky gives practical advice on how to change your life if you don't like it. The author is a stranger to romanticism (even revolutionary) - he is a materialist and rationalist to the core. He is BOURGEOIS in a good sense of the word. He values those who know how to think and make money, if only such a "businessman" does not become a brute.

 

 

Chernyshevsky wrote about new people who can think... For his ideological views, he was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul fortress in a solitary cell. There was written a great novel about the new thinking of people...

 Chernyshevsky appeals to the human MIND, to the human imagination and sense of taste. Do you really want to live in this filth? - as if the author asks. What's so nice about it? Let's live as HUMAN beings, citizens. This is smart, beautiful, and profitable! Come on, huh? But Chernyshevsky's dreams are still not realized. What a pity!..

Of course, the ideal he chooses other characters: honest, hardworking and freedom-loving, who are New people who can change this world. Chernyshevsky describes in detail the rules by which these new people live, their worldview, their honor, pragmatism and a reasonable approach even in feelings. Many things that at the time of writing this work were only dreams have now become reality, but that is why Chernyshevsky's contribution to the moral self-improvement of society is no less important. Of course, we must admit that the principles of life promoted by the author, being implemented in reality, did not save society from problems, people did not become completely happy with the receipt of greater freedoms, and some moments in General seem incomprehensible, but, in any case, the author showed the right way to improve society.

 

 

Isn't the sewing shop started by Vera Pavlovna a commercial enterprise? It is quite commercial. A thriving firm. What did the author say that was so revolutionary that he was permanently removed from St. Petersburg, thrown out of society, and in today's Russia thrown out of literature, removing "What to do?" from the school curriculum? And he said a simple and, I think, almost obvious idea for everyone: even in a bourgeois state, people CAN live much richer if capital is owned not by individuals, but by ALL PARTICIPANTS in PRODUCTION, and if this capital will not serve the depravity of man, but his DEVELOPMENT. And such a SIMPLE and OBVIOUS idea, even 157 years after the book was written, is being driven out of sight and out of mind in Russia...

 Especially noteworthy are those statements that are usually attributed to feminists, believing that only women fought for their rights and freedoms. The example of this work shows that men were not alien to the problems of the weaker sex, and that they also called for equality and freedom for women. Moreover, Chernyshevsky expresses very progressive ideas even for the present time: about respect for personal space, about observing personal boundaries in relationships, that love is not a chain on which you need to put your spouse, but, on the contrary, love should give wings, help develop, and not subordinate. The author writes about the wrongness of jealousy - a loved one does not belong to us, you can not break it to please yourself, try to mold another person.

 

In addition to the advantages, the novel has one (for me very large) drawback. Chernyshevsky was a materialist, and his ideas about human relationships, work, and happiness are so materialistic that I would not be happy to live among people who think and feel the same way. I need God, objectively existing ideas, human striving for perfection, and so on. Therefore, no matter how good Chernyshevsky's novel is, it does not touch the very depths of my soul, my innermost aspirations. Still, I think it's great! A materialist and lover of good literature in it, I think, almost everything will please. Any literate and cultured person, I think, will not regret the time spent reading this book.

 

 

Until next time, @r3benok