Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov(May 4, Yurasovka, Voronezh Governorate - April 7, St. Petersburg) - Russian historian, publicist, poet and public figure, corresponding member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, real state adviser. Author of the multi-volume edition "Russian History in the Biographies of Its Main Figures", researcher of the socio-political and economic history of Russia. One of the leaders of the Cyril and Methodius Society.
Encyclopedic YouTube
1 / 5
✪ ALEXANDER PYZHIKOV || RUSSIA. REAL HISTORY || PART 2: SPLIT
✪ 2000115_Glava_1_Audiobook. Solovyov Sergey Mikhailovich. History of Russia since ancient times. Volume 1
✪ Solovyov Sergey Mikhailovich "History of Russia from ancient times. Volume 06" (ONLINE AUDIOBOOKS) Listen
✪ Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich "History of the Russian State. Volume 11" (ONLINE AUDIOBOOKS) Listen
✪ Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Ivan Mazepa
Subtitles
Biography
early years
Nikolai Kostomarov was born on May 4 (16) in the Yurasovka settlement of the Ostrogozhsky district of the Voronezh province (now in the Olkhovatsky district of the Voronezh region). Since he was born before the marriage of the local landowner Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov with the serf Tatyana Petrovna Melnikova, according to the laws of the Russian Empire, he was considered a serf of his own father.
The retired military man Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov (1769-14.07.1828) already at the age chose the girl Tatyana Petrovna Melnikova (1800-1.02.1875) as his wife and sent her to Moscow to study in a private boarding school - with the intention of marrying her later. The parents of Nikolai Kostomarov got married in September 1817, after the birth of their son. The father was going to adopt Nikolai, but did not have time to do so.
Ivan Kostomarov was a fan of French literature of the 18th century, the ideas of which he tried to instill in both his young son and his household, but treated the serfs very harshly. On July 14, 1828, he was killed by his yard people, who at the same time stole the capital he had accumulated. Ivan Kostomarov, who was returning to Yurasovka with a carriage, was killed at night by his own coachman with accomplices, trying to present the murder as an accident. A crime committed for the purpose of enrichment was revealed in hot pursuit.
However, according to another version, the crime was not solved immediately. The Zemstvo police, who investigated the case, did not conduct any investigation into the disappearance of money, and recognized the murder as an accident. Only five years later, at the church on the grave of Ivan Kostomarov, the coachman who committed this murder publicly repented of the crime. As Nikolai Kostomarov himself writes:
The coachman's name was Savely Ivanov, he was already over 60 years old. The man carried sin in himself for years. Could not resist. He asked the priest to ring the bells and publicly confessed at the grave cross, telling the whole truth about what had happened. The villains were tried, and during interrogations the coachman said: “The master himself is to blame for tempting us; it used to start telling everyone that there is no God, that there will be nothing in the next world, that only fools are afraid of the afterlife punishment - we took it into our heads that if there is nothing in the next world, then everything can be done "
There is no consensus on the reasons that prompted the peasants to kill in the memoirs of contemporaries and research literature. N. I. Kostomarov himself considers the version of the greed for profit and the lack of fear of punishment in the afterlife among the peasants to be convincing. His opinion was confirmed by the old-timer of Yurasovka, Zakhar Ivanovich Eremin, who remembered from the stories of his grandfather that “they didn’t hold a grudge against Kostomar. The managers were unkind, all evil came from them. And he killed him, pan, a coachman, a strong man. He killed because of wealth, coveted someone else's. Murder with robbery is not the first case, unfortunately, and not the last in the human race. In the literature about Kostomarov there is another explanation for what happened. Historian N. Belyaev calls the master's unfair cruelty the only reason for the murder. The peasants took revenge on him for the fact that he mocked them, "put them on a chain chained to a log." Apparently, in every statement there is some truth. Archpriest Andrei Tkachev believes that Ivan Kostomarov himself is to blame for his murder, since he himself convinced his peasants of the absence of God and conscience:
The police searched for the killers and could not find them. And after some time, the killers themselves turned themselves in. These were the serfs of the deceased: the coachman and someone else. To the question: “Why did you obey?” - said: “Conscience tortured. The master, they say, this way and that convinced that there is no eternal torment, and there is no conscience, and there is no God. Do what you want, you said. Well, we killed. And God, it turns out, exists. And there is a conscience - it torments us. And there is a hell - we live in it. And in order to get away from eternal hell, they decided to obey.
The death of Ivan Kostomarov put his family in a difficult legal situation. Born "before the crown", Nikolai, as a serf, was now inherited by his father's closest relatives - the Rovnevs.
Left with a very modest income, his mother transferred Nikolai from a Moscow boarding school (where he, having just begun to study, received the nickname Enfant miraculeux - a miracle child in French for his brilliant abilities) to a boarding house in Voronezh, closer to home. Education in it was cheaper, but the level of teaching was very low, and the boy barely sat through boring lessons, which practically did not give him anything. After staying there for about two years, he was expelled for "pranks" from this boarding school and moved to the Voronezh Gymnasium (1831). Having completed a course here in 1833, Nikolai became a student at the Kharkov University of History and Philology.
student body
Already in the first years of his studies, Kostomarov's brilliant abilities made themselves felt, giving him the nickname "enfant miraculeux" (with fr.- "Wonder child"). The natural liveliness of Kostomarov's character, on the one hand, and the low level of teachers of that time, on the other, did not give him the opportunity to seriously get involved in classes. The first years of his stay at Kharkov University, whose Faculty of History and Philology did not shine at that time with professorial talents, differed little in this respect for Kostomarov from the gymnasium. Kostomarov himself worked a lot, being carried away either by classical antiquity or by new French literature, but these works were carried out without proper guidance and system, and later Kostomarov called his student life "chaotic". Only in 1835, when M. M. Lunin appeared at the department of general history in Kharkov, did Kostomarov's studies become more systematic. Lunin's lectures had a strong influence on him, and he enthusiastically devoted himself to the study of history.
Nevertheless, he was still so vaguely aware of his real vocation that after graduating from the university he entered the military service. His incapacity for the latter soon became, however, clear to both his superiors and to himself.
Fascinated by the study of the archive of the local district court, preserved in the city of Ostrogozhsk, where his regiment was stationed, Kostomarov decided to write the history of the Sloboda Cossack regiments. On the advice of his superiors, he left the regiment and in the fall of 1837 again appeared in Kharkov with the intention of replenishing his historical education.
At this time of intensive studies, Kostomarov, partly under the influence of Lunin, began to take shape in a view of history, in which there were original features in comparison with the views then prevailing among Russian historians. According to the later words of the scientist himself, he I read many different kinds of historical books, pondered over science and came to the following question: why is it that in all histories they talk about outstanding statesmen, sometimes about laws and institutions, but seem to neglect the life of the masses of the people? It is as if the poor muzhik-farmer-worker does not exist for history; why history does not tell us anything about his way of life, about his spiritual life, about his feelings, the way of his joys and sorrows"? The idea of the history of the people and their spiritual life, in contrast to the history of the state, has since become the main idea in the circle of Kostomarov's historical views. Modifying the concept of the content of history, he expanded the range of its sources. As he wrote " Soon I came to the conclusion that history should be studied not only from dead chronicles and notes, but also from living people.". He learned the Ukrainian language, re-read published Ukrainian folk songs and printed literature in Ukrainian, then very small, undertook "ethnographic excursions from Kharkov to neighboring villages, to taverns." He spent the spring of 1838 in Moscow, where listening to the lectures of S.P. Shevyryov further strengthened his romantic attitude towards the people.
From the second half of the 1830s, he began to write in Ukrainian, under the pseudonym Jeremiah Galka, and in 1839-1841 published two dramas and several collections of poems, original and translated.
His studies in history also advanced rapidly. In 1840, Kostomarov passed the master's exam.
In 1842 he published his dissertation " On the meaning of the union in Western Russia". The dispute already scheduled did not take place due to the message of the Archbishop of Kharkov Innokenty about the outrageous content of the book. Although it was only a few unsuccessful expressions, the St. Petersburg professor N. G. Ustryalov, who, on behalf of the Ministry of Public Education, analyzed Kostomarov's work, gave such a review about him that the book was ordered to be burned.
Kostomarov was allowed to write another master's thesis, and at the end of 1843 he submitted to the faculty a work entitled " On the historical significance of Russian folk poetry", which he defended at the beginning of next year. In this work, the ethnographic aspirations of the researcher found a vivid expression, which took on a more definite form due to his rapprochement with a circle of young Ukrainians (Korsun, Korenitsky, Betsky, and others), who, like him, dreamed of the revival of Ukrainian literature.
Pan-Slavism
Immediately after completing his second dissertation, Kostomarov undertook a new work on the history of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and, wanting to visit the areas where the events he described took place, became a gymnasium teacher, first in Rovno (1844), then (1845) in Kyiv. In 1846, the council of the Kiev University elected Kostomarov as a teacher of Russian history, and from the autumn of that year he began his lectures, which immediately aroused the deep interest of the audience.
In Kyiv, as in Kharkov, a circle of people formed around him devoted to the idea of Slavic unity, the creation of an ideal federation of Slavic peoples on the basis of class equality, freedom of the press and religion. This circle included P. A. Kulish, Af. V. Markevich, N. I. Gulak, V. M. Belozersky, T. G. Shevchenko, A. A. Navrotsky
Reciprocity of the Slavic peoples- in our imagination it was no longer limited to the sphere of science and poetry, but began to appear in images in which, as it seemed to us, it should have been embodied for future history. In addition to our will, the federal system began to appear to us as the happiest course of the social life of the Slavic nations ... In all parts of the federation, the same basic laws and rights were assumed, equality of weight, measures and coins, the absence of customs and freedom of trade, the general abolition of serfdom and slavery in which in whatever form, a single central authority in charge of relations outside the union, the army and navy, but the complete autonomy of each part in relation to internal institutions, internal administration, legal proceedings and public education.
In order to spread these ideas, the friendly circle was transformed into a society called the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood.
The heyday of activity
Entering the department, I set out with the idea in my lectures to bring to the fore the life of the people in all its particular manifestations ... The Russian state was made up of parts that had previously lived their own independent life, and long after that the life of the parts was expressed by excellent aspirations in the general state system. Finding and capturing these features of the folk life of parts of the Russian state was for me the task of my study of history.
Under the influence of this idea, Kostomarov developed a special view on the history of the formation of the Russian state, which sharply contradicted the views expressed by the Slavophile school and S. M. Solovyov. Equally far from mystical worship of the people and from a one-sided enthusiasm for the idea of statehood, Kostomarov tried not only to reveal the conditions that led to the formation of the Russian state system, but also to determine closer the very nature of this system, its attitude to the life that preceded it and its influence on the masses. Considered from this point of view, the history of the Russian state was painted in darker colors than in its images by other historians, especially since the critical attitude to its sources acquired by Kostomarov very soon led him to the idea of the need to recognize as unreliable some of its brilliant episodes, which were considered before since firmly established. Kostomarov set out some of his conclusions in the press, and they drew strong attacks on him; but at the university his lectures were an unheard-of success, attracting a mass of both students and outsiders.
At the same time, Kostomarov was elected a member of the archaeographic commission and undertook the publication of acts on the history of Little Russia in the 17th century. Preparing these documents for publication, he began to write a series of monographs on them, which were supposed to make up the history of Little Russia since the time of Khmelnitsky; he continued this work until the end of his life. In addition, Kostomarov took part in some magazines (“Russian Slovo”, “Contemporary”), publishing excerpts from his lectures and historical articles in them. In this era of his life, Kostomarov was quite close to the progressive circles of the St. Petersburg University and journalism, but his fascination with economic issues prevented him from completely merging with them, while he retained a romantic attitude towards nationality and Ukrainophile ideas. The journal closest to him was Osnova, founded by some of the former members of the Cyril and Methodius Society, founded by those gathered in St. Rus") and Great Russian writers. As Nikolai Ivanovich himself wrote:
It turns out that the Russian people are not united; there are two of them, and who knows, maybe more of them will open, and nevertheless one is Russian ... It may very well be that I was mistaken in many respects, presenting such a concept about the difference between the two Russian peoples, made up of observations of history and their real life . The work of others will rebuke me and correct me. But understanding this difference in this way, I think that the task of your Foundation will be: to express in literature the influence that the peculiar features of the South Russian nationality should have on our general education. This influence should not destroy, but supplement and moderate that fundamental Great Russian principle, which leads to unity, to fusion, to a strict state and communal form that absorbs the individual, and the desire for practical activity that falls into materiality, devoid of poetry. The South Russian element should give our common life a dissolving, revitalizing, spiritualizing beginning. The South Russian tribe, in the past history, has proved its inability to public life. It rightly had to give way precisely to the Great Russian, to join it, when the task of the general Russian history was the formation of the state. But the state life was formed, developed and strengthened. Now it is natural if a nationality with a different, opposite foundation and character enters the sphere of original development and exerts an influence on the Great Russian one.
Kostomarov, a supporter of federalism, always faithful to the Little Russian people of his mother, without any reservations recognized this people as an organic part of a single Russian people, which "the national element of the all-Russian", according to his definition, "in the first half of our history" is "in the aggregate of six main nationalities, namely: 1) South Russian, 2) Seversk, 3) Great Russian, 4) Belorussian, 5) Pskov and 6) Novgorod. At the same time, Kostomarov considered it his duty to “point to those principles that stipulated a connection between them and served as a reason that they all together bore and should have carried the name of the common Russian Land, belonged to the same general composition and were aware of this connection, despite the circumstances, inclined to the destruction of this consciousness. These principles are: 1) origin, way of life and languages, 2) a single princely family, 3) the Christian faith and a single Church.
After the closure of St. Petersburg University caused by student unrest (1861), several professors, including Kostomarov, arranged (in the city duma) systematic public lectures, known in the then press under the name of a free or mobile university: Kostomarov lectured on ancient Russian history. When Professor Pavlov, after a public reading about the millennium of Russia, was expelled from
In the 50s of the last century, the well-known Russian and Ukrainian historian Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov (1817-1885), who lived in Saratov from the end of the 40s under police supervision, dealt with the problems of the history of the Saratov region.
The historical works of Kostomarov occupy a prominent place in Russian historical thought of the last century. They are distinguished by an interest in the past of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, a desire to penetrate into the essence and content of folk life, a great interest in popular movements, thoroughness and scrupulousness in working on historical sources ...
Nikolai Ivanovich ends up in Saratov as an already established historian and public figure. In 1837 he graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Kharkov University. At the turn of the 30-40s of the XIX century, he published several poetry collections. In 1841, Kostomarov presented his master's thesis, banned by censorship, "On the Significance of the Union in the History of Western Russia," and by the spring of 1843 he had prepared and then defended a new dissertation, "On the History and Significance of Russian Folk Poetry."
For some time Kostomarov taught at secondary schools, and from the autumn of 1845 at Kiev University. In addition to teaching, he did a lot of ethnography, folklore, and literary activities. From the end of 1845, Kostomarov became a member of the secret anti-government "Cyril and Methodius Society", which fought for the elimination of serfdom, the abolition of estates, the unification of the Slavic peoples, a federal parliamentary republic with equal rights and political autonomy for each nationality. In 1847, he was arrested, spent a year in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and then exiled to Saratov by order of the tsar, who approved the verdict of the commission of inquiry in the case of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. “... Former adjunct professor of the University of St. Vladimir, collegiate assessor Nikolai Kostomarov, together with other persons, the document said, compiled in Kyiv the Ukrainian-Slavic Society, in which the unification of the Slavic tribes into one state was discussed, and, moreover, translated from the Polish language one manuscript of a criminal content”. He arrived in Saratov with an order “identify him for the service, but not for the scientific part”. They appointed him a translator under the provincial government on January 29, 1849.
The appearance of a young university professor in a provincial town was greeted with extreme interest by the local society. According to an eyewitness, “He was a man of medium height, about thirty, heavily built, but somewhat awkward, as he remained all his life. His clean-shaven face was very mobile; nervous twitchings were noticeable in it, so that sometimes it seemed that these were not spontaneous grimaces ”. The reason for the nervous movements of his face was not so much the trials he endured in prison, but the consequence of the shock he suffered at the age of ten, when his father was killed by thieves.
The life and work of Kostomarov in Saratov was complex and controversial. At various times, holding the positions of secretary of the provincial statistical committee, translator of the provincial government, editor of the Saratov Provincial Gazette, Kostomarov became quite close friends with the provincial administration, taking, for example, participation in the punishment of several Saratov Jews for the so-called “ritual” murders.
On the other hand, Nikolai Ivanovich was also closely connected with the advanced Saratov intelligentsia, attracting everyone's attention as a political exile. In 1851, in the house of the writer M. Zhukova, Kostomarov met Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, who came to him with a bow from their mutual friend, St. Petersburg Slavic professor I.I. Sreznevsky. “I found in him a person to whom I could not help but become attached”, Chernyshevsky reported to the professor in November 1851. Quite friendly relations were established between them, which lasted all their lives, although they did not develop into ideological closeness.
There is quite a lot of evidence from contemporaries that shed light on the relationship between Chernyshevsky and Kostomarov. So, A.N. Pypin in My Notes says that Nikolai Gavrilovich, who became a teacher at the local gymnasium in January 1851, "I became especially close with Kostomarov. They saw each other all the time; they were people of a fairly high scientific level, which was rare in the provinces. Chernyshevsky highly appreciated the works of Kostomarov and compared them with the works of the famous Thierry". A.I. Rozanov, Chernyshevsky's classmate at the seminary, naively believed that Chernyshevsky's fame as a freethinker began with friendship with Kostomarov: “So, as the historian N.I. Kostomarov was known in our Saratov as a man of extreme political views, then friendship with him did a lot of damage to N.G. Chernyshevsky in the eyes of the gymnasium authorities”. Nikolai Gavrilovich himself also spoke definitely: “We saw each other very often, sometimes for whole months every day, and almost every day we sat together ... My way of thinking was at the beginning of my acquaintance with him already quite long ago, And I found his way of thinking too firm ... Both in many ways he judged, in my opinion, either completely correctly, or incomparably more correctly than most Russian scientists of that time”. Even after three and a half decades, when their paths parted, Chernyshevsky still highly appreciated Kostomarov. In 1889, in the preface to the Russian translation of Weber's General History, Nikolai Gavrilovich said: “Kostomarov was a man of such extensive learning, such a mind, and so fond of the truth, that his works have a very high scientific merit. His ideas about the figures and events of Russian history almost always either coincide with the truth or are close to it”.
Chernyshevsky fairly soberly assessed the political views of Kostomarov. To the question of Olga Sokratovna: will Kostomarov participate in the revolutionary coup, Nikolai Gavrilovich answered with conviction : “He is too noble, poetic; he will be frightened by dirt, massacre.”
“... Here, - recalled the Saratov historian E.A. Belov, who was “on friendly terms” and with Chernyshevsky and Kostomarov, - there were frequent rumors about the events of this century and heated debates, especially about the events of the end of the 18th century. The process of formation of parties and their mutual clashes aroused heated debate. N.I. Kostomarov attributed terror to the death of the Girondins, N.G. Chernyshevsky and I argued that terror in unconscious self-confidence was prepared by the Girondins themselves”.
From disputes about the era of the French Revolution, they imperceptibly moved on to discussing the problems of national history. Chernyshevsky valued his conversations with Kostomarov. “Acquaintance with Nikolai Ivanovich...- he wrote to I.I. Sreznevsky, - takes up a lot of my time, which I, however, will by no means call lost”. At the same time, fundamental differences between the liberal and democratic views of the two friends were already revealed here. “He was a man of extremes, always striving to bring his direction to the last limits”, - Kostomarov will say in the mid-80s.
In Saratov, Kostomarov continued his intensive scientific activity. “Kostomarov's apartment- recalls one of his friends of that time, - was overwhelmed with a mass of books from which he drew data, supplementing them with his thoughts. With such labor, Kostomarov, while in Saratov, created folios of his own writing, which he took with him when he left for St. Petersburg, and served as an aid in his professorial work”. In Saratov, using previously collected materials, Kostomarov creates a monograph “Bogdan Khmelnitsky”, prepares materials about the “Time of Troubles”, about the bourgeois revolution in France, about Tadeusz Kosciuszka, writes historical and fiction works: the poem “On the Ruins of Panticapaeum” and the story “Son ".
Written during the period of closest proximity to Chernyshevsky, the dramatic poem “On the Ruins of Panticapaeum” contains a passionate, albeit masked by historical allegories, protest against the regime of Nicholas I. Published only in 1890, it was highly appreciated by Ivan Franko, who said that the poem “belongs to significant and deeply thought-out poetic works that Russian literature of the 19th century has the right to be proud of”.
Living in Saratov, Kostomarov at first continued to correspond with his bride, hoping to obtain permission for marriage. As can be seen from his memoirs, he wrote a letter to the bride's mother asking her to bring her daughter. However, she decided that the exiled professor was not a couple for Alina, and he never received an answer. He was not allowed to leave Saratov as a supervised person, and only on January 25, 1850, in a report addressed to the governor M.L. Kozhevnikova asked for a leave of absence for four months, referring to ill health, which he intended to correct in hydropathic establishments in Kochetka, Kharkov province, or Lustdorf, near Odessa. With a "behaving well" notice, the governor sent a petition to the Ministry of the Interior. In March, the refusal came. At the end of the same year, Kostomarov, addressing the III department, repeated the attempt, but this time, probably on the advice of the governor, he put forward a different reason: to go to Kyiv to marry the daughter of the deceased Colonel Kragelsky. The answer from St. Petersburg signed by the chief of gendarmes Count Orlov - "... announce to Kostomarov that he can offer his bride to come to Saratov to marry him." In turn, the governor personally on December 31, 1850 turned to the Minister of the Interior. Having coordinated his decision with the head of the III department, the minister, in a response document dated May 4, 1851, allowed a trip to Kyiv, "but so that Kostomarov stays there for no more than three months and that police surveillance of him continues throughout his stay in Kyiv".
The trip took place. A.L. herself Kragelskaya later recalled how one day a gendarmerie officer came to their house, telling about Kostomarov's attempt to get a leave to Kyiv for marriage. It was necessary to sign a document confirming the request of the groom. Mother handed some paper - "seeing nothing in front of me, except for my mother's index finger, I automatically followed the order and signed". Most likely, Alina signed the refusal. Her mother found her a groom; on November 11, 1851, she married M.D. Kisel, with whom she lived until his death in 1870. Kostomarov probably learned about the groom during his trip to Kyiv. At least N.G. Chernyshevsky, who met Kostomarov in Saratov, testified: "More than six months before the marriage of his bride, he already considered himself to have lost her, I know this, because he told me this from the very beginning of my acquaintance with him".
One of Kostomarov's acquaintances conveys the details of the dramatic moment experienced by Kostomarov in connection with the loss of his bride: “He was in the full sense of the martyr: from heavy grief, he grabbed himself by his long hair; broke his fingers, was ready to beat his head against the wall; eyes filled with blood and went into a kind of frenzy; the lover was a living dead, close to insanity”.
Feeling for A.L. Kostomarov kept Kragelskaya for many years. Upon learning of her husband's death in 1875, he proposed to her. Their life together continued until the death of Kostomarov in 1885.
The names of the people surrounding Kostomarov in Saratov are known to us almost completely. First of all, this is A.D. Gorbunov, an adviser to the state chamber, who was fond of translation work (his translation of A. Mickiewicz's poem "Konrad Wallenrod" is known), and his brother P.D. Gorbunov. K A.D. Gorbunov Kostomarov appeared in 1848 with a letter of recommendation from one of the St. Petersburg officials and was warmly received by him. At the same time, Nikolai Ivanovich became closely acquainted with the family of the attorney D.E. Stupin, whose youngest daughter Natalya almost became his wife. In 1850, an acquaintance with the poetess A.N. Paskhalova, and in 1855 he met D.L. Mordovtsev, husband A.N. Paskhalova. They maintained a relationship until the end of the historian's life. Friends often gathered near Saratov at the dacha of cousin A.N. Paskhalova - I.D. Esmont. Doctor S.F. Stephanie, Prince V.A. Shcherbatov, official I.A. Gan, A.N. Beketov (brother of the former rector of St. Petersburg University), exiled Poles Minkevich and Khmelevsky, D.L. Mordovtsev and his brother I.L. Mordovtsev - such is the circle of persons close to Kostomarov, indicated by a contemporary.
Kostomarov's stay in Saratov forced him to turn to some problems of local history. He was avidly interested in Saratov folklore. Together with A.N. Paskhalova-Mordovtseva Kostomarov organized the collection and processing of folk songs, fairy tales, and legends. A significant part of them was published in the local press, and in 1862 - in the Chronicles of Russian Literature and Antiquity. Nikolai Ivanovich studied the development of local productive forces, was engaged in the processing of local statistical data. Nikolai Ivanovich analyzed the socio-economic processes that took place in the Saratov Volga region in the middle of the 19th century, sought to identify social contradictions. The interest of Kostomarov in the history of the Saratov region is evidenced by a letter about him from the head of the province, sent to the spiritual department in October 1854: “... I ask the Spiritual Consistory to provide the designated official with accurate and satisfactory information and fulfill his legal requirements regarding statistics, geography, ethnography and history of the province entrusted to me”.
Kostomarov wrote essays about Petrovsk and Volsk, examined some local archives. A significant part of the collected documents (for example, about E. Pugachev) Kostomarov handed over to his student and successor in the study of the Saratov region Mordovtsev. “I gave the materials to D.L. Mordovtsev,- Nikolai Ivanovich himself later said, - but he himself did not dare to write Pugachev, since they announced to me that they would not give the necessary papers in the archive ”. Based on data from the Saratov Territory, Kostomarov, together with Mordovtsev, tried to prepare a collection of peasant uprisings in the first half of the 19th century, but the idea remained unfinished, since the governor banned the publication of the book.
Of particular interest is Kostomarov's historical monograph “Stenka Razin's Rebellion” written in Saratov, the first version of which, under the title “Stenka Razin and the daring fellows of the 17th century,” was published in 1853 on the pages of the Saratov Provincial Gazette. Some sections of this work are devoted to the events of the Razin uprising in the Saratov Volga region. The work of Kostomarov caused a great public outcry, was outlined by K. Marx, who learned about it from the Russian populist Danielson. A.M. speaks well about the strength of her artistic impact on readers. Gorky in the story "Konovalov": “As the historian drew the figure of Stepan Timofeevich with the brush of the artist and the “prince of the Volga freemen” grew out of the pages of the book, Konovalov was reborn. Previously boring and indifferent, with eyes clouded with lazy drowsiness, he, gradually and imperceptibly for me, appeared before me in a strikingly new form ... There was something lion-like, fiery in his figure compressed into a lump of muscles”.
Literary critics rightly say that Kostomarov's study, a detailed discussion of the details of this work, already at that time gave Chernyshevsky a historical perspective for comprehending the image of Rakhmetov. One of the characters in the novel “Prologue” Volgin recalls the song “We are not thieves, we are not robbers”, recorded by Kostomarov and published first in the Saratov Provincial Gazette, and then in a separate book about Razin.
In 1858, Kostomarov's work "Essay on the history of the Saratov region from its accession to the Russian state to the accession to the throne of Nicholas I" was published in the "Memorial Book of the Saratov Governorate" Kostomarov's work. Kostomarov tried to draw a broad, generalizing picture of the processes that took place in the Volga region in the 16th-18th centuries. Emphasizing the importance for the economic development of the Russian state of the Volga trade route, he raised the question of the settlement of the Saratov region as a consequence of state policy. Saratov, according to the historian, was founded in the reign of Fyodor Ivanovich on the left bank of the Volga. However, Nikolai Ivanovich avoided establishing a more precise date. At the end of the 17th century, Kostomarov believed, Saratov was moved to the right bank. Kostomarov finds out the significance of joining the Lower Volga region to the Russian state, emphasizing: “The Volga then became the only way of this newly discovered acquaintance of the West with the East”.
He agreed with the statements of A.F. Leopoldov and R.A. Fadeev that the need to develop the Volga trade raised the question of building Russian fortress cities along the banks of the Volga, among which was Saratov. Kostomarov singles out the presence of two opposing forces in the Saratov Volga region in the 16th-17th centuries: the Volga Cossacks, which was the expression of the “old veche freemen”, and the autocratic state, which sought to subordinate the Cossacks “under the radiant scepter of order and power to a new image of the political and domestic existence of Russia”. This clash, according to Kostomarov, determined the further development of this region. Having emerged in the second half of the 16th century, the Volga Cossacks, in the image of Kostomarov, represented a military organization based on pronounced democratic principles of governance. Thus, the problem of social differentiation of the Cossack army remained outside the field of view of the historian. He was unable to understand the internal processes taking place in the Cossack communities.
Since 1855, after the death of Nicholas I, the life of Nikolai Ivanovich began to change. He is allowed to travel to the capital to work in the central archives. And in 1859 he finally moved to St. Petersburg, where he became a professor of Russian history at St. Petersburg University.
According to contemporaries, in his old age Kostomarov "loved to talk about his past", and these stories undoubtedly concerned Saratov. "Poetic nature", "a great scientist and artistic talent" - this characteristic, which was fixed for Kostomarov, also had its source in his forced, but filled with young creative energy, Saratov decade.
Materials used: - Dechenko A. Ten years under supervision. - Monuments of the Fatherland: The Heart of the Volga Region. - M.: Monuments of the Fatherland, 1998.
- Demchenko A.N.I. Kostomarov in Saratov. - Saratov Volga region in the panorama of centuries: history, traditions, problems. Materials of inter-regional scientific readings of local lore April 7-8, 2000. - Saratov: Publishing House of SGU, 2000.
"N. I. Kostomarov.
1850s
KOSTOMAROV Nikolai Ivanovich (05/04/1817-04/07/1885) - Ukrainian and Russian historian, ethnographer, writer, critic.
N. I. Kostomarov was the illegitimate son of a Russian landowner and a Little Russian peasant woman. In 1837 he graduated from Kharkov University. In 1841 he prepared his master's thesis "On the causes and nature of the union in Western Russia", which was banned and destroyed for deviating from the official interpretation of the problem. In 1844, Kostomarov defended his dissertation "On the historical significance of Russian folk poetry." From 1846 he held the position of professor at Kiev University in the department of history.
Together with T. G. Shevchenko, he organized the secret Cyril and Methodius Society, was the author of its charter and program. This secret nationalist political organization for the first time raised the question of the independence of Little Russia from Russia, considering Little Russia an independent political entity - Ukraine. The members of the society aimed to create a Slavic democratic state headed by Ukraine. It was supposed to include Russia, Poland, Serbia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria. In 1847, the society was closed, and Kostomarov was arrested and, after a year of imprisonment, exiled to Saratov.
Until 1857, the historian served in the Saratov Statistical Committee. In Saratov, he met N. G. Chernyshevsky. In 1859-1862. was a professor of Russian history at St. Petersburg University.
Arrest, exile, works on the history of popular movements (“Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the return of Southern Russia to Russia”, “The Time of Troubles of the Muscovite State”, “The Rebellion of Stenka Razin”) made Kostomarov widely known. For popular reading Kostomarov wrote "Russian history in the biographies of its main figures." He was one of the organizers and contributors to the Osnova magazine (1861-1862), which was published in Russian and Ukrainian. He appeared in the magazines Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski.
As a theorist of Ukrainian nationalism and separatism, Kostomarov put forward the theory of "two principles" - veche and autocracy - in the history of the people of Little Russia, which he considered independent, not Russian. He believed that the exceptional feature of Ukraine is its "classlessness" and "non-bourgeoisness". Kostomarov refers to ethnographic material as the main, in his opinion, for understanding the history of the people. In his opinion, the main task of the historian is the study of everyday life, "folk psychology", "the spirit of the people", and ethnography is the best means for this.
Kostomarov was a romantic poet. He published collections of poems "Ukrainian ballads" (1839), "Vetka" (1840). In the dramas Savva Chaly (91838) and Pereyaslav Night (1841), he portrayed in a nationalist spirit the national liberation struggle of the people of Little Russia in the 17th century.
School Encyclopedia. Moscow, "OLMA-PRESS Education". 2003
"Portrait of the historian Kostomarov".
1878.
Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov was born in 1817 into a landowner's family in the village of Yurasovka, Ostrogozhsky district, Voronezh province. From 1833 he studied at the Kharkov University at the Faculty of History and Philology, in 1844 he received the title of master. Already in 1839 he published two collections of Ukrainian songs - "Ukrainian Ballads" and "Vetka". Thus began his formation as a writer and ethnographer, a great connoisseur of Ukrainian poetry.
After graduating from the university, he taught at the Rovno, and then at the first gymnasium in Kiev, and in June 1846 he was elected an adjunct of Russian history at the Kiev University of St. Vladimir. As Kostomarov later recalled, the procedure for electing him by the university council was that he had to read a lecture on a given topic at the council. In this case, it boiled down to the question, "from what time should Russian history begin?" The lecture “made the best impression. Upon my removal from the council hall, - wrote Kostomarov, - a ballot was made, and an hour later the rector of the university, professor of astronomy Fedotov, sent me a note in which he informed me that I had been adopted unanimously and there was not a single vote contrary to my election. It was one of the brightest and most memorable days of my life. The university department has long been a desirable goal for me, which, however, I did not hope to achieve so soon.
Thus began his scientific and pedagogical activity in the field of the history of Russia and Ukraine. And although Kostomarov, in the memoirs cited above, wrote that from that moment on he “began to live in complete solitude, immersed in history,” he did not become an armchair scientist, a kind of Pimen, indifferent to “good and evil.” He did not remain deaf to the call of the realities of his contemporary life, absorbing and sharing the liberation ideas of the progressive people of Russia and Ukraine, which were widely disseminated in the early 40s of the last century. Acquaintance with the first issue of Shevchenko's "Kobzar" (1840), with his poem "Gaidamaki" (1841) and the immortal "Zapovit" (1845) had a stimulating effect on Kostomarov and his friends, who organized the "Slavic Association of St. Cyril and Methodius” (as it is called in the charter, but is known under the name of the “Cyril and Methodius Society”). In 1990, a three-volume collection of documents was published reflecting the history of this organization and providing an opportunity for the first time to thoroughly study this striking historical phenomenon and the role of Kostomarov in it. Among the so-called physical evidence in the “Kostomarov case” we find his manuscript (autograph) in Ukrainian called “The Book of the Buttya of the Ukrainian People” (“The Book of the Ukrainian People’s Genesis”), where the most important worldview positions of the author are formulated in the form of a biblical legend.
In verse 10, the author writes: “And Solomon, the wisest of all people, was allowed by the Lord into great madness, and therefore he did this to show that no matter how smart he is, but when he begins to rule autocratically, he will become stupefied.” Then, painting already the gospel times, the author states that the kings and pans, having accepted the teaching of Christ, perverted it (“turned it over”). Kostomarov concretizes this villainous deed with an example of the history of Russia, showing how the Russians lived freely without a tsar, and when he reigned, “bowing and kissing the feet of the Tatar Basurman Khan, together with the Basurmans he enslaved the people of Muscovites” (verse 72). And when “Tsar Ivan in Novgorod strangled and drowned tens of thousands of people in one day, the chroniclers, telling this, called him Christ-loving” (verse 73). In Ukraine, “they did not create either a tsar or a pan, but they created a brotherhood-Cossacks, to which everyone could join, whether he was a pan or a slave, but always a Christian. Everyone was equal there, and the foremen were elected and were obliged to serve everyone and work for everyone. And there was no pomp, no title among the Cossacks” (verse 75-76). However, the Polish "pans and Jesuits wanted to forcibly turn Ukraine under their rule ... then brotherhoods appeared in Ukraine, such as those of the first Christians," but Ukraine nevertheless fell into captivity to Poland, and only an uprising of the people freed Ukraine from the Polish yoke, and she stuck to Muscovy as to a Slavic country. “However, Ukraine soon saw that she had fallen into captivity, she, in her simplicity, did not yet know what a tsar was, and the tsar of Moscow is the same as an idol and a tormentor” (verses 82-89). Then Ukraine "stripped off Muscovy and did not know, poor thing, where to turn her head" (verse 90). As a result, it was divided between Poland and Russia, and this "is the most worthless thing that has ever happened in the world" (verse 93). Then the author reports that Tsar Peter “laid hundreds of thousands of Cossacks in ditches and built his capital on their bones”, and “Tsarina Catherine the German, a whore all over the world, an obvious atheist, finished the Cossacks, as she selected those who were foremen in Ukraine, and endowed them with free brothers, and some became lords, while others became slaves ”(verses 95-96). “And so Ukraine disappeared, but it only seems to be,” the author concludes (verse 97) and outlines a way out: “Ukraine “will soon wake up and shout at the whole wide Slavic region, and their cry will be heard, and Ukraine will rise and be an independent Commonwealth (i.e., the Commonwealth). e. republic. - B. L.) in the Slavic union "(verses 108-109).
If we add to this a poem, also in Ukrainian, which was confiscated during a search at Kostomarov’s apartment and mistakenly attributed by the gendarmes to T. G. Shevchenko, but actually written by Kostomarov, then we can determine the worldview and historical and philosophical positions of the 30-year-old historian. Much, of course, is unacceptable for us (for example, the thesis that Catherine II created the feudal system in Ukraine), but the analysis of the poems allows us to define the ideology of the Cyril and Methodius Society as national liberation and democratic; Kostomarov obviously took an active part in its formation. It should be noted that Kostomarov was, to use the modern popular term, neither a Russophobe, nor a Polonophobe, nor a Ukrainian nationalist. He was a man who deeply believed in the need for fraternal unity of all Slavic peoples on a democratic basis.
Naturally, during interrogations, Kostomarov denied the existence of society and his belonging to it, explained that the gold ring with the inscriptions “Kyrie eleison” (“Lord have mercy.” - B.L.) and “St. Cyril and Methodius” is not at all a sign of belonging to society, but an ordinary ring that Christians wear on their fingers in memory of the saints, while referring to the widespread ring with an inscription in memory of St. Barbara. But all these explanations were not accepted by the investigators, and, as can be seen from the definition of the III department of His Imperial Majesty's own office dated May 30-31, 1847, approved by the tsar, he was found guilty (especially "because he was the oldest in years, and by the rank of professor, he was obliged to turn young people away from bad directions") and sentenced to imprisonment "in the Alekseevsky ravelin for one year" with the subsequent sending "to serve in Vyatka, but not in the scientific part, with the establishment of the strictest supervision over him; the works “Ukrainian Ballads” and “Vetka” published by him under the pseudonym of Jeremiah Galka should be banned and withdrawn from sale.
Nicholas I allowed Kostomarov to meet with his mother only in the presence of the commandant of the fortress, and when the mother began to literally bombard the III department with petitions for the early release of her son and sending him to the Crimea for treatment in connection with his illness, not a single petition was granted, they always appeared a short, like a shot, resolution “no”, drawn by the hand of the head of the department, L. V. Dubelt.
When Kostomarov spent a year in the fortress, even then, instead of the replacement of the exile in the city of Vyatka, requested by his mother, with the exile in the city of Simferopol, by order of Nicholas I, he was sent to the city of Saratov with the issuance of 300 rubles. silver lump sum. True, not at all out of a sense of compassion, but only because, as the all-powerful chief of gendarmes and head of the III department, Adjutant General Orlov, reported, the bruised Kostomarov “made it his first duty to express in writing the most lively loyal gratitude to Your Imperial Majesty for the fact that Your Majesty, instead of severe punishment, out of the feelings of their goodness, they gave him the opportunity to make up for his former error with diligent service. This dispatch to Saratov did not yet mean complete release, since Kostomarov was accompanied by a gendarme, lieutenant Alpen, who was supposed to ensure that his supervised person did not enter into "unnecessary conversations with strangers." The lieutenant, so to speak, "surrendered" Kostomarov to the Saratov civil governor M. L. Kozhevnikov. True, Orlov attributed in his official relationship to Kozhevnikov: “I ask you to be merciful to him, a man with virtues, but he was mistaken and sincerely repents,” which, however, did not prevent him from turning to the Minister of Internal Affairs L. A. Perovsky with a proposal to establish over Kostomarov "the strictest supervision". He sent a similar order to the head of the 7th district of the gendarme corps N. A. Akhverdov, so that he established secret surveillance of Kostomarov in Saratov under his jurisdiction and reported every six months on his behavior.
The Saratov exile is an important stage in the ideological development of Kostomarov, here he became close to N. G. Chernyshevsky and the historian D. L. Mordovtsev, who had just begun to develop the history of popular movements and imposture in these years. Working in the provincial government, Kostomarov had the opportunity to get acquainted with secret files, among which there were cases on the history of the split. In Saratov, he wrote a number of works, which, when they were published after the exile and in the conditions of the social upsurge of the 50-60s of the XIX century. became widely known, putting their author in the first row among contemporary historians. A special place in these studies is occupied by works on Ukrainian history.
In the same years, Kostomarov seeks, in modern terms, rehabilitation. On May 31, 1855, he addressed Alexander II, who had recently ascended the throne, with a petition in which he wrote: “At the present time, when Your Imperial Majesty deigned to mark your accession to the throne with a deed of immeasurable mercy, shedding a ray of consolation to the most serious criminals, I dare to pray your sovereign goodness, sovereign, for mercy to me. If supervision over me were limited solely to observation of my political convictions, then I would not dare to wish to be freed from it, for I have no other convictions than those prescribed by law and love for my monarch. But the supervision of the police, coupled with the need to be exclusively in one place, restricts me in my work and home life and deprives me of the means to correct the disease of vision, which I have been suffering for several years. Sovereign father! Honor with an eye of compassion one of the erring, but truly repentant children of your great Russian family, deign to give me the right to serve you, sovereign, and live unhindered in all places of the Russian Empire of Your Imperial Majesty "
The College of Petitions forwarded Kostomarov's petition to the III branch. On June 27, 1855, A.F. Orlov, in his written report, supported Kostomarov’s request, saying in passing that “of the persons related to the same society, the collegiate registrar Gulak, who was the main reason for compiling the society, as well as officials Belozersky and Kulish, guilty no less than Kostomarov, have already received the most merciful forgiveness. On this document, Alexander II imposed the resolution “I agree” with a pencil. But this relatively quick satisfaction of Kostomarov's request still did not mean the granting of complete freedom of activity, since A.F. Orlov, informing the Minister of the Interior D.G. Bibikov about the decision of the king, warned that Kostomarov was not allowed to serve "in the scientific part" . So, freed from supervision, Kostomarov left for St. Petersburg in December 1855. At the same time, he offered the editor of Otechestvennye Zapiski his work The Age of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, but the journal's censor demanded a certificate of the lifting of the prohibitions on Kostomarov's writings, imposed back in 1847. In January 1856, Kostomarov asked for permission to publish of this article to Section III and received permission for publication with the resolution of L. V. Dubelt: "Only strictly censor."
Of the major works, Kostomarov publishes in 1856 in Otechestvennye Zapiski his work The Struggle of Ukrainian Cossacks with Poland in the First Half of the 17th Century before Bogdan Khmelnitsky, and in 1857 - Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the Return of Southern Russia to Russia. These studies introduced a wide circle of the Russian reading public to the bright pages of the history of the fraternal people, affirmed the inseparability of the historical destinies of the two Slavic peoples. They were also an application for the further development of the Ukrainian theme.
But even in the field of Russian history, Kostomarov continued to deal with previously unexplored problems. So, in 1857-1858. Sovremennik publishes his work “Essay on the Trade of the Moscow State in the 16th and 17th Centuries”, and in 1858 his famous “Rebellion of Stenka Razin” appears on the pages of “Notes of the Fatherland” - a work of great relevance in the conditions of the first revolutionary situation in Russia that was brewing.
But there was one more obstacle to his scientific and pedagogical activity. On September 27, 1857, Kostomarov wrote to the new head of the III department, V. A. Dolgorukov: Department of the Ministry of Public Education ... If the mercy of the Sovereign Emperor, which freed me from supervision, does not cancel the previous highest command in the Bose of the deceased Sovereign Emperor to prevent me from scientific service, please, Your Excellency, cast down at the feet of the most merciful Sovereign Emperor my all-submissive request to grant me the right join the scientific service under the department of the Ministry of Public Education. Prince Vasily Andreevich already on October 8 ordered to talk about this with the Minister of Public Education, the latter considered "inconvenient to allow Kostomarov to serve in the scientific department, except as a librarian."
Meanwhile, the council of Kazan University in 1858 elected Kostomarov a professor; as you would expect. The Ministry of National Education did not approve this election. However, in 1859, the trustee of the St. Petersburg educational district petitioned for the appointment of Kostomarov as a corrective professor of Russian history at St. Petersburg University, as evidenced by the attitude of Comrade Minister of Public Education V. A. Dolgorukov. The latter said that this required the highest permission, which, obviously, was received, since in the certificate of the III department of November 24, 1859 we read: “Kostomarov is known for his learning in history, and the first lecture he gave the other day in the local university, earned the general approval of the students, among whom were many outsiders.
So, the attempt of the council of St. Petersburg University to elect Kostomarov as an extraordinary professor in the department of Russian history was crowned with success. Kostomarov "conquers" the capital thanks to a sensational discussion with the famous historian M.P. Pogodin about serfdom in Russia, and a year later - in connection with his argumentative speech against the so-called Norman theory of the origin of Russia, shared by Pogodin ...
To characterize the degree of social activity and state of mind of Kostomarov from the moment when he was released from supervision and exile, and until he was approved by a professor at St. Petersburg University, it would be useful to say that in 1857 he managed to visit Sweden, Germany for eight months. France, Italy and Austria, while working in archives and libraries (especially note the work in Sweden, which provided material for a monograph on Mazepa), and after returning in 1858 he was directly involved in the preparation of the peasant reform, becoming the clerk of the Saratov provincial committee for improving life of landowning peasants. In 1859, when the provincial committees actually ceased their activities, he moved to St. Petersburg, replacing the retired professor N. G. Ustryalov.
By the early 1960s, Kostomarov had firmly established himself as an excellent lecturer and one of the leading historians. He published in "Sovremennik" in 1860 "Essay on the domestic life and customs of the Great Russian people in the 16th and 17th centuries", in "Russian Word" - the work "Russian foreigners. The Lithuanian tribe and its relationship to Russian history”, and, finally, in 1863, one of the most fundamental studies of Kostomarov, “Northern Russian people’s rule in the days of the appanage-veche way of life, was published as a separate book. Novgorod - Pskov - Vyatka.
By this time, Kostomarov, booed by disgruntled students, was forced to leave the teaching department. The students were dissatisfied, as it seemed to them, with the unseemly act of the professor, who did not join the protest action against the expulsion of Professor P.V. Pavlov. This episode is described in sufficient detail by Kostomarov in his autobiography. Let's use his story. When St. Petersburg University was closed in 1861 in connection with student protests, and in early 1862 many arrested students were released from the fortress, the idea arose of giving public lectures for a very moderate fee in order to make up for the losses caused by the closure of the university. Kostomarov in early February 1862 began reading a course in Russian history from the 15th century. In his own words, he did not interfere in student affairs: “I did not take the slightest part in the then (1861 - B. L.) university issues, and although students often came to me to talk to me about what to do , but I answered them that I did not know their affairs, that I knew only the science to which I devoted myself entirely, and everything that did not directly relate to my science did not interest me. The students were very dissatisfied with me for putting myself in such a position in their student affairs…”. This was the backdrop against which the events of the spring of 1862 played out, when a free university was already functioning, accessible to everyone who wanted to listen to lectures read in the spacious hall of the City Duma. On March 5, the professor of this university, P.V. Pavlov, not in the Duma building - the official place for lecturing - but in a private house on the Moika, where a literary evening was held, read his article "The Millennium of Russia". In the text that he showed to Kostomarov the day before, he did not find anything that could "draw the unfavorable attention of the authorities." This article, and especially the refrain taken from the "Gospel" accompanying it - "those who have ears to hear, yes they hear," caused a storm of enthusiasm among students . Pavlov was arrested the next day.
In response to the arrest, some of the professors, under the influence of student demands, stopped lecturing. Kostomarov objected to this, arguing that "the cessation of lectures does not make any sense."
When Kostomarov came to give a lecture on March 9, some of the students, who demanded the cessation of lectures in protest against Pavlov's arrest, obstructed him; others, according to the historian, shouted "Bravo, Kostomarov!" Kostomarov wrote on behalf of a group of professors a petition to the Minister of Public Education for the release of Pavlov, but it did not produce results. Soon Pavlov was exiled to Kostroma, and Kostomarov himself, stung by the ingratitude of the students, submitted his resignation. Since then, he has not been engaged in teaching activities, concentrating entirely on scientific work. ...
Until recently, it was possible to observe, although paradoxical, but touching unity in the assessment of Kostomarov's ideological positions of Soviet historiographers and foreign nationalists. So, in 1967, the University of Michigan publishing house published a study with a characteristic title: “Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov: Russian historian, Ukrainian nationalist, Slavic federalist” (Popazian Dennis. “Nickolas Ivanovich Kostomarov: russian historian, ukranian nationalist, slavic federalist”), and seven years earlier, the second volume of Essays on the History of Historical Science was published by the Nauka publishing house, in which, on p. 146 printed in black and white: "Kostomarov entered historiography primarily as a spokesman for the views and interests of the emerging Ukrainian bourgeois-landlord nationalism." Indeed, the extremes meet.
B. Litvak. "Hetman-villain".
"Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov".
I saw the historian Kostomarov for the first time when he came to us shortly after his exile. (* In 1846, in Kyiv, around N.I. Kostomarov, the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood was organized, which aimed to spread the idea of \u200b\u200ba federative association of Slavic peoples with the preservation of autonomy in matters of internal administration. Shevchenko was also a member of this society. According to the denunciation of student Petrov N.I. Kostomarov was arrested in the spring of 1847 and, after a year's imprisonment in the fortress, exiled to Saratov, where he stayed until 1855.) I knew in detail about his arrest and his deportation from Petersburg.
It was clear from Kostomarov's sickly appearance that all this trouble had cost him dearly; he dined with us and, apparently, was happy that he could live in Petersburg again.
Leaving his dacha on a steamboat, he asked Panaev for the whole year's "The Bell", which he had not had the chance to read while in exile. The bundle was quite bulky. A cab was brought in, and Kostomarov left, promising to return to the dacha soon.
Not even half an hour had passed before I saw Kostomarov walking through an abandoned garden near our dacha, separated from it by a rather wide groove.
Gentlemen, this is Kostomarov! How did he get into the garden? - I said to Panaev and Nekrasov.
At first they did not believe me, but after looking carefully, they were convinced that it was definitely him. We all went to the alley and called to Kostomarov, who was walking quickly.
I'm looking for a way to get to your dacha! he answered. He was told that he had not got there - and that he had to go back to the highway.
We went to meet him and noticed that he was very worried about something.
What happened to you? we asked him.
A big misfortune,” he said softly. - Let's go quickly to the dacha, I'll tell you everything there, it's inconvenient to talk here!
We, too, were alarmed, wondering what kind of misfortune had befallen him.
Arriving at the dacha, Kostomarov, exhausted from walking, sank down on a bench, and we surrounded him and waited impatiently for an explanation. Kostomarov looked around in all directions and said quietly:
No one will eavesdrop on us? .. I lost the "Bell".
Lord, we thought God knows what happened to you! - said Nekrasov with annoyance.
Where did you drop it? - asked Panaev.
I don't know myself; wanted to put on an overcoat in the sleeves, put the bundle beside him. I thought about it ... grab it, but it’s already gone! I quickly gave the money to the cab driver and went back along the highway in the hope that I would find him, but I did not. So someone picked up the bundle.
It’s clear that he picked it up if you didn’t find it, ”Panaev answered,“ and if an educated person found it, he will mentally thank the one who gave him the opportunity to read The Bell for a whole year.
What if they take it to the police? Searches will go on - and the driver will indicate where he got the rider from?
What's the matter with you, Kostomarov? Panaev remarked to him.
And your footman can say that I lost it!
Yes, the lackey was not even in the garden when you left, - Nekrasov reassured him.
Why did I bring the "Bell" with me! Kostomarov said in despair.
They began to calm him down, they even laughed at his fright, but he said:
Ah, gentlemen, the frightened crow is afraid of the bush. If you had to experience what I experienced, you would not be laughing now. I have seen from experience how much a person can suffer much from a trifle. Returning to Petersburg, I swore to myself to be careful - and suddenly acted like a boy!
Kostomarov was persuaded to stay overnight, because he had a fever, and besides, he would have been late for the ship if he had gone. I made him hot tea with cognac to warm him up.
At the dacha, I usually got up early and went for a swim. It was not yet 7 o'clock when I entered the glass gallery to go out into the park, and Kostomarov was already sitting in it.
What is your fever? I asked him. Kostomarov replied that he had not slept all night, asked what time the first steamer left, and suddenly asked jokingly:
Look... what kind of person is this?
I stood with my back to the glass door and turned around.
This is our Pyotr, probably coming from bathing, - I said and ordered the footman to quickly put on the samovar in order to give Kostomarov coffee to drink.
I no longer went swimming, but stayed with Kostomarov. I advised him not to go on the boat, as he felt unwell, and in the meantime there might be a pitching.
I'd better order the droshky to be laid down, - I said, - they will take you to Peterhof, and there you will find yourself a semi-carriage and get there much calmer.
Kostomarov was very pleased with my proposal and said that, in his mood of spirit, it would be unpleasant for him to be in a crowd of passengers. He waited impatiently for the coachman to lay down the droshky.
I woke up Panaev and said that Kostomarov was leaving.
Panaev, sleepy, went out to Kostomarov, who fussed when he saw that the droshky was ready.
Panaev, saying goodbye to him, said:
Come to us whenever you like, in the morning and spend the night with us.
Well no! - answered Kostomarov. - Thank you: my trip to you made such an impression on me that I won’t show my nose to your Peterhof.
He was about to leave the steps of the gallery, but he returned again, saying:
My God, where is my head, I forgot such an important thing. We must come to an agreement so that there is no contradiction in the testimony.
What? - asked Panaev.
Lord, well, if they ask about the lost package.
Come on, Kostomarov!
Not! I am a seasoned person...
I'll tell you what I lost! - said Panaev. Kostomarov was taken aback.
And the witness?
Cab! Panaev laughed.
Forget about the Bell, think for yourself, well, how is it possible to find out who lost the bundle on the highway! Did your driver not know about the loss of him?
I wish I had told him so! I handed over the money, saying that I had changed my mind about going to the ship, and went back, and he went on.
Well, how can he point to you? Kostomarov thought, waved his hand and said: “Well, what to be, that cannot be avoided!” - and, shaking hands with us, got into the droshky and left.
May 17, 1817 (Yurasovka, Voronezh province, Russian Empire) - April 18, 1885 (St. Petersburg, Russian Empire)
Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov - Russian historian, ethnographer, publicist, literary critic, poet, playwright, public figure, corresponding member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, author of the multi-volume publication "Russian History in the Biographies of Its Figures", researcher of the socio-political and economic history of Russia and the modern territory of Ukraine, called by Kostomarov "southern Russia" or "southern edge". Pan-Slavist.
Biography of N.I. Kostomarov
Family and ancestors
|
N.I. Kostomarov |
Kostomarov Nikolai Ivanovich was born on May 4 (16), 1817 in the Yurasovka estate (Ostrogozhsky district, Voronezh province), died on April 7 (19), 1885 in St. Petersburg.
The Kostomarov family is noble, Great Russian. The son of the boyar Samson Martynovich Kostomarov, who served in the oprichnina of John IV, fled to Volyn, where he received the estate, which passed to his son, and then to his grandson Peter Kostomarov. In the second half of the 17th century, Peter participated in Cossack uprisings, fled to the Muscovite state and settled in the so-called Ostrogozhchina. One of the descendants of this Kostomarov in the 18th century married the daughter of an official Yuri Blum and received as a dowry the suburb of Yurasovka (Ostrogozhsky district of the Voronezh province), which was inherited by the historian's father, Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov, a wealthy landowner.
Ivan Kostomarov was born in 1769, served in military service and, after retiring, settled in Yurasovka. Having received a poor education, he tried to develop himself by reading, reading "with a dictionary" exclusively French books of the eighteenth century. I read to the point that I became a convinced "Voltairian", i.e. supporter of education and social equality. Later, N.I. Kostomarov in his "Autobiography" wrote about the passions of the parent:
Everything that we know today about the childhood, family and early years of N.I. Kostomarov is gleaned exclusively from his “Autobiographies”, written by the historian in different versions already in his declining years. These wonderful, in many ways artistic works, in places resemble an adventure novel of the 19th century: very original types of characters, an almost detective plot with a murder, the subsequent, absolutely fantastic repentance of criminals, etc. Due to the lack of reliable sources, it is practically impossible to separate the truth from childhood impressions, as well as from the author's later fantasies. Therefore, we will follow what N.I. Kostomarov himself considered necessary to inform his descendants about himself.
According to the autobiographical notes of the historian, his father was a tough, wayward, extremely quick-tempered man. Under the influence of French books, he did not put noble dignity in anything and, in principle, did not want to be related to noble families. So, already in his old age, Kostomarov Sr. decided to marry and chose a girl from his serfs - Tatyana Petrovna Mylnikova (in some publications - Melnikova), whom he sent to study in Moscow, in a private boarding school. It was in 1812, and the Napoleonic invasion prevented Tatyana Petrovna from getting an education. Among the Yurasovo peasants for a long time lived a romantic legend about how the "old Kostomar" drove the best three horses, rescuing his former maid Tanyusha from burning Moscow. Tatyana Petrovna was clearly not indifferent to him. However, soon the courtyard people turned Kostomarov against his serf. The landowner was in no hurry to marry her, and son Nikolai, being born even before the official marriage between his parents, automatically became his father's serf.
Until the age of ten, the boy was brought up at home, according to the principles developed by Rousseau in his Emile, in the bosom of nature, and from childhood fell in love with nature. His father wanted to make him a freethinker, but his mother's influence kept him religious. He read a lot and, thanks to his outstanding abilities, easily assimilated what he read, and his ardent fantasy made him experience what he got acquainted with from books.
In 1827, Kostomarov was sent to Moscow, to the boarding school of Mr. Ge, a lecturer in French at the University, but was soon taken home due to illness. In the summer of 1828, young Kostomarov was supposed to return to the boarding school, but on July 14, 1828, his father was killed and robbed by the servants. For some reason, his father did not have time to adopt Nikolai in 11 years of his life, therefore, born out of wedlock, as a serf of his father, the boy was now inherited by his closest relatives - the Rovnevs. When the Rovnevs offered Tatyana Petrovna a widow's share for 14 thousand acres of fertile land - 50 thousand rubles in banknotes, as well as freedom for her son, she agreed without delay.
Killers I.P. Kostomarov presented the whole case as if an accident had happened: the horses were carried away, the landowner allegedly fell out of the cab and died. The loss of a large amount of money from his box became known later, so there was no police inquiry. The true circumstances of the death of Kostomarov Sr. were revealed only in 1833, when one of the murderers - the master's coachman - suddenly repented and pointed out to the police his accomplices-lackeys. N.I. Kostomarov wrote in his Autobiography that when the perpetrators were interrogated in court, the coachman said: “The master himself is to blame for tempting us; it used to start telling everyone that there is no god, that there will be nothing in the next world, that only fools are afraid of the afterlife punishment - we took it into our heads that if there is nothing in the next world, then everything can be done ... "
Later, the courtyards stuffed with "Voltairian sermons" led the robbers to the house of N.I. Kostomarov's mother, which was also completely robbed.
Left with little money, T.P. Kostomarova sent her son to a rather poor boarding school in Voronezh, where he learned little in two and a half years. In 1831, his mother transferred Nikolai to the Voronezh gymnasium, but even here, according to Kostomarov's memoirs, the teachers were bad and unscrupulous, they gave him little knowledge.
After graduating in 1833 from a course at a gymnasium, Kostomarov first entered Moscow and then Kharkiv University at the Faculty of History and Philology. The professors at that time in Kharkov were unimportant. For example, Russian history was read by Gulak-Artemovsky, although a well-known author of Little Russian poems, but distinguished, according to Kostomarov, in his lectures by empty rhetoric and bombast. However, Kostomarov worked diligently even with such teachers, but, as is often the case with young people, he succumbed by nature to one or another hobby. So, having settled with the professor of the Latin language P.I. Sokalsky, he began to study classical languages and was especially carried away by the Iliad. The works of V. Hugo turned him to the French language; then he began to study Italian, music, began to write poetry, and led an extremely chaotic life. He constantly spent his holidays in his village, taking a great interest in horse riding, boating, hunting, although natural myopia and compassion for animals interfered with the last lesson. In 1835, young and talented professors appeared in Kharkov: in Greek literature A. O. Valitsky and in world history M. M. Lunin, who lectured very excitingly. Under the influence of Lunin, Kostomarov began to study history, spent days and nights reading all kinds of historical books. He settled at Artemovsky-Gulak and now led a very secluded life. Among his few friends was then A. L. Meshlinsky, a well-known collector of Little Russian songs.
The beginning of the way
In 1836, Kostomarov graduated from the course at the university as a real student, lived for some time with Artemovsky, teaching history to his children, then passed the exam for a candidate and at the same time entered the Kinburn Dragoon Regiment as a cadet.
Service in the regiment Kostomarov did not like; with his comrades, due to a different way of life, he did not get close. Fascinated by the analysis of the affairs of the rich archive located in Ostrogozhsk, where the regiment was stationed, Kostomarov often skimped on the service and, on the advice of the regimental commander, left it. Having worked in the archives throughout the summer of 1837, he compiled a historical description of the Ostrogozhsk Sloboda regiment, attached many copies of interesting documents to it, and prepared it for publication. Kostomarov hoped to compile the history of the entire Sloboda Ukraine in the same way, but did not have time. His work disappeared during the arrest of Kostomarov and it is not known where he is and even if he survived at all. In the autumn of the same year, Kostomarov returned to Kharkov, again began to listen to Lunin's lectures and study history. Already at that time, he began to think about the question: why is so little said in history about the masses of the people? Wanting to understand folk psychology, Kostomarov began to study the monuments of folk literature in the publications of Maksimovich and Sakharov, and was especially carried away by Little Russian folk poetry.
Interestingly, until the age of 16, Kostomarov had no idea about Ukraine and, in fact, about the Ukrainian language. The fact that there is a Ukrainian (Little Russian) language, he learned only at Kharkov University. When in the 1820-30s in Little Russia they began to be interested in the history and life of the Cossacks, this interest was most clearly manifested among representatives of the educated society of Kharkov, and especially in the university environment. Here, at the same time, the influence on the young Kostomarov of Artemovsky and Meshlinsky, and partly of Gogol's Russian-language stories, in which the Ukrainian color is lovingly presented, affected. “Love for the Little Russian word more and more captivated me,” Kostomarov wrote, “I was annoyed that such a beautiful language was left without any literary processing and, moreover, was subjected to completely undeserved contempt.”
An important role in the “Ukrainization” of Kostomarov belongs to I. I. Sreznevsky, then a young teacher at Kharkov University. Sreznevsky, although a native of Ryazan, also spent his youth in Kharkov. He was a connoisseur and lover of Ukrainian history and literature, especially after he had visited the places of the former Zaporozhye and had heard enough of its legends. This gave him the opportunity to compose the "Zaporozhian Antiquity".
Rapprochement with Sreznevsky had a strong effect on the novice historian Kostomarov, strengthening his desire to study the peoples of Ukraine, both in the monuments of the past and in the present life. To this end, he constantly made ethnographic excursions in the vicinity of Kharkov, and then further. Then Kostomarov began to write in the Little Russian language - first Ukrainian ballads, then the drama "Sava Chaly". The drama was published in 1838, and the ballads a year later (both under the pseudonym "Jeremiah Galka"). The drama evoked a flattering response from Belinsky. In 1838, Kostomarov was in Moscow and listened to Shevyrev's lectures there, thinking of taking the exam for a master of Russian literature, but fell ill and returned to Kharkov again, having managed to study German, Polish and Czech during this time and print his Ukrainian-language works.
Thesis by N.I. Kostomarov
In 1840 N.I. Kostomarov passed the exam for a master's degree in Russian history, and the following year presented his dissertation "On the Significance of the Union in the History of Western Russia." In anticipation of a dispute, he left for the summer in the Crimea, which he examined in detail. Upon returning to Kharkov, Kostomarov became close with Kvitka and also with a circle of Little Russian poets, among whom was Korsun, who published the collection Snin. In the collection, Kostomarov, under his former pseudonym, published poems and a new tragedy, "Pereyaslavskaya Nich".
Meanwhile, the Kharkiv Archbishop Innokenty drew the attention of the higher authorities to the dissertation already published by Kostomarov in 1842. On behalf of the Ministry of Public Education, Ustryalov assessed it and recognized it as unreliable: Kostomarov's conclusions regarding the emergence of the union and its significance did not correspond to the generally accepted one, which was considered mandatory for Russian historiography of this issue. The matter took such a turn that the dissertation was burned and its copies now constitute a great bibliographic rarity. However, in a revised form, this dissertation was later published twice, although under different names.
The history of the dissertation could forever end Kostomarov's career as a historian. But there were generally good reviews about Kostomarov, including from Archbishop Innokenty himself, who considered him a deeply religious person and knowledgeable in spiritual matters. Kostomarov was allowed to write a second dissertation. The historian chose the topic "On the historical significance of Russian folk poetry" and wrote this essay in 1842-1843, being an assistant inspector of students at Kharkov University. He often visited the theater, especially the Little Russian one, placed Little Russian poems and his first articles on the history of Little Russia in the collection “Molodik” by Betsky: “The First Wars of the Little Russian Cossacks with the Poles”, etc.
Leaving his position at the university in 1843, Kostomarov became a teacher of history at the Zimnitsky men's boarding school. Then he began to work on the history of Bogdan Khmelnitsky. On January 13, 1844, Kostomarov, not without incident, defended his dissertation at Kharkov University (it was also later published in a heavily revised form). He became a master of Russian history and first lived in Kharkov, working on the history of Khmelnitsky, and then, not having received a department here, he asked to serve in the Kyiv educational district in order to be closer to the place of activity of his hero.
N.I. Kostomarov as a teacher
In the autumn of 1844, Kostomarov was appointed as a history teacher at a gymnasium in the city of Rovno, Volyn province. On the way, he visited Kyiv, where he met the reformer of the Ukrainian language and publicist P. Kulish, with the assistant trustee of the educational district M. V. Yuzefovich and other progressive-minded people. In Rovno, Kostomarov taught only until the summer of 1845, but he gained the general love of both students and comrades for his humanity and excellent presentation of the subject. As always, he used every free time to make excursions to the numerous historical places of Volyn, to make historical and ethnographic observations and to collect monuments of folk art; such were brought to him by his disciples; all these materials collected by him were printed much later - in 1859.
Acquaintance with historical areas gave the historian the opportunity to later vividly depict many episodes from the history of the first Pretender and Bogdan Khmelnitsky. In the summer of 1845, Kostomarov visited the Holy Mountains, in the fall he was transferred to Kyiv as a history teacher at the 1st gymnasium, and at the same time he taught in various boarding schools, including women's boarding schools - de Melyana (Robespierre's brother) and Zalesskaya (the famous poet's widow), and later at the Institute of Noble Maidens. His pupils and pupils recalled his teaching with delight.
Here is what the famous painter Ge says about him as a teacher:
|
"N. I. Kostomarov was everyone's favorite teacher; there was not a single student who did not listen to his stories from Russian history; he made almost the whole city fall in love with Russian history. When he ran into the classroom, everything froze, as in a church, and the lively old life of Kyiv, rich in pictures, flowed, everything turned into a rumor; but - a call, and everyone was sorry, both the teacher and the students, that the time had passed so quickly. The most passionate listener was our comrade Pole... Nikolai Ivanovich never asked too much, never put points; sometimes our teacher throws us some paper and says quickly: “Here, we need to put points. So you already do it yourself,” he says; and what - no one was given more than 3 points. It’s impossible, ashamed, but there were up to 60 people here. Kostomarov's lessons were spiritual holidays; everyone was waiting for his lesson. The impression was that the teacher who took his place in our last class did not read history for a whole year, but read Russian authors, saying that after Kostomarov he would not read history to us. He made the same impression at the women's boarding school, and then at the University. |
Kostomarov and the Cyril and Methodius Society
In Kyiv, Kostomarov became close friends with several young Little Russians, who formed a circle part of the pan-Slavic, part of the national trend. Imbued with the ideas of pan-Slavism, which then emerged under the influence of the works of Shafarik and other famous Western Slavists, Kostomarov and his comrades dreamed of uniting all the Slavs in the form of a federation, with independent autonomy of the Slavic lands, into which the peoples inhabiting the empire were to be distributed. Moreover, in the projected federation, a liberal state system, as it was understood in the 1840s, was to be established, with the mandatory abolition of serfdom. A very peaceful circle of thinking intellectuals, who intended to act only by correct means, and, moreover, deeply religious in the person of Kostomarov, had an appropriate name - the Brotherhood of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. He, as it were, indicated by this that the activity of the holy Brothers, religious and educational, dear to all Slavic tribes, can be considered the only possible banner for Slavic unification. The very existence of such a circle at that time was already an illegal phenomenon. In addition, its members, wanting to “play” either conspirators or Masons, deliberately gave their meetings and peaceful conversations the character of a secret society with special attributes: a special icon and iron rings with the inscription: “Cyril and Methodius”. The brotherhood also had a seal on which was carved: "Understand the truth, and the truth will set you free." Af. V. Markovich, later a well-known South Russian ethnographer, writer N. I. Gulak, poet A. A. Navrotsky, teachers V. M. Belozersky and D. P. Pilchikov, several students, and later - T. G. Shevchenko, whose work was so reflected in the ideas of the pan-Slavic brotherhood. Random “brothers” also attended meetings of the society, for example, the landowner N.I. Savin, who was familiar to Kostomarov from Kharkov. The infamous publicist P. A. Kulish also knew about the brotherhood. With his peculiar humor, he signed some of his messages to members of the Hetman Panka Kulish brotherhood. Subsequently, in the III branch, this joke was assessed as three years of exile, although the "hetman" Kulish himself was not officially a member of the brotherhood. Just not to be intrusive...
June 4, 1846 N.I. Kostomarov was elected an associate professor of Russian history at Kiev University; classes in the gymnasium and other boarding schools, he now left. His mother also settled in Kyiv with him, selling the part of Yurasovka that she inherited.
Kostomarov was a professor at Kiev University for less than a year, but the students, with whom he kept himself simple, loved him very much and were fond of his lectures. Kostomarov taught several courses, including Slavic mythology, which he printed in Church Slavonic type, which was partly the reason for its ban. Only in the 1870s were its copies printed 30 years ago put on sale. Kostomarov also worked on Khmelnitsky, using materials available in Kyiv and from the famous archaeologist Gr. Svidzinsky, and was also elected a member of the Kiev Commission for the analysis of ancient acts and prepared the chronicle of S. Velichka for publication.
At the beginning of 1847, Kostomarov became engaged to Anna Leontievna Kragelskaya, his student from the boarding house de Melyan. The wedding was scheduled for March 30th. Kostomarov actively prepared for family life: he looked after a house for himself and the bride on Bolshaya Vladimirskaya, closer to the university, ordered a piano for Alina from Vienna itself. After all, the historian's bride was an excellent performer - Franz Liszt himself admired her game. But ... the wedding did not take place.
On the denunciation of the student A. Petrov, who overheard Kostomarov's conversation with several members of the Cyril and Methodius Society, Kostomarov was arrested, interrogated and sent under the protection of gendarmes to the Podolsk part. Then, two days later, he was brought for farewell to his mother's apartment, where the bride, Alina Kragelskaya, was waiting all in tears.
“The scene was tearing,” Kostomarov wrote in his Autobiography. “Then they put me on the crossbar and took me to St. Petersburg ... The state of my spirit was so deadly that I had an idea during the journey to starve myself to death. I refused all food and drink and had the firmness to drive in this way for 5 days ... My quarterly escort understood what was on my mind and began to advise me to leave the intention. “You,” he said, “do not inflict death on yourself, I will have time to take you, but you will hurt yourself: they will begin to interrogate you, and from exhaustion you will become delirium and you will say too much both about yourself and others.” Kostomarov heeded the advice.
In St. Petersburg, the chief of the gendarmes, Count Alexei Orlov, and his assistant, Lieutenant General Dubelt, spoke with the arrested person. When the scientist asked permission to read books and newspapers, Dubelt said: "You can't, my good friend, you read too much."
Soon both generals found out that they were dealing not with a dangerous conspirator, but with a romantic dreamer. But the investigation dragged on all spring, as Taras Shevchenko (he received the most severe punishment) and Nikolai Gulak hindered the case with their "intractability". There was no court. Kostomarov learned the decision of the tsar on May 30 from Dubelt: a year of imprisonment in a fortress and an indefinite exile "to one of the remote provinces." Kostomarov spent a year in the 7th cell of the Alekseevsky ravelin, where his already not very good health suffered greatly. However, the mother was allowed to see the prisoner, they were given books and, by the way, he learned ancient Greek and Spanish there.
The wedding of the historian with Alina Leontyevna was completely upset. The bride herself, being a romantic nature, was ready, like the wives of the Decembrists, to follow Kostomarov anywhere. But marriage to a "political criminal" seemed unthinkable to her parents. At the insistence of her mother, Alina Kragelskaya married an old friend of their family, the landowner M. Kisel.
Kostomarov in exile
“For compiling a secret society in which the union of the Slavs into one state was discussed,” Kostomarov was sent to serve in Saratov, with a ban on printing his works. Here he was assigned as the translator of the Provincial government, but he had nothing to translate, and the governor (Kozhevnikov) entrusted him with the charge, first of the criminal, and then of the secret table, where mainly schismatic cases were carried out. This gave the historian the opportunity to get to know the schism thoroughly and, although not without difficulty, to get closer to its followers. Kostomarov published the results of his studies of local ethnography in the Saratov Provincial Gazette, which he temporarily edited. He also studied physics and astronomy, tried to make a balloon, even engaged in spiritualism, but did not stop studying the history of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, receiving books from Gr. Svidzinsky. In exile, Kostomarov began to collect materials for the study of the internal life of pre-Petrine Russia.
In Saratov, a circle of educated people gathered near Kostomarov, partly from exiled Poles, partly from Russians. In addition, Archimandrite Nikanor, later Archbishop of Kherson, I. I. Palimpsestov, later a professor at Novorossiysk University, E. A. Belov, Varentsov, and others were close to him in Saratov; later N. G. Chernyshevsky, A. N. Pypin, and especially D. L. Mordovtsev.
In general, Kostomarov's life in Saratov was not bad at all. Soon his mother came here, the historian himself gave private lessons, made excursions, for example, to the Crimea, where he participated in the excavation of one of the Kerch burial mounds. Later, the exile quite calmly went to Dubovka to get acquainted with the split; to Tsaritsyn and Sarepta - to collect materials about the Pugachev region, etc.
In 1855, Kostomarov was appointed clerk of the Saratov Statistical Committee, and published many articles on Saratov statistics in local publications. The historian collected a lot of materials on the history of Razin and Pugachev, but did not process them himself, but handed them over to D.L. Mordovtsev, who later, with his permission, used them. Mordovtsev at that time became Kostomarov's assistant on the Statistical Committee.
At the end of 1855, Kostomarov was allowed to go on business to St. Petersburg, where he worked for four months in the Public Library on the era of Khmelnitsky, and on the inner life of ancient Russia. At the beginning of 1856, when the ban on publishing his works was lifted, the historian published in Otechestvennye Zapiski an article about the struggle of the Ukrainian Cossacks with Poland in the first half of the 17th century, which was a preface to his Khmelnytsky. In 1857, "Bogdan Khmelnitsky" finally appeared, although in an incomplete version. The book made a strong impression on contemporaries, especially with its artistic presentation. Indeed, before Kostomarov, none of the Russian historians seriously addressed the history of Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Despite the unprecedented success of the research and positive reviews about it in the capital, the author still had to return to Saratov, where he continued to work on studying the internal life of ancient Russia, especially on the history of trade in the 16th-17th centuries.
The coronation manifesto freed Kostomarov from supervision, but the order forbidding him to serve in the scientific field remained in force. In the spring of 1857, he arrived in St. Petersburg, submitted his research on the history of trade for publication, and went abroad, where he visited Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland and Italy. In the summer of 1858, Kostomarov again worked at the St. Petersburg Public Library on the history of the rebellion of Stenka Razin and at the same time wrote, on the advice of N.V. Kalachov, with whom he then became close, the story “Son” (published in 1859); He also saw Shevchenko, who returned from exile. In the fall, Kostomarov took the place of a clerk in the Saratov Provincial Committee for Peasant Affairs and thus connected his name with the liberation of the peasants.
Scientific, teaching, publishing activities of N.I. Kostomarov
At the end of 1858, N.I. Kostomarov’s monograph “The Rebellion of Stenka Razin” was published, which finally made his name famous. Kostomarov's works had, in a certain sense, the same meaning as, for example, Shchedrin's Provincial Essays. They were the first scientific works on Russian history in which many issues were considered not according to the until then mandatory template of an official scientific direction; at the same time, they were written and presented in a remarkably artistic manner. In the spring of 1859, St. Petersburg University elected Kostomarov as an extraordinary professor of Russian history. After waiting for the closing of the Committee on Peasant Affairs, Kostomarov, after a very cordial farewell in Saratov, appeared in St. Petersburg. But then it turned out that the case about his professorship did not work out, it was not approved, because the Sovereign was informed that Kostomarov had written an unreliable essay about Stenka Razin. However, the Emperor himself read this monograph and spoke very favorably of it. At the request of the brothers D.A. and N.A. Milyutin, Alexander II allowed N.I. Kostomarov as a professor, but not at Kiev University, as previously planned, but at St. Petersburg University.
Kostomarov's introductory lecture took place on November 22, 1859, and received a standing ovation from the students and the audience. Kostomarov did not stay long as a professor at St. Petersburg University (until May 1862). But even in this short time, he established himself as a talented teacher and an outstanding lecturer. From the students of Kostomarov came out several very respectable figures in the field of science of Russian history, for example, Professor A. I. Nikitsky. The fact that Kostomarov was a great artist-lecturer, many memories of his students have been preserved. One of Kostomarov's listeners said this about his reading:
|
“Despite his rather motionless appearance, his quiet voice and not entirely clear, lisping pronunciation with a very noticeable pronunciation of words in the Little Russian way, he read remarkably. Whether he portrayed the Novgorod Veche or the turmoil of the Battle of Lipetsk, it was worth closing your eyes - and in a few seconds you yourself seem to be transported to the center of the events depicted, you see and hear everything that Kostomarov is talking about, who, meanwhile, is standing motionless on the pulpit; his eyes look not at the listeners, but somewhere in the distance, as if seeing something at that moment in the distant past; the lecturer even seems to be a man not of this world, but a native of the next world, who appeared on purpose in order to report on the past, mysterious to others, but so well known to him. |
In general, Kostomarov's lectures had a great effect on the imagination of the public, and their enthusiasm can be partly explained by the strong emotionality of the lecturer, which constantly broke through, despite his outward calmness. She literally “infected” listeners. After each lecture, the professor was given an ovation, he was carried out in his arms, etc. At St. Petersburg University, N.I. Kostomarov taught the following courses: History of ancient Russia (from which an article was printed on the origin of Russia with the Zhmud theory of this origin); ethnography of foreigners who lived in ancient Russia, starting with the Lithuanians; the history of the ancient Russian regions (part of it is published under the title "Northern Russian People's Rights"), and historiography, from which only the beginning, devoted to the analysis of the chronicles, has been printed.
In addition to university lectures, Kostomarov also read public lectures, which also enjoyed tremendous success. In parallel with his professorship, Kostomarov was working with sources, for which he constantly visited both St. Petersburg and Moscow, and provincial libraries and archives, examined the ancient Russian cities of Novgorod and Pskov, and traveled abroad more than once. The public dispute between N.I. Kostomarov and M.P. Pogodin also dates back to this time because of the question of the origin of Russia.
In 1860, Kostomarov became a member of the Archaeographic Commission, with the task of editing the acts of southern and western Russia, and was elected a full member of the Russian Geographical Society. The commission published under his editorship 12 volumes of acts (from 1861 to 1885), and the geographical society - three volumes of "Proceedings of an ethnographic expedition to the West Russian region" (III, IV and V - in 1872-1878).
In St. Petersburg, a circle was formed near Kostomarov, to which belonged: Shevchenko, however, who soon died, the Belozerskys, the bookseller Kozhanchikov, A. A. Kotlyarevsky, the ethnographer S. V. Maksimov, the astronomer A. N. Savich, the priest Opatovich and many others. In 1860, this circle began to publish the Osnova magazine, in which Kostomarov was one of the most important employees. His articles are published here: “On the Federative Beginning of Ancient Russia”, “Two Russian Nationalities”, “Features of South Russian History”, etc., as well as many polemical articles about attacks on him for “separatism”, “Ukrainophilism”, “ anti-Normanism, etc. He also took part in the publication of popular books in the Little Russian language (“Metelikov”), and for the publication of Holy Scripture, he collected a special fund, which was subsequently used to publish a Little Russian dictionary.
"Duma" incident
At the end of 1861, due to student unrest, St. Petersburg University was temporarily closed. Five "instigators" of the riots were expelled from the capital, 32 students were expelled from the university with the right to take final exams.
On March 5, 1862, a public figure, historian and professor of St. Petersburg University, P.V. Pavlov, was arrested and administratively sent to Vetluga. He did not give a single lecture at the university, but at a public reading in favor of needy writers, he ended his speech on the millennium of Russia with the following words:
In protest against the repressions of the students and the expulsion of Pavlov, professors of St. Petersburg University Kavelin, Stasyulevich, Pypin, Spasovich, Utin resigned.
Kostomarov did not support the protest against Pavlov's expulsion. In this case, he went the "middle way": he offered to continue classes to all students who wished to study, and not to rally. In place of the closed university, due to the efforts of professors, including Kostomarov, a “free university” was opened, as they said then, in the hall of the City Duma. Kostomarov, despite all the persistent "requests" and even intimidation from the radical student committees, began to give his lectures there.
The "advanced" students and some of the professors who followed his lead, in protest against the expulsion of Pavlov, demanded the immediate closure of all lectures in the City Duma. They decided to announce this action on March 8, 1862, immediately after Professor Kostomarov's crowded lecture.
A participant in the student unrest of 1861-62, and in the future a well-known publisher, L.F. Panteleev, in his memoirs, describes this episode as follows:
|
“It was March 8, the large Duma hall was crowded not only with students, but also with a huge mass of the public, since rumors about some kind of upcoming demonstration had already penetrated into it. Here Kostomarov finished his lecture; there was the usual applause. Then the student E. P. Pechatkin immediately entered the department and made a statement about the closing of the lectures with the motivation that had been established at the meeting with Spasovich, and with a reservation about the professors who would continue the lectures. Kostomarov, who did not have time to move far from the department, immediately returned and said: “I will continue lecturing,” and at the same time he added a few words that science should go its own way, without getting entangled in various everyday circumstances. There were applause and hissing at the same time; but then, under the very nose of Kostomarov, E. Utin blurted out: “Scoundrel! the second Chicherin [B. N. Chicherin then published, it seems, in Moskovskie Vedomosti (1861, Nos. 247,250 and 260) a number of reactionary articles on the university question. But even earlier, his letter to Herzen made the name of B. N. extremely unpopular among young people; Kavelin defended him, seeing in him a major scientific value, although he did not share most of his views. (Note by L.F. Panteleev)], Stanislav on the neck! The influence that N. Utin used apparently did not give rest to E. Utin, and then he climbed out of his skin to declare his extreme radicalism; he was even jokingly nicknamed Robespierre. E. Utin's trick could blow up even a not so impressionable person as Kostomarov was; unfortunately, he lost all self-control and, returning to the pulpit again, said, among other things: “... I don’t understand those gladiators who want to please the public with their suffering (it’s hard to say who he meant, but these words were understandable as an allusion to Pavlov). I see the Repetilovs in front of me, from which the Rasplyuevs will come out in a few years. Applause was no longer heard, but it seemed that the whole hall hissed and whistled ... " |
When this egregious case became known in wide public circles, it aroused deep disapproval, both among the university professors and among the students. Most of the teachers decided to continue lecturing by all means - now out of solidarity with Kostomarov. At the same time, indignation at the behavior of the historian increased among the radical student youth. Adherents of Chernyshevsky's ideas, the future figures of "Land and Freedom", unequivocally excluded Kostomarov from the lists of "guardians for the people", labeling the professor as a "reactionary".
Of course, Kostomarov could well return to the university and continue teaching, but, most likely, he was deeply offended by the "Duma" incident. Perhaps the elderly professor simply did not want to argue with anyone and once again prove his case. In May 1862, N.I. Kostomarov resigned and forever left the walls of St. Petersburg University.
From that moment on, his break with N.G. Chernyshevsky and circles close to him also took place. Kostomarov finally switches to liberal-nationalist positions, not accepting the ideas of radical populism. According to people who knew him at that time, after the events of 1862, Kostomarov seemed to have “cooled off” to the present, completely turning to the plots of the distant past.
In the 1860s, Kyiv, Kharkov and Novorossiysk universities tried to invite a historian among their professors, but, according to the new university charter of 1863, Kostomarov did not have formal rights to a professorship: he was only a master. Only in 1864, after he published the essay “Who was the first impostor?”, Kyiv University gave him a doctorate degree honoris causa (without defending a doctoral dissertation). Later, in 1869, St. Petersburg University elected him an honorary member, but Kostomarov never returned to teaching. In order to financially provide for the outstanding scientist, he was assigned the corresponding salary of an ordinary professor for his service in the Archaeographic Commission. In addition, he was a corresponding member of the II Department of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and a member of many Russian and foreign scientific societies.
Leaving the university, Kostomarov did not leave scientific activity. In the 1860s, he published “Northern Russian People’s Rules”, “History of the Time of Troubles”, “Southern Russia at the end of the 16th century.” (reworking of a destroyed dissertation). For the study "The Last Years of the Commonwealth" ("Bulletin of Europe", 1869. Books 2-12) N.I. Kostomarov was awarded the Academy of Sciences Prize (1872).
last years of life
In 1873, after traveling around Zaporozhye, N.I. Kostomarov visited Kyiv. Here he accidentally found out that his ex-fiancee, Alina Leontievna Kragelskaya, by that time already widowed and bearing the name of her late husband, Kisel, lives in the city with her three children. This news deeply disturbed the 56-year-old Kostomarov, already exhausted by life. Having received the address, he immediately wrote a short letter to Alina Leontievna asking for a meeting. The answer was positive.
They met after 26 years, like old friends, but the joy of a date was overshadowed by thoughts of lost years.
“Instead of a young girl, as I left her,” N.I. Kostomarov wrote, “I found an elderly lady, and at the same time sick, the mother of three half-adult children. Our date was as pleasant as it was sad: we both felt that the best time of life in separation had irrevocably passed.
Kostomarov has not grown younger over the years either: he has already suffered a stroke, his eyesight has deteriorated significantly. But the former bride and groom did not want to part again after a long separation. Kostomarov accepted Alina Leontievna's invitation to stay at her Dedovtsy estate, and when he left for St. Petersburg, he took Alina's eldest daughter, Sophia, with him in order to enroll her in the Smolny Institute.
Only difficult everyday circumstances helped the old friends finally get closer. At the beginning of 1875, Kostomarov fell seriously ill. It was thought to be typhus, but some doctors suggested, in addition to typhus, a second stroke. When the patient lay delirious, his mother Tatyana Petrovna died of typhus. Doctors hid her death from Kostomarov for a long time - her mother was the only close and dear person throughout the life of Nikolai Ivanovich. Completely helpless in everyday life, the historian could not do without his mother even in trifles: to find a handkerchief in a chest of drawers or to light a pipe ...
And at that moment Alina Leontyevna came to the rescue. Upon learning of the plight of Kostomarov, she abandoned all her affairs and came to St. Petersburg. Their wedding took place already on May 9, 1875 in the estate of Alina Leontievna Dedovtsy, Priluksky district. The newlywed was 58 years old, and his chosen one was 45. Kostomarov adopted all the children of A.L. Kissel from his first marriage. His wife's family became his family.
Alina Leontievna did not just replace Kostomarov's mother, taking over the organization of the well-known historian's life. She became an assistant in work, a secretary, a reader and even an adviser in scientific matters. Kostomarov wrote and published his most famous works when he was already a married man. And in this there is a share of the participation of his wife.
Since then, the historian spent the summer almost constantly in the village of Dedovtsy, 4 versts from the town of Pryluk (Poltava province), and at one time was even an honorary trustee of the Pryluky men's gymnasium. In winter he lived in St. Petersburg, surrounded by books and continuing to work, despite the breakdown and almost complete loss of vision.
Of his latest works, he can be called "The Beginning of Autocracy in Ancient Russia" and "On the Historical Significance of Russian Song Folk Art" (revision of the master's thesis). The beginning of the second was published in the journal "Conversation" for 1872, and the continuation of the part in "Russian Thought" for 1880 and 1881 under the title "History of the Cossacks in the monuments of South Russian folk songwriting." Part of this work was included in the book "Literary Heritage" (St. Petersburg, 1890) under the title "Family Life in the Works of South Russian Folk Song Art"; part was simply lost (see Kievskaya Starina, 1891, No. 2, Documents, etc., Art. 316). The end of this large-scale work was not written by a historian.
At the same time, Kostomarov wrote "Russian History in the biographies of its main figures", also not finished (ends with a biography of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna) and major works on the history of Little Russia, as a continuation of previous works: "The Ruin", "Mazepa and Mazepintsy", "Pavel Polubotok. Finally, he wrote a number of autobiographies that have more than just personal significance.
Constantly ill since 1875, Kostomarov was especially hurt by the fact that on January 25, 1884, he was knocked down by a carriage under the arch of the General Staff. Similar cases had happened to him before, because the half-blind, and besides, the historian, carried away by his thoughts, often did not notice what was happening around him. But before that, Kostomarov was lucky: he escaped with minor injuries and quickly recovered. The incident on January 25 knocked him down completely. At the beginning of 1885, the historian fell ill and died on April 7. He was buried at the Volkovo cemetery on the so-called "literary bridges", a monument was erected on his grave.
Personality assessment of N.I. Kostomarov
In appearance, N. I. Kostomarov was of medium height and far from handsome. Pupils in boarding schools, where he taught in his youth, called him a "sea scarecrow". The historian had a surprisingly awkward figure, liked to wear overly spacious clothes that hung on him like on a hanger, was extremely absent-minded and very short-sighted.
Spoiled from childhood by his mother's excessive attention, Nikolai Ivanovich was distinguished by complete helplessness (mother herself tied her son's tie and handed a handkerchief all her life), but at the same time, he was unusually capricious in everyday life. This was especially evident in adulthood. For example, one of Kostomarov's frequent companions recalled that the aged historian was not shy about being capricious at the table, even in the presence of guests: I didn’t see how whitefish or ruffs or pike perch were killed, and therefore I proved that the fish was bought inanimate. Most of all, he found fault with the oil, saying that it was bitter, although he was taken in the best store.
Fortunately, Alina Leontyevna's wife had the talent to turn the prose of life into a game. Jokingly, she often called her husband "my junk" and "my spoiled old man." Kostomarov, in turn, also jokingly called her "lady".
Kostomarov had an extraordinary mind, very extensive knowledge, and not only in those areas that served as the subject of his special studies (Russian history, ethnography), but also in such areas, for example, as theology. Archbishop Nikanor, a notorious theologian, used to say that he did not even dare to compare his knowledge of Holy Scripture with that of Kostomarov. Kostomarov's memory was phenomenal. He was a passionate esthetician: he was fond of everything artistic, pictures of nature most of all, music, painting, theater.
Kostomarov also loved animals very much. It is said that while working, he constantly kept his beloved cat near him on the table. The creative inspiration of the scientist seemed to depend on the fluffy companion: as soon as the cat jumped to the floor and went about its cat business, the pen in Nikolai Ivanovich’s hand froze impotently...
Contemporaries condemned Kostomarov for the fact that he always knew how to find some negative property in a person who was praised in his presence; but, on the one hand, there was always truth in his words; on the other hand, if under Kostomarov they began to speak ill of someone, he almost always knew how to find good qualities in him. The spirit of contradiction often showed in his behavior, but in fact he was extremely mild-mannered and soon forgave those people who were guilty before him. Kostomarov was a loving family man, a devoted friend. His sincere feeling for his failed bride, which he managed to carry through the years and all the trials, cannot but arouse respect. In addition, Kostomarov also possessed outstanding civic courage, did not give up his views and beliefs, never followed the lead of either the authorities (the story of the Cyril and Methodius Society), or the radical part of the students (“Duma” incident).
Remarkable is Kostomarov's religiosity, which does not stem from general philosophical views, but is warm, so to speak, spontaneous, close to the religiosity of the people. Kostomarov, who knew well the dogma of Orthodoxy and its morality, was also fond of every feature of church rituals. Attending a church service was for him not just a duty, from which he did not shirk even during a severe illness, but also a great aesthetic pleasure.
The historical concept of N.I. Kostomarov
Historical concepts of N.I. Kostomarov for more than a century and a half have been causing ongoing controversy. The works of researchers have not yet developed any unambiguous assessment of its multifaceted, sometimes controversial historical heritage. In the extensive historiography of both the pre-Soviet and the Soviet period, he appears as a peasant, noble, noble-bourgeois, liberal-bourgeois, bourgeois-nationalist and revolutionary-democratic historian at the same time. In addition, it is not uncommon to characterize Kostomarov as a democrat, a socialist, and even a communist (!), Pan-Slavist, Ukrainophile, federalist, historian of folk life, folk spirit, populist historian, truth-seeking historian. Contemporaries often wrote about him as a romantic historian, lyricist, artist, philosopher and sociologist. Descendants, savvy in Marxist-Leninist theory, found that Kostomarov was a historian, weak as a dialectician, but a very serious historian-analyst.
Today's Ukrainian nationalists willingly raised Kostomarov's theories to the shield, finding in them a historical justification for modern political insinuations. Meanwhile, the general historical concept of the long-dead historian is quite simple and it is completely pointless to look for manifestations of nationalist extremism in it, and even more so - attempts to exalt the traditions of one Slavic people and belittle the significance of another.
Historian N.I. Kostomarov put opposition in the general historical process of development of Russia between the state and the people. Thus, the innovation of his constructions consisted only in the fact that he acted as one of the opponents of the “state school” of S.M. Solovyov and her followers. The state principle was associated by Kostomarov with the centralization policy of the great princes and tsars, the people's principle was associated with the communal principle, the political form of expression of which was the people's assembly or veche. It was the veche (and not the communal, as among the “populists”) that embodied in N.I. Kostomarov, the system of the federal structure that most corresponded to the conditions of Russia. Such a system made it possible to use to the maximum extent the potential of the people's initiative, the true driving force of history. The state-centralization principle, according to Kostomarov, acted as a regressive force, weakening the active creative potential of the people.
According to Kostomarov's concept, the main driving forces that influenced the formation of Muscovite Rus were two principles - autocratic and specific veche. Their struggle ended in the 17th century with the victory of the great power. The specific-veche beginning, according to Kostomarov, "clothed in a new image", i.e. image of the Cossacks. And the uprising of Stepan Razin was the last battle between the people's democracy and the victorious autocracy.
It is the Great Russian people that Kostomarov represents as the personification of the principle of sovereignty; a set of Slavic peoples who inhabited the northeastern lands of Russia before the Tatar invasion. The South Russian lands experienced foreign influence to a lesser extent, and therefore managed to preserve the traditions of people's self-government and federal preferences. In this regard, Kostomarov's article "Two Russian Nationalities" is very characteristic, in which it is argued that the South Russian nationality has always been more democratic, while the Great Russian has other qualities, namely, a creative principle. The Great Russian nationality created a monocracy (that is, a monarchical system), which gave it a paramount importance in the historical life of Russia.
The opposite of the “folk spirit” of “South Russian nature” (in which “there was nothing forcing, leveling; there was no politics, there was no cold calculation, firmness on the way to the appointed goal”) and “Great Russians” (who are characterized by a slavish willingness to obey autocratic power, the desire to “give strength and formality to the unity of their land”) determined, according to N.I. Kostomarov, various directions of development of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples. Even the fact of the flourishing of the veche system in the “Northern Russian governments of the people” (Novgorod, Pskov, Vyatka) and the establishment of an autocratic system in the southern regions of N.I. Kostomarov explained by the influence of the “South Russians”, who allegedly founded the northern Russian centers with their veche freemen, while such freemen in the south were suppressed by the northern autocracy, breaking through only in the lifestyle and love of freedom of the Ukrainian Cossacks.
Even during his lifetime, the "statesmen" hotly accused the historian of subjectivism, the desire to absolutize the "people's" factor in the historical process of the formation of statehood, as well as the deliberate opposition of the contemporary scientific tradition to him.
Opponents of “Ukrainization”, in turn, already then attributed nationalism to Kostomarov, justification of separatist tendencies, and in his passion for the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian language they saw only a tribute to the pan-Slavic fashion that captured the best minds of Europe.
It will not be superfluous to note that in the works of N.I. Kostomarov, there are absolutely no clear indications of what should be taken with a plus sign and what should be displayed as a minus. He nowhere unambiguously condemns autocracy, recognizing its historical expediency. Moreover, the historian does not say that specific veche democracy is definitely good and acceptable for the entire population of the Russian Empire. Everything depends on the specific historical conditions and characteristics of the character of each people.
Kostomarov was called a "national romantic", close to the Slavophiles. Indeed, his views on the historical process largely coincide with the main provisions of the Slavophile theories. This is a belief in the future historical role of the Slavs, and, above all, those Slavic peoples who inhabited the territory of the Russian Empire. In this respect, Kostomarov went even further than the Slavophiles. Like them, Kostomarov believed in uniting all the Slavs into one state, but in a federal state, with the preservation of the national and religious characteristics of individual nationalities. He hoped that with long-term communication, the difference between the Slavs would be smoothed out in a natural, peaceful way. Like the Slavophiles, Kostomarov was looking for an ideal in the national past. For him, this ideal past could only be a time when the Russian people lived according to their own original principles of life and were free from the historically noticeable influence of the Varangians, Byzantines, Tatars, Poles, etc. Guess these fundamental principles of folk life, guess the very spirit of the Russian people - this is the eternal goal of Kostomarov's work.
To this end, Kostomarov was constantly engaged in ethnography, as a science capable of acquainting the researcher with the psychology and the true past of each people. He was interested not only in Russian, but also in general Slavic ethnography, especially in the ethnography of Southern Russia.
Throughout the 19th century, Kostomarov was honored as a forerunner of "populist" historiography, an oppositionist to the autocratic system, a fighter for the rights of small nationalities of the Russian Empire. In the 20th century, his views were recognized in many respects as "backward". With his national-federative theories, he did not fit into either the Marxist scheme of social formations and class struggle, or the great-power politics of the Soviet empire reassembled by Stalin. The difficult relations between Russia and Ukraine in recent decades once again impose on his works the stamp of some "false prophecies", giving ground to the current especially zealous "independent" to create new historical myths and actively use them in dubious political games.
Today, everyone who wants to rewrite the history of Russia, Ukraine and other former territories of the Russian Empire should pay attention to the fact that N.I. Kostomarov tried to explain the historical past of his country, meaning by this past, first of all, the past of all the peoples inhabiting it. The scientific work of a historian never involves calls for nationalism or separatism, and even more so - the desire to put the history of one people above the history of another. Those who have similar goals, as a rule, choose a different path for themselves. N.I. Kostomarov remained in the minds of his contemporaries and descendants as an artist of words, a poet, a romantic, a scientist, who until the end of his life worked on understanding the new and promising for the 19th century problem of the influence of ethnos on history. It makes no sense to interpret the scientific heritage of the great Russian historian in any other way, a century and a half after the writing of his main works.
- Fortress "wonder child"
Nikolai Kostomarov was born a serf, but received a good education. At the university, he began to be interested in history, writing literary texts and scientific works, translating poetry and studying Ukrainian culture. Later, Kostomarov founded a secret political society, survived exile and a ban on teaching, and at the end of his life became a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.
Fortress "wonder child"
Nikolai Kostomarov was born in the village of Yurasovka, Voronezh province, in 1817. His father was the landowner Ivan Kostomarov, and his mother was the serf Tatyana Melnikova. Parents later got married, but the child appeared before marriage and therefore was a serf of his father.
The father tried to give the boy a good education, sent his son to study at a Moscow boarding school. The young pupil demonstrated abilities in various sciences, and he was called a "miracle child." When Kostomarov was 11 years old, the landowner was killed by the household. The serf boy was inherited by the Rovnev family - relatives of his father.
After some time, Tatyana Melnikova begged her son for "freedom" - in exchange for a widow's share of the inheritance. His mother wanted him to continue studying, but in Moscow it was too expensive. Tatyana Melnikova transferred her son to the Voronezh boarding school, and then to the Voronezh provincial gymnasium.
Nikolay Kostomarov, captain of the 2nd rank. 1840s. Photo: krymology.info
Nikolay Kostomarov. Photo: e-reading.club
Nikolay Kostomarov. Photo: history.org
In 1833, Nikolai Kostomarov entered Kharkov University. He participated in the university literary circle, studied Latin, French, Italian, philosophy, was interested in ancient and French literature. In 1838, Mikhail Lunin, a historian and specialist in the Middle Ages, began teaching at the university. After meeting him, Kostomarov began to study history.
After graduating from the university, Nikolai Kostomarov entered the Kinburn Dragoon Regiment in Ostrogozhsk, but soon left military service and returned to Kharkov. Here he continued to study. “I soon came to the conclusion that history should be studied not only from dead chronicles and notes, but also from living people”, - wrote Kostomarov. He learned the Ukrainian language, read Ukrainian literature and collected local folklore while visiting the surrounding villages.
Under the pseudonym Jeremiah Halka, the young researcher began to write his own works in Ukrainian. Until 1841, he published two dramas - "Sawa Chaly" about a Cossack colonel in the Polish service and "Pereyaslav Night" about the struggle of Ukrainians against the Polish invasion - and collections of poems and translations.
In 1842, Nikolai Kostomarov wrote his master's thesis "On the causes and nature of the union in Western Russia." It was dedicated to the events of the 16th century, when the union of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches was concluded. Many saw in it the subordination of the Russian Church to the Catholic Church, and uprisings broke out in the country, about which Nikolai Kostomarov wrote in a separate chapter. The dissertation was not allowed to be defended. She was condemned by both the Ministry of Education and the clergy - allegedly because Kostomarov shared the views of the rebels. The scientist destroyed the work and its copies, and a year later presented a new work "On the historical significance of Russian folk poetry."
Founder of the "Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood"
Nicholas Ge. Portrait of Nikolai Kostomarov. 1870. State Tretyakov Gallery
Nikolai Kostomarov successfully defended his scientific work and set to work on the biography of the leader of the Cossacks, Bogdan Khmelnitsky. He traveled a lot on the territory of modern Ukraine: he worked as a gymnasium teacher in Rivne, then at the First Kiev Gymnasium. In 1846, the scientist got a job as a teacher of Russian history at Kyiv University - here he lectured on Slavic mythology.
“I cannot say that there was anything particularly fascinating in his lectures.<...>But I can say one thing: Kostomarov managed to make Russian chronicles extremely popular among students.
Konstantin Golovin, novelist and public figure
Even in the years of study, Nikolai Kostomarov became interested in pan-Slavism - the idea of \u200b\u200bunifying the Slavic peoples. And in Kyiv, people who shared his views rallied around the scientist. Among them were journalist Vasily Belozursky, poet Taras Shevchenko, teacher Nikolai Gulak and many others. Nikolai Kostomarov recalled: “The reciprocity of the Slavic peoples in our imagination was no longer limited to the sphere of science and poetry, but began to be presented in images in which, as it seemed to us, it should have been embodied for future history”.
The circle of like-minded people grew into a secret political society called the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. Its participants advocated freedom of conscience and equality of fraternal peoples, liberation from serfdom and the abolition of customs duties, the introduction of a single currency and the availability of education for all segments of the population. Mykola Kostomarov wrote a regulation on society - "The Book of the Ukrainian People's Life".
In 1847, one of the students of Kiev University learned about the existence of the brotherhood. He reported to the authorities, all participants were arrested. Nikolai Kostomarov was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and then exiled to Saratov without the right to engage in teaching activities and publish literary works.
In exile, Kostomarov studied the life of local peasants and collected folklore, communicated with sectarians and schismatics, worked on Bogdan Khmelnitsky and began a new work on the internal structure of the Russian state of the 16th-17th centuries.
"Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences"
Nikolay Kostomarov. Photo: litmir.ne
Nikolay Kostomarov. Photo: ivelib.ru
Nikolay Kostomarov. Photo: chrono.ru
In 1855, Nikolai was allowed to travel to St. Petersburg, the next year the ban on publication and teaching was lifted. After a short trip abroad, the scientist returned to Saratov, where he wrote the work "The Rebellion of Stenka Razin" and participated in the preparation of the peasant reform. In 1859, St. Petersburg University invited Kostomarov to head the department of Russian history.
“Entering the department, I set out to put forward in my lectures the life of the people in all its particular manifestations. The Russian state was formed from parts that had previously lived their own independent lives, and long after that the life of the parts was expressed by excellent aspirations in the general state system. Finding and capturing these features of the folk life of parts of the Russian state was for me the task of my studies in history.
Nikolai Kostomarov
Soon Kostomarov became a member of the Archaeographic Commission - an institution that described and published historical documents. The scientist has released a selection of documents on the history of Little Russia in the 17th century. Fragments of Kostomarov's lectures were published in the Russian Word and Sovremennik magazines, and his scientific articles were published on the pages of the Osnova magazine, founded by former Cyril and Methodius.
Petersburg University was closed in 1861 after student riots. Nikolay Kostomarov and his colleagues continued to give lectures - in the city duma. Later, lectures were also banned, and the scientist retired from teaching. He focused on working with archival materials. During these years, Kostomarov wrote the scientific work "Northern Russian People's Rules in the Times of the Appanage Veche Way." The work collected facts from the history of the northern principalities, fairy tales of these lands and biographies of local princes. At the same time, "The Time of Troubles of the Moscow State", "The Last Years of the Commonwealth" appeared.
In 1870, Kostomarov was awarded the rank of real state councilor with the right to inherit the title of nobility. In 1872, Kostomarov moved on to compiling the work Russian History in the Biographies of Its Most Important Figures, where he described the biographies of princes, tsars and emperors from the 10th to the 18th centuries. In 1876 he was elected a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.
Nikolai Kostomarov was engaged in scientific work until the end of his life. The scientist died in 1885. He was buried at the Literary bridges of the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg.
