Political views of N.M. Karamzin, based on the theories of the French enlighteners, were formed by the beginning of the 19th century and were already reflected in the Letters of a Russian Traveler. In the future, they were refined, supplemented with new facets, but did not undergo significant changes, as evidenced by his later writings.

N.M. Karamzin shared enlightenment ideas about the moral progress of society, about the unity of a person's path to spiritual perfection, about education as the basis of progress and a tool for curing social ailments. The ideas of Montesquieu and Condorcet about the ways of social development were close to him. N.M. Karamzin was convinced that “the path of education and enlightenment is one for the peoples; they all follow them one after the other.”

Enlightenment philosophy, with its cult of the rationality of the social order, was characterized by the opposition of social harmony under the auspices of statehood to the wild anarchy in which mankind lived in the early stages of its development. In the antithesis of "anarchy - the state", the latter was regarded by N.M. Karamzin as a creative, positive force. Anarchy, in all its manifestations, was condemned by him, whether it was about antiquity or modern times. If in this vein we consider the traditionalist motives that are visible in N.M. Karamzin, their enlightening nature becomes obvious: “Every civil society, approved for centuries, is a shrine for good citizens, and in the most imperfect one should be surprised at the wonderful harmony, improvement, order.” The humanism inherent in the philosophy of the New Age, and the attitude towards civil war and anarchy, which comes from the ancient tradition, as the worst evil in comparison with any tyranny, determined the rejection of N.M. Karamzin revolutions and other political upheavals that threaten to destroy the social order in principle. Therefore, N.M. Karamzin, like many of his contemporaries in Russia and Europe, did not accept the Jacobin dictatorship and terror, the execution of Louis XVI, which seemed so far from the humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment. On the pages of the Letters of a Russian Traveler, negative tones prevailed in the description of the French Revolution. N.M. Karamzin wondered how one could expect “such scenes in our time from the ethereal French”, he noticed that on the streets of Paris “everyone talks about aristocrats and democrats, praises and scolds each other with these words, for the most part, without knowing their meaning.” Karamzin, the critic of the French Revolution in Letters from a Russian Traveler, is a critic from the standpoint of Enlightenment humanism.

Assessed by N.M. Karamzin of these or those forms of government, undoubtedly, was influenced by Montesquieu's ideas about the need to correlate the form of the political system with geographical conditions, history, and the degree of enlightenment of the country's population. Following Montesquieu and Rousseau, he believed that the main guarantors of the stability of the republican system were the high level of education and morality of citizens, as well as the simplicity of morals and even poverty, which, in turn, supported virtue in society. About the San Marino Republic, the morals of whose inhabitants are “simple and unspoiled,” he wrote, for example: “The main reasons for this longevity seem to me to be its position on an impregnable mountain, the poverty of the inhabitants and their constant removal from the plans of ambition.”

Nevertheless, the republican form of government, according to the Russian conservative, was not stable in principle. He saw the reason for this primarily in the difficulty of maintaining civil virtue in society at the proper level. In an article eloquently entitled "The Fall of Switzerland", N.M. Karamzin argued: “... without high national virtue, the republic cannot stand. Here

why monarchical government is much happier and more reliable: it does not require extraordinary things from citizens and can rise to that degree of morality at which republics fall.

The presence of republican sympathies in N.M. Karamzin is indisputable; what matters is in what plane they should be interpreted. N.M. Karamzin was close to civil virtues, the embodiment of which were considered the famous Republicans of Ancient Rome and Greece. But more significant is his attitude towards the republic as a real form of state system. With all the sympathy for the ideals of republican citizenship, he recognized the unsuitability of this form of government for states such as Russia. In a letter to I.I. Dmitriev N.M. Karamzin wrote: “I do not demand either a constitution or Representatives, but in my feelings I remain a republican, and, moreover, a loyal subject of the Russian Tsar: this is a contradiction, but only an imaginary one!” Karamzin called this contradiction imaginary, since he quite clearly shared the theoretical recognition of the merits of the republican system and its real applicability in the conditions of specific countries.

At the same time, in our opinion, a significant change in his position on this issue did not endure. Already in the "Letters of a Russian Traveler" N.M. Karamzin wrote about the British: they are “enlightened, they know their true benefits... So, not the constitution, but the enlightenment of the English is their true palladium. All civil institutions must be consistent with the character of the people; what is good in England will be bad in another land.” There are two points to note in this statement. First, for the author there was no abstract ideal form of government equally acceptable to all states and peoples; secondly, he considered the education of citizens more important than the constitution, because he saw in it the highest guarantee of stability and stability of the political system. Thus, N.M. Karamzin believed that each nation, based on the specific conditions of its historical existence, has its own form of government.

In this context, his reasoning in 1802 about France during the period of the consulate is very indicative: “France,” he wrote, “despite the name and some republican forms of its government, is now, in fact, nothing more than a true monarchy.” N.M. Karamzin was convinced that France (as a large state) "by its nature should be a monarchy." He considered the form of government as a historically conditioned phenomenon, evaluating it not formally - by legal, but concretely - by historical criteria, even abstracting from personal predilections.

Both the philosophers of the Enlightenment and N.M. Karamzin, following them, was influenced by political theories dating back to the ancient tradition. Montesquieu, as you know, considered the most optimal of all existing forms of government to be a true or “correct” monarchy, in which an enlightened monarch rules, guided by laws limiting his arbitrariness. The philosophers of the Enlightenment adopted from the ancient tradition the division of forms of government into “correct” and “incorrect”. They considered tyranny to be a perverted form of monarchy. Democracy and oligarchy were equally negatively evaluated in comparison with the aristocratic republic. In the speech of the envoy of Ivan III to the people of Novgorod in the historical drama "Martha the Posadnitsa" N.M. Karamzin put into the mouth of the ambassador a denunciation of the oligarchy: “Liberty! But you are also enslaved... The ambitious boyars, having destroyed the power of sovereigns, seized it themselves. You obey - for the people must always obey - but not the sacred blood of Rurik, but rich merchants. At the same time, these words of the author of the drama contain an important idea for understanding his concept of the state that the need to obey the authorities and property inequality unite all forms of government. Under any form of government, according to Karamzin, the people must obey the authorities. "Will", in his opinion, is always the privilege of the "top", but not the people as a whole.

The only acceptable form of government for Russia is N.M. Karamzin considered autocracy. "Russia was founded by victories and unity of command, perished from discord, and was saved by the wise autocracy." In this formula (captured in his “Note on Ancient and New Russia”), the Russian conservative, as it were, summarized the content of the “History of the Russian State”. Already talking about the early stages of Russian history, he drew attention to the strong power of the first princes and gave his own explanation for this: “Autocracy is affirmed only by the power of the state, and in small republics we rarely find unlimited monarchs.” The Tatar yoke, according to N.M. Karamzin, contributed to the strengthening of the unlimited nature of princely power. The historian associated the final assertion of autocracy with the reign of Ivan III and Ivan IV, when, thanks to the active policy of the supreme power, which established order in the country and secured the borders, “the people, delivered by the princes of Moscow from the disasters of internal civil strife and external yoke, did not regret their ancient vechas and dignitaries who moderated the sovereign's power. In view of such a “saving” nature of the Russian autocracy, N.M. Karamzin positively assessed the long-suffering of the Russians during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, "who perished, but saved the might of Russia for us." This thought of the historian should not be understood as an endorsement of despotic arbitrariness. But she once again demonstrates what an exceptional role in her concept of Russian statehood N.M. Karamzin averted political stability.

Autocracy in the interpretation of N.M. Karamzin was presented as a developing system. He saw the main line of this development in the movement from the unlimited arbitrariness of the autocrat, sometimes turning into tyranny, to an enlightened "correct" monarchy. In this regard, the author of the "Notes" most favorably assessed the reign of Catherine II, who, in his words, "cleansed the autocracy from impurities of tyranny." It is no coincidence that, starting from the arguments about the Ottoman Empire, N.M. Karamzin wrote: "... great empires based on conquests must either be enlightened or constantly win: otherwise their fall is inevitable." Based on this, he advocated a policy of gradual (but very cautious) improvement of the state system and legislation, believing that the Russian autocracy could meet the requirements of the Enlightenment ideology.

Therefore, it is not surprising that in the works of N.M. Karamzin repeatedly comes across the idea of ​​the primacy of the public good over the sovereignty of the monarch: "The strength and power of the Crown Bearer must be subordinated to the good of the people." There was nothing new in the very idea of ​​subordinating the monarch to the service of the public good: it was promoted in Russia by Peter I and Catherine II.

It is important to emphasize that the features of Russian statehood in the understanding of N.M. Karamzin are connected not with the idea of ​​a special historical path or the identity of Russian culture as opposed to the West, but with the idea of ​​a variety of historical destinies and political traditions, developing, however, along the general path of enlightenment and moral improvement. In general, the conservative recognized the generality historical development Russia and the countries of Europe, proceeded from the ideas of enlightenment at its core, reinforcing them with historical argumentation. Therefore, he pointed to the general validity of the reforms of Peter I (with the exception of his attempts to change life and customs), which, remaining within the framework of the old state system, moved Russia along the path of political and moral progress common to all peoples.

Rationale for power in N.M. Karamzin was devoid of legitimist and mystical overtones in the spirit of Joseph de Maistre. This conclusion, in particular, follows from his assessments of Napoleon's coming to power in France, which in many respects shed light on his vision of the problem of the legitimacy of power in Russia. In 1802 N.M. Karamzin wrote: “The numerous people on the ruins of the throne wanted to command themselves; a beautiful building of public amenities collapsed; and this proud people ... for salvation

He entrusts autocracy to the vain Corsican warrior of his political existence. It is easy to see that the author linked Napoleon's coming to power with the will of the people, which in itself, in accordance with the theory of the social contract, gave power a legitimate character. On the other hand, to understand N.M. Karamzin of the role of the people in political life is characterized by the skeptical attitude reflected in this passage towards the ability of the “numerous” people to “rule themselves”. From the recognition of the unacceptability of the republican system for large states followed the recognition of the inability of the people to be the creator of their own destiny, the recognition of the inevitability of their submission to someone else's autocratic will.

The proclamation of Napoleon as the first consul with such broad powers was perceived by N.M. Karamzin in 1803 as the return of France, a monarchical country “in character”, to a monarchical form of government, and therefore was welcomed by him. In 1802 N.M. Karamzin assessed the regime of power of the first consul as a “true” monarchy: “French rule is a true monarchist, and much further from the republican than the English ... Bonaparte knows how to rule; if he establishes personal security, property and freedom of life in his state, then history will bless his lust for power.” Given that the succession of supreme power in France was broken, N.M. Karamzin preferred the power of Napoleon over revolutionary lawlessness. His sympathies determined popular recognition and hopes for the establishment of the rule of law and the patronage of enlightenment, associated at that time with Bonaparte. In the later letters of the conservative, there are negative reviews about Napoleon, but they are associated with an assessment not of his domestic, but of foreign policy, especially after 1805, when Napoleonic France became a real threat to Russia.

In various writings (including discussing the personality of Napoleon) N.M. Karamzin touched upon the problems of change and inheritance of power. He had a negative attitude towards any violent methods of changing power, whether it was a popular uprising or a palace coup. Both Ivan the Terrible and Paul I were recognized by the Russian conservative as tyrants. Moreover, in his poem "Tacitus" of the Pavlovian time, tyrannical motives sounded. The despotic methods of government of Paul gave rise to dissatisfaction with the arbitrariness of the supreme power among the noble society. No wonder N.M. Karamzin wrote: "... what the Jacobins did in relation to the republics, Paul did in relation to the autocracy: he made them hate its abuses." However, N.M. Karamzin considered any established political structure to be the basis for the development of society in the direction of public good and education; the violent way of changing power - undermining the very foundations of society, the idea of ​​legality, public morality and virtue: “Autocratic governments of the people are more harmful for civil societies than personal injustices or delusions of the sovereign. The wisdom of whole ages is needed to establish power: one hour of popular frenzy destroys its foundation, which is moral respect for the rank of rulers. The fact that in the poem "Tacitus" N.M. Karamzin condemned the Romans for patience, and in the History he thanked the subjects of Ivan IV for the same, due to his belief in the difference in political tradition and the level of enlightenment of these peoples: “... for Greece and Rome,” he argued, “were popular powers and more enlightened than Russia ".

Returning to the attitude of N.M. Karamzin to the problem of change of power, we note that in the "Letters of a Russian Traveler" revolutionary transformations in France are presented not as nationwide and therefore justified by the right of popular sovereignty, but as actions of a minority with the passivity of the majority, which means that they do not have legal grounds: "Do not think that the whole nation should take part in the tragedy which is now being played out in France. Hardly a hundredth part is active; everyone else is watching, judging, arguing... A defensive war against an impudent enemy is rarely happy.” The conservative thus did not see the realization of the principle of popular sovereignty as a result of the French Revolution.

Understanding N.M. Karamzin of the problems of sovereignty, the origin of power and its change shed light on his attitude to the contemporary Russian autocracy. It seems quite fair the opinion expressed in the literature that in his interpretation of the French enlighteners N.M. Karamzin was inclined to follow the "Instruction" of Catherine II: following the empress, he represented the Russian autocracy as the "correct" monarchy of Montesquieu. Many of the theses that are found in Karamzin's writings coincide with the provisions of the "Instruction", which go back to the ideas of Montesquieu. It is enough to give such an example: in the “Instruction”, Catherine, justifying the need for the existence of the power of an autocrat in Russia, wrote: “... no other power, as soon as united in his person, can act similarly to the space of such a great state.” In the Note on Ancient and New Russia, the same idea is expressed as follows: “The autocracy founded and resurrected Russia: with the change in the state charter, it perished and must perish, composed of so many and small parts that, in addition to unlimited autocracy, it can in this colossus produce unanimity?

From these general positions, N.M. Karamzin criticized the policies and reform projects of the government of Alexander I. The events of the French Revolution and the threat that revolutionary and Napoleonic France posed to the tranquility of European monarchies caused a significant part of Russian society to be disappointed in political transformations based on universal social theories as a path to progress. The "Note on Ancient and New Russia" was, in fact, a direct response and criticism of the reform plans of Alexander I and, in particular, Speransky's projects.

Karamzin considered the Russian autocracy a monarchy, which differed from despotism, according to the teachings of the enlighteners, by the presence of firm laws. He believed that at least since the time of Catherine II, "who cleansed the autocracy of the admixtures of tyranny," the autocracy had come close to the correct monarchy of Montesquieu. Without a doubt, N.M. Karamzin did not consider the autocracy of the time of Ivan III as enlightened as the reign of Catherine, however, in the entire history of Russian autocracy, the historian counted only two tyrants: Ivan the Terrible and Paul I. Autocracy, in principle, at least contemporary to him, he did not consider despotism: “ Autocracy is not the absence of laws, for where there is duty, there is law: no one has ever doubted the duty of monarchs to guard the happiness of the people. The author spoke of laws as a sign that distinguishes monarchical rule from despotic arbitrariness.

At the same time, N.M. Karamzin unequivocally condemned tyranny and despotism, not associating it with the abuse of only monarchical power: "... tyranny is only an abuse of autocracy, appearing in republics when strong citizens or dignitaries oppress society." Consequently, the conservative recognized the possibility of despotic manifestations in the autocracy, not considering it, in principle, despotism.

Substantiating the autocratic nature of monarchical power in Russia and relying on the interpretation of the theories of the social contract and popular sovereignty in the spirit of the ideology of enlightened absolutism, N.M. Karamzin believed that the people at one time delegated all power to the autocrat. In this sense, he was a consistent supporter of the concentration of all legislative power in the hands of the autocrat, including the issuance of basic fundamental laws.

N.M. Karamzin sought to emphasize and justify the unlimited nature of autocratic power in Russia. Sometimes he also has patrimonial motifs in his description: “In the Russian monarch all powers are united: our rule is paternal, patriarchal. The father of the family judges without protocol; so the monarch in other cases must act according to a single conscience. The idea of ​​political priority

tradition was an important component of the political views of the Russian conservative: “... the institutions of antiquity have a political force that cannot be replaced by any power of the mind; one time and the good will of legitimate governments must correct the imperfections of civil societies,” he wrote in Vestnik Evropy in 1802.

More than cautious about any innovations in state structure, N.M. Karamzin sought to rely in his theoretical views on the authority of tradition, to appeal to the historically established state legal norms: “... every news in the state order is evil, which should be resorted to only when necessary: ​​for one time gives proper firmness to the charters.” But these traditional motives did not constitute the essence of his justification of the supreme power in Russia and only supplemented the description of autocratic power, which was built primarily on an educational basis (in its conservative interpretation) and on the basis of historical argumentation. Therefore, N.M. Karamzin clearly separated the personality of the monarch and the institution of autocratic power in itself: “... you can do everything, but you cannot legally limit it!”, the historian turned to Alexander I. Recognizing the legitimacy of only the unlimited nature of the power of the monarch in Russia, N.M. Karamzin attributed this postulate to the number of those "indispensable" or "radical" laws that Montesquieu wrote about and which, in accordance with the views of the enlighteners, should stand above the monarch, limiting his arbitrariness. N.M. Karamzin, following the "Instruction" of Catherine II, recognized as unshakable precisely the unlimited nature of autocratic power, thus distorting the idea of ​​the enlighteners.

Proceeding from this, he, in principle, negatively assessed the possibility of a real limitation of autocratic power without destroying the state foundations themselves: “Indeed, is it possible, and in what ways, to limit autocracy in Russia without weakening the saving tsarist power?” he asked. If we put the law above the throne, he reasoned, then “to whom shall we give the right to observe the inviolability of this law? Is it the Senate? Do you advise? Who will be their members? Elected by the sovereign or the state? In the first case, they are the king's servants, in the second they want to argue with him about power - I see an aristocracy, not a monarchy. These arguments were, in fact, direct criticism of Speransky's projects, which N.M. Karamzin perceived it as an intention to limit autocratic power by law. Any state transformation, in his opinion, "shakes the foundation of the empire." So, as a result of the real limitation of the autocratic power of N.M. Karamzin saw a change in the form of government: the transformation of the monarchy into an aristocracy; and in the conditions of Russia, the historian assessed aristocratic rule negatively.

N.M. Karamzin perceived the contemporary Russian Empire as standing at the pinnacle of its power, when any changes in its political system could only weaken the state. He considered the experience of Western European countries unacceptable for Russia. Thus, in the interpretation of the Russian supreme power, he introduced a certain amount of originality. In one of his later letters to P.A. Vyazemsky N.M. Karamzin not only developed these thoughts, but once again confirmed that for him this does not mean a denial of the advantages of the republican system in principle (regardless of Russia): England, not even the kingdom of Poland, has its own state destiny, great, amazing, and can fall rather than rise even more. Autocracy is the soul, its life, as republican rule was the life of Rome ... For me, the old man is more pleasant to go to the comedy than to the hall of the national assembly or to the chamber of deputies, although I am a republican at heart and will die like that.

It should be noted that N.M. Karamzin, indications of the similarity of these projects with the legislation

hostile to Russia, Napoleonic France. "Draft Code" Speransky N.M. Karamzin directly called it "a translation of the Napoleonic Code." In 1811, the historian wrote about the impossibility of imitating the enemy of the fatherland: “Is it now time to offer the Russians French laws, even if they could be conveniently applied to our civil status? We - all who love Russia, the Sovereign, its glory, prosperity - we all so hate this people, stained with the blood of Europe, ... - and at the time when the name of Napoleon causes hearts to tremble, we will lay his code on the holy altar of the fatherland!

As a result, the conservative came to the conclusion that the problem of the arbitrariness of unlimited power can be solved not by legislatively limiting it, but by forming a certain public opinion, gradually educating society to reject despotism: “... our sovereign has only one way to curb his heirs in abuses authority: may the virtuous reign! May he teach his subjects to do good! Then saving customs will be born; rules, popular thoughts, which, better than any mortal forms, will keep future sovereigns within the limits of legitimate power. A tyrant can sometimes reign safely after a tyrant, but never after a wise sovereign! This approach, of course, reflected the idea of ​​the French Enlightenment philosophers about the decisive role of education and public opinion in the political evolution of society, as well as the notion of a “wise man on the throne” characteristic of enlightened absolutism.

Thus, in the political sphere N.M. Karamzin did not assume, in fact, any boundaries of autocratic power. However, if we turn to the problem of the relationship between the authorities and the people in his writings, we can see the desire to protect the social, cultural spheres of life from the direct interference of the supreme power. It is not difficult to see this in the example of Karamzin's assessment of the Petrine reforms. The historian condemned Peter for striving to change the customs and mores of the Russians. Considering autocracy not a tyranny, but a legitimate monarchy, the conservative considered unreasonable interference in the social order as an excess of his authority by the monarch.

The concepts of "citizen", "civil society" were used by N.M. Karamzin in cases where it was about almost any state, and if the monarchy was meant, then the word "citizen" became synonymous with "subject". By "civil society" he understood a society where there are any state-legal institutions. In such a free use of the term "citizen" in relation to the subject N.M. Karamzin had a predecessor in the person of the same Catherine II. An important indicator of the civil status of a person was for him the extension of the jurisdiction of state legislation to an individual. So, he noted that already in the XVI century. in Russia "... one state power executed a serf by death, therefore already a man, already a citizen, protected by law."

N.M. Karamzin attached great importance class character of Russian society. He argued that civil rights in Russia "in the true sense did not exist and do not exist", that there are "political or special rights of various state states." Based on this, the conservative considered the relationship of individual estates with the state in different ways. The most important role in the state among the estates of N.M. Karamzin, of course, assigned the nobility: “Autocracy is the palladium of Russia, from which it does not follow that the sovereign, the only source of power, has reasons to humiliate the nobility, as ancient as Russia. The rights of the noble are not a department of the royal will, but its main necessary tool, the driving force of the state. Considering the nobility the main pillar of autocratic power, N.M. Karamzin presented him with high demands of civil service for the benefit of the fatherland, and not only in the field public service. As for the peasants

then he believed that it was necessary first to enlighten, and only then try to change their status: "... for the firmness of being a state, it is safer to enslave people than to give them at the wrong time freedom, for which it is necessary to prepare a person by moral correction." The main arguments of N.M. Karamzin are considerations of state security, stability.

The Russian conservative considered the clergy and the church to be another pillar of state power: “The founders of empires have always affirmed their glory by Religion; but the Powers based on one mind soon disappeared. But in order to raise the authority of the church, ultimately in the interests of the state, Karamzin proposed to weaken its dependence on secular power, so that the church would not lose "its sacred character," for "with the weakening of faith, the sovereign loses the way to control the hearts of the people in cases of emergency."

It is quite natural that N.M. Karamzin was a supporter of the unitary structure of the state. He subordinated the problems of the national outskirts and borders of the state to the interests of the security of the state. In the "Historical eulogy to Catherine II", the historian linked the security of the state with its power and thus justified the conquests of Peter I and Catherine II. In his opinion, their acquisitions for the benefit of Russia contributed to the establishment of its power and external security, "without which any internal good is unreliable." Partition of Poland N.M. Karamzin also justified it by the disorder of the Polish Republic itself, which, in his opinion, "has always been a playground for proud nobles, a theater of their self-will and popular humiliation." He was extremely negative about any form of restoration of Poland, because. saw this as a direct threat to the integrity of the Russian Empire: “... not to be Poland under any guise, under any name. One's own security is the highest law in politics.

So, the Russian autocracy was seen by N.M. Karamzin as a developing system within the framework of the general progress of mankind on the basis of enlightenment. At the same time, he rejected any violent way of changing power. Relying on the idea of ​​the contractual origin of monarchical power in Russia, as well as on the historical and geographical conditionality of its unlimited nature, the historian recognized in the conditions of modern Russia only absolute autocratic power as legitimate. The contractual origin of power and the existence of strong legislation (coming from the monarch) were for the conservative the main criteria that characterize the Russian autocracy as a monarchy, not a tyranny.

The concept of N.M. Karamzin was conservative in the sense that she did not foresee significant changes in the autocratic nature of the Russian monarchy and the estate system in the foreseeable future. The author of Notes on Ancient and New Russia rejected the very possibility of legislative limitation of autocracy through the institution of representation without undermining the foundations of the Russian monarchy. N.M. Karamzin condemned despotism and the intervention of the supreme power in the sphere of customs and life. He considered the Russian nobility to be the main support of the autocracy, while an unprepared change in the social status of the peasants was considered dangerous for the stability of the state system. He was a supporter of a unitary form of administrative structure, subordinating the issue of national outskirts to the national interests of integrity and security.

One can speak of a fairly holistic concept of Russian statehood by N.M. Karamzin. Objectively, many provisions of this concept reflected the interests of broad sections of the Russian nobility. However, the concept of N.M. Karamzin characterizes him as a representative of the most educated circle of Russian society and is distinguished by his originality, expressed, in particular, in the desire to combine educational state-legal theories and the rationale for the autocratic nature of Russian

monarchy. This feature makes the concept of N.M. Karamzin with the ideas of Catherine II's "Instruction", to which she goes back in many ways.

In the political views of the Russian conservative, there is an idea that Russia is different from other states (which is good for England, bad for Russia). However, he was very far from the idea of ​​opposing Russia and Europe.

Notes

Karamzin N.M. Letters from a Russian traveler. - M., 1983. - S. 522.

Bulletin of Europe. - 1802. - No. 21. - P. 69.

Bulletin of Europe. - 1802. - No. 20. - S. 233.

Karamzin N.M. Letters to N.M. Karamzin to I.I. Dmitriev. - St. Petersburg, 1866. - S. 249.

Karamzin N.M. Letters from a Russian traveler. - S. 477.

Bulletin of Europe. - 1802. - No. 1. - P. 209.

Bulletin of Europe. - 1802. - No. 17. - P. 78.

Karamzin N.M. Martha the Posadnitsa // He. Works in 2 volumes. T. 2. - L., 1984. - S. 547.

Karamzin N.M. A note about ancient and new Russia. - M., 1991. - S. 22.

Karamzin N.M. History of Russian Goverment. In 3 books. T. 3. - M., 1997. - S. 414.

Karamzin N.M. History ... T. 5. - S. 197.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 24.

Karamzin N.M. History ... T. 9. - S. 87.

Bulletin of Europe. - 1803. - No. 9. - P. 69.

Karamzin N.M. Historical commendation to Catherine II. - M., 1802. - S. 67.

Lotman Yu.M. The Creation of Karamzin // He. Karamzin. - M., 1997. - S. 272.

Karamzin N.M. Historical laudatory word ... - S. 67.

Bulletin of Europe. - 1802. - No. 17. - P. 77–78.

Athenaeus. - 1858. - Part III. - S. 341. and others.

Kislyagina L.G. Formation of socio-political views of N.M. Karamzin. - M., 1976. - S. 171.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 45.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 27

Karamzin N.M. History ... T. 1. - S. 31.

Karamzin. N.M. Letters from a Russian traveler. - S. 291.

See: Druzhinin N.M. Enlightened absolutism in Russia // Absolutism in Russia in the 17th–18th centuries. - M., 1964.

Catherine II. Order of Her Imperial Majesty. - SPb., 1893. - S. 4.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 41.

Karamzin N.M. History ... T. 7. - S. 523.

There. - S. 523.

Karamzin N.M. History ... T. 7. - S. 102.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 56.

There. - S. 49.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 48.

There. – S. 28.

Karamzin N.M. Letters to N.M. Karamzin to P.A. Vyazemsky 1810–1826. From the Astafiev archive. - St. Petersburg. 1897. - S. 65.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 90.

There. – S. 93.

There. - S. 49.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 33.

Catherine II. Decree op. – P. 10.

Karamzin N.M. History ... T. 7. - S. 530.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 91.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 105.

There. - S. 74.

Bulletin of Europe. - 1802. - No. 9. - P. 79.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 38.

Karamzin N.M. Historical laudatory word ... - S. 106.

There. - S. 41.

Karamzin N.M. Note ... - S. 54.

December 12 (December 1, according to the old style), 1766, was born Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin - Russian writer, poet, editor of the Moscow Journal (1791-1792) and the Vestnik Evropy magazine (1802-1803), honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences ( 1818), full member of the Imperial Russian Academy, historian, the first and only court historiographer, one of the first Russian reformers literary language, founding father of Russian historiography and Russian sentimentalism.

Contribution of N.M. Karamzin in Russian culture can hardly be overestimated. Remembering everything that this man managed to do in the brief 59 years of his earthly existence, it is impossible to ignore the fact that it was Karamzin who largely determined the face of Russian XIX century - the "golden" age of Russian poetry, literature, historiography, source studies and other humanitarian areas scientific knowledge. Thanks to linguistic searches aimed at popularizing the literary language of poetry and prose, Karamzin presented Russian literature to his contemporaries. And if Pushkin is “our everything”, then Karamzin can be safely called “our everything” with the capital letter. Without him, Vyazemsky, Pushkin, Baratynsky, Batyushkov and other poets of the so-called "Pushkin galaxy" would hardly have been possible.

“Whatever you turn to in our literature, Karamzin laid the foundation for everything: journalism, criticism, a story, a novel, a historical story, publicism, the study of history,” V.G. Belinsky.

"History of the Russian State" N.M. Karamzin became not just the first Russian-language book on the history of Russia, available to the general reader. Karamzin gave the Russian people Fatherland in the full sense of the word. They say that, slamming the eighth, last volume, Count Fyodor Tolstoy, nicknamed the American, exclaimed: “It turns out that I have a Fatherland!” And he was not alone. All his contemporaries suddenly found out that they live in a country with a thousand-year history and they have something to be proud of. Before that, it was believed that before Peter I, who opened a “window to Europe”, there was nothing in Russia worthy of attention: the dark ages of backwardness and barbarism, boyar autocracy, primordially Russian laziness and bears on the streets ...

Karamzin's multi-volume work was not completed, but, having been published in the first quarter of the 19th century, he completely determined the historical self-consciousness of the nation for many years to come. All subsequent historiography could not give rise to anything more in line with the “imperial” self-consciousness that had developed under the influence of Karamzin. Karamzin's views left a deep, indelible mark on all areas of Russian culture of the 19th-20th centuries, forming the foundations of the national mentality, which ultimately determined the development of Russian society and the state as a whole.

It is significant that in the 20th century, the edifice of Russian great power, which had collapsed under the attacks of revolutionary internationalists, revived again by the 1930s - under different slogans, with different leaders, in a different ideological package. but... The very approach to the historiography of Russian history, both before 1917 and after, in many respects remained jingoistic and sentimental in Karamzin's way.

N.M. Karamzin - early years

N.M. Karamzin was born on December 12 (1st century), 1766, in the village of Mikhailovka, Buzuluk district, Kazan province (according to other sources, in the family estate of Znamenskoye, Simbirsk district, Kazan province). Little is known about his early years: there are no letters, no diaries, no memories of Karamzin himself about his childhood. He did not even know exactly his year of birth and for almost his entire life he believed that he was born in 1765. Only in his old age, having discovered the documents, he “looked younger” by one year.

The future historiographer grew up in the estate of his father, retired captain Mikhail Egorovich Karamzin (1724-1783), a middle-class Simbirsk nobleman. He received a good education at home. In 1778 he was sent to Moscow to the boarding house of professor of Moscow University I.M. Shaden. At the same time he attended lectures at the university in 1781-1782.

After graduating from the boarding school, in 1783 Karamzin joined the Preobrazhensky Regiment in St. Petersburg, where he met the young poet and future employee of his Moscow Journal, Dmitriev. At the same time, he published his first translation of S. Gesner's idyll "Wooden Leg".

In 1784, Karamzin retired as a lieutenant and never served again, which was perceived in the then society as a challenge. After a short stay in Simbirsk, where he joined the Golden Crown Masonic lodge, Karamzin moved to Moscow and was introduced into the circle of N. I. Novikov. He settled in a house that belonged to Novikov's "Friendly Scientific Society", became the author and one of the publishers of the first children's magazine "Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind" (1787-1789), founded by Novikov. At the same time, Karamzin became close to the Pleshcheev family. For many years he was connected with N. I. Pleshcheeva by a tender platonic friendship. In Moscow, Karamzin publishes his first translations, in which an interest in European and Russian history is clearly visible: Thomson's The Four Seasons, Janlis's Village Evenings, W. Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar, Lessing's tragedy Emilia Galotti.

In 1789, Karamzin's first original story "Eugene and Yulia" appeared in the magazine "Children's Reading ...". The reader hardly noticed it.

Travel to Europe

According to many biographers, Karamzin was not disposed towards the mystical side of Freemasonry, remaining a supporter of its active educational direction. To be more precise, by the end of the 1780s, Karamzin had already “been ill” with Masonic mysticism in its Russian version. Possibly, cooling towards Freemasonry was one of the reasons for his departure to Europe, where he spent more than a year (1789-90), visiting Germany, Switzerland, France and England. In Europe, he met and talked (except for influential Freemasons) with European "rulers of minds": I. Kant, J. G. Herder, C. Bonnet, I. K. Lavater, J. F. Marmontel, visited museums, theaters, secular salons. In Paris, Karamzin listened to O. G. Mirabeau, M. Robespierre and other revolutionaries in the National Assembly, saw many prominent political figures and was familiar with many. Apparently, the revolutionary Paris of 1789 showed Karamzin how much a person can be influenced by the word: printed, when Parisians read pamphlets and leaflets with keen interest; oral, when revolutionary orators spoke and controversy arose (experience that could not be acquired at that time in Russia).

Karamzin did not have a very enthusiastic opinion about English parliamentarism (perhaps following in the footsteps of Rousseau), but he highly valued the level of civilization at which English society as a whole was located.

Karamzin - journalist, publisher

In the autumn of 1790, Karamzin returned to Moscow and soon organized the publication of the monthly "Moscow Journal" (1790-1792), in which most of the "Letters of a Russian Traveler" were printed, telling about the revolutionary events in France, the story "Liodor", "Poor Lisa" , "Natalia, Boyar's Daughter", "Flor Silin", essays, short stories, critical articles and poems. Karamzin attracted the entire literary elite of that time to cooperate in the journal: his friends Dmitriev and Petrov, Kheraskov and Derzhavin, Lvov, Neledinsky-Meletsky, and others. Karamzin's articles asserted a new literary direction- sentimentalism.

The Moscow Journal had only 210 regular subscribers, but for the end of the 18th century it was the same as a hundred thousand circulation at the end of the 19th century. Moreover, the magazine was read by those who “made the weather” in the literary life of the country: students, officials, young officers, petty employees of various government agencies (“archival youths”).

After the arrest of Novikov, the authorities became seriously interested in the publisher of the Moscow Journal. During interrogations in the Secret Expedition, they ask: did Novikov send the “Russian traveler” abroad with a “special assignment”? The Novikovites were people of high decency and, of course, Karamzin was shielded, but because of these suspicions, the magazine had to be stopped.

In the 1790s, Karamzin published the first Russian almanacs - Aglaya (1794-1795) and Aonides (1796-1799). In 1793, when the Jacobin dictatorship was established at the third stage of the French Revolution, shocking Karamzin with its cruelty, Nikolai Mikhailovich abandoned some of his former views. The dictatorship aroused in him serious doubts about the possibility of mankind to achieve prosperity. He sharply condemned the revolution and all violent ways of transforming society. The philosophy of despair and fatalism permeates his new works: the stories "Bornholm Island" (1793); "Sierra Morena" (1795); poems "Melancholy", "Message to A. A. Pleshcheev", etc.

During this period, real literary fame comes to Karamzin.

Fedor Glinka: “Out of 1200 cadets, a rare one did not repeat by heart any page from the Island of Bornholm”.

The name Erast, previously completely unpopular, is increasingly found in noble lists. There are rumors of successful and unsuccessful suicides in the spirit of Poor Lisa. The venomous memoirist Vigel recalls that important Moscow nobles had already begun to make do with “almost like an equal with a thirty-year-old retired lieutenant”.

In July 1794, Karamzin's life almost ended: on the way to the estate, in the wilderness of the steppe, robbers attacked him. Karamzin miraculously escaped, having received two light wounds.

In 1801, he married Elizaveta Protasova, a neighbor on the estate, whom he had known since childhood - at the time of the wedding they had known each other for almost 13 years.

Reformer of the Russian literary language

Already in the early 1790s, Karamzin seriously thought about the present and future of Russian literature. He writes to a friend: “I am deprived of the pleasure of reading a lot in my native language. We are still poor in writers. We have several poets who deserve to be read." Of course, there were and are Russian writers: Lomonosov, Sumarokov, Fonvizin, Derzhavin, but there are no more than a dozen significant names. Karamzin was one of the first to understand that it was not about talent - there are no fewer talents in Russia than in any other country. It’s just that Russian literature can’t move away from the long-obsolete traditions of classicism, laid down in the middle of the 18th century by the only theorist M.V. Lomonosov.

The reform of the literary language carried out by Lomonosov, as well as the theory of "three calms" he created, met the tasks of the transition period from ancient to new literature. A complete rejection of the use of the usual Church Slavonicisms in the language was then still premature and inappropriate. But the evolution of the language, which began under Catherine II, continued actively. The "Three Calms" proposed by Lomonosov relied not on live colloquial speech, but on the witty thought of a theoretician writer. And this theory often put the authors in a difficult position: they had to use heavy, outdated Slavic expressions where in spoken language they have long been replaced by others, softer and more elegant. The reader sometimes could not "break through" through the heaps of obsolete Slavic words used in church books and records in order to understand the essence of this or that secular work.

Karamzin decided to bring the literary language closer to the spoken language. Therefore, one of his main goals was the further liberation of literature from Church Slavonicism. In the preface to the second book of the almanac "Aonides" he wrote: "One thunder of words only deafens us and never reaches the heart."

The second feature of Karamzin's "new style" was the simplification of syntactic constructions. The writer abandoned lengthy periods. In the Pantheon of Russian Writers, he resolutely stated: “Lomonosov’s prose cannot serve as a model for us at all: its long periods are tiring, the arrangement of words is not always in line with the flow of thoughts.”

Unlike Lomonosov, Karamzin strove to write in short, easily visible sentences. This is to this day a model of a good style and an example to follow in literature.

The third merit of Karamzin was the enrichment of the Russian language with a number of successful neologisms, which have firmly entered the mainstream. vocabulary. Among the innovations proposed by Karamzin are such widely known words in our time as “industry”, “development”, “refinement”, “concentrate”, “touching”, “amusing”, “humanity”, “public”, “ generally useful", "influence" and a number of others.

Creating neologisms, Karamzin mainly used the method of tracing French words: “interesting” from “interesting”, “refined” from “raffine”, “development” from “developpement”, “touching” from “touchant”.

We know that even in the Petrine era, many foreign words appeared in the Russian language, but for the most part they replaced the words that already existed in the Slavic language and were not necessary. In addition, these words were often taken in a raw form, so they were very heavy and clumsy (“fortecia” instead of “fortress”, “victory” instead of “victory”, etc.). Karamzin, on the contrary, tried to give Russian endings to foreign words, adapting them to the requirements of Russian grammar: “serious”, “moral”, “aesthetic”, “audience”, “harmony”, “enthusiasm”, etc.

In his reforming activities, Karamzin focused on the living colloquial speech of educated people. And this was the key to the success of his work - he does not write scientific treatises, but travel notes (“Letters from a Russian Traveler”), sentimental stories (“Bornholm Island”, “Poor Lisa”), poems, articles, translates from French, English and German .

"Arzamas" and "Conversation"

It is not surprising that most of the young writers, modern Karamzin, accepted his transformations with a bang and willingly followed him. But, like any reformer, Karamzin had staunch opponents and worthy opponents.

A.S. stood at the head of Karamzin's ideological opponents. Shishkov (1774-1841) - admiral, patriot, famous statesman that time. An Old Believer, an admirer of Lomonosov's language, Shishkov at first glance was a classicist. But this point of view requires essential reservations. In contrast to the Europeanism of Karamzin, Shishkov put forward the idea of ​​the nationality of literature - the most important sign of a romantic worldview far from classicism. It turns out that Shishkov also adjoined romantics, but only not progressive, but conservative direction. His views can be recognized as a kind of forerunner of later Slavophilism and pochvenism.

In 1803, Shishkov delivered a Discourse on the Old and New Style of the Russian Language. He reproached the "Karamzinists" for having succumbed to the temptation of European revolutionary false teachings and advocated the return of literature to oral folk art, to popular vernacular, to Orthodox Church Slavonic book learning.

Shishkov was not a philologist. He dealt with the problems of literature and the Russian language, rather, as an amateur, so Admiral Shishkov's attacks on Karamzin and his literary supporters sometimes looked not so much scientifically substantiated as unsubstantiated and ideological. The language reform of Karamzin seemed to Shishkov, a warrior and defender of the Fatherland, unpatriotic and anti-religious: “Language is the soul of a people, a mirror of morals, a true indicator of enlightenment, an unceasing witness to deeds. Where there is no faith in the hearts, there is no piety in the tongue. Where there is no love for the fatherland, there the language does not express domestic feelings..

Shishkov reproached Karamzin for the immoderate use of barbarisms (“epoch”, “harmony”, “catastrophe”), neologisms disgusted him (“revolution” as a translation of the word “revolution”), artificial words cut his ear: “future”, “readiness” and etc.

And it must be admitted that sometimes his criticism was apt and precise.

The evasiveness and aesthetic affectation of the speech of the "Karamzinists" very soon became outdated and went out of literary use. It was precisely this future that Shishkov predicted for them, believing that instead of the expression “when traveling became the need of my soul,” one can simply say: “when I fell in love with traveling”; the refined and paraphrased speech “variegated crowds of rural oreads meet with swarthy bands of reptile pharaohs” can be replaced by the understandable expression “gypsies go towards the village girls”, etc.

Shishkov and his supporters took the first steps in studying the monuments of ancient Russian literature, enthusiastically studied The Tale of Igor's Campaign, studied folklore, advocated rapprochement between Russia and the Slavic world and recognized the need for convergence of the "Slovenian" syllable with the common language.

In a dispute with the translator Karamzin, Shishkov put forward a weighty argument about the "idiomaticity" of each language, about the unique originality of its phraseological systems, which make it impossible to translate a thought or a true semantic meaning from one language into another. For example, when translated literally into French, the expression "old horseradish" loses its figurative meaning and "means only the very thing, but in the metaphysical sense it has no circle of signification."

In defiance of Karamzinskaya, Shishkov proposed his own reform of the Russian language. He proposed to designate the concepts and feelings missing in our everyday life with new words formed from the roots of not French, but Russian and Old Slavonic languages. Instead of Karamzin's "influence", he suggested "influence", instead of "development" - "vegetation", instead of "actor" - "actor", instead of "individuality" - "yanost", "wet shoes" instead of "galoshes" and "wandering" instead of "maze". Most of his innovations in Russian did not take root.

It is impossible not to recognize Shishkov's ardent love for the Russian language; one cannot but admit that the passion for everything foreign, especially French, has gone too far in Russia. Ultimately, this led to the fact that the language of the common people, the peasant, began to differ greatly from the language of the cultural classes. But one cannot brush aside the fact that the natural process of the beginning evolution of language could not be stopped. It was impossible to forcibly return to use the already obsolete at that time expressions that Shishkov proposed: “zane”, “ubo”, “like”, “like” and others.

Karamzin did not even respond to the accusations of Shishkov and his supporters, knowing firmly that they were guided by exceptionally pious and patriotic feelings. Subsequently, Karamzin himself and his most talented supporters (Vyazemsky, Pushkin, Batyushkov) followed the very valuable indication of the "Shishkovites" on the need to "return to their roots" and examples of their own history. But then they could not understand each other.

Paphos and ardent patriotism of A.S. Shishkov aroused sympathy among many writers. And when Shishkov, together with G. R. Derzhavin, founded the literary society “Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word” (1811) with a charter and its own journal, P. A. Katenin, I. A. Krylov, and later V. K. Küchelbecker and A. S. Griboyedov. One of the active participants in the "Conversations ..." prolific playwright A. A. Shakhovskoy in the comedy "New Stern" viciously ridiculed Karamzin, and in the comedy "A Lesson for Coquettes, or Lipetsk Waters" in the face of the "ballade player" Fialkin created a parody image of V. A Zhukovsky.

This caused a friendly rebuff from the youth, who supported the literary authority of Karamzin. D. V. Dashkov, P. A. Vyazemsky, D. N. Bludov composed several witty pamphlets addressed to Shakhovsky and other members of the Conversation .... In The Vision in the Arzamas Tavern, Bludov gave the circle of young defenders of Karamzin and Zhukovsky the name "Society of Unknown Arzamas Writers" or simply "Arzamas".

In the organizational structure of this society, founded in the autumn of 1815, a cheerful spirit of parody of the serious "Conversation ..." reigned. In contrast to official pomposity, simplicity, naturalness, openness dominated here, a lot of space was given to jokes and games.

Parodying the official ritual of "Conversations ...", upon joining "Arzamas", everyone had to read a "funerary speech" to their "deceased" predecessor from among the living members of the "Conversations ..." or Russian Academy Sciences (Count D. I. Khvostov, S. A. Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, A. S. Shishkov himself, and others). "Gravestone speeches" were a form of literary struggle: they parodied high genres, ridiculed the stylistic archaism of the poetic works of the "talkers". At the meetings of the society, the humorous genres of Russian poetry were honed, a bold and resolute struggle was waged against all kinds of officialdom, a type of independent Russian writer, free from the pressure of any ideological conventions, was formed. And although P. A. Vyazemsky, one of the organizers and active participants in the society, in his mature years condemned the youthful mischief and intransigence of his like-minded people (in particular, the rites of the “burial” of living literary opponents), he rightly called “Arzamas” a school of “literary fellowship” and mutual creative learning. The Arzamas and Beseda societies soon became centers of literary life and social struggle in the first quarter of the 19th century. The "Arzamas" included such famous people as Zhukovsky (pseudonym - Svetlana), Vyazemsky (Asmodeus), Pushkin (Cricket), Batyushkov (Achilles), etc.

Beseda broke up after Derzhavin's death in 1816; Arzamas, having lost its main opponent, ceased to exist by 1818.

Thus, by the mid-1790s, Karamzin became the recognized head of Russian sentimentalism, which opened not just a new page in Russian literature, but Russian fiction in general. Russian readers, who had previously absorbed only French novels and the writings of enlighteners, enthusiastically accepted Letters from a Russian Traveler and Poor Lisa, and Russian writers and poets (both "conversators" and "Arzamas") realized that it was possible to must write in their native language.

Karamzin and Alexander I: a symphony with power?

In 1802 - 1803 Karamzin published the journal Vestnik Evropy, which was dominated by literature and politics. Largely due to the confrontation with Shishkov, a new aesthetic program for the formation of Russian literature as a nationally original appeared in Karamzin's critical articles. Karamzin, unlike Shishkov, saw the key to the identity of Russian culture not so much in adherence to ritual antiquity and religiosity, but in the events of Russian history. The most striking illustration of his views was the story "Marfa Posadnitsa or the Conquest of Novgorod".

In his political articles of 1802-1803, Karamzin, as a rule, made recommendations to the government, the main of which was the enlightenment of the nation in the name of the prosperity of the autocratic state.

These ideas were generally close to Emperor Alexander I, the grandson of Catherine the Great, who at one time also dreamed of an “enlightened monarchy” and a complete symphony between the authorities and a European-educated society. Karamzin's response to the coup on March 11, 1801 and the accession to the throne of Alexander I was "Historical eulogy to Catherine II" (1802), where Karamzin expressed his views on the essence of the monarchy in Russia, as well as the duties of the monarch and his subjects. "Eulogy" was approved by the sovereign, as a collection of examples for the young monarch, and favorably accepted by him. Alexander I, obviously, was interested in the historical research of Karamzin, and the emperor rightly decided that a great country simply needed to remember its no less great past. And if you don’t remember, then at least create anew ...

In 1803, through the tsar’s educator M.N. Muravyov, a poet, historian, teacher, one of the most educated people of that time, N.M. Karamzin received the official title of court historiographer with a pension of 2,000 rubles. (A pension of 2,000 rubles a year was then assigned to officials who, according to the Table of Ranks, had a rank no lower than that of a general). Later, I. V. Kireevsky, referring to Karamzin himself, wrote about Muravyov: “Who knows, maybe without his thoughtful and warm assistance, Karamzin would not have had the means to accomplish his great deed.”

In 1804, Karamzin practically departed from literary and publishing activities and began to create the "History of the Russian State", on which he worked until the end of his days. Through his influence M.N. Muravyov made available to the historian many of the previously unknown and even "secret" materials, opened libraries and archives for him. Modern historians can only dream of such favorable conditions for work. Therefore, in our opinion, to speak of the "History of the Russian State" as a "scientific feat" N.M. Karamzin, not entirely fair. The court historiographer was in the service, conscientiously doing the work for which he was paid money. Accordingly, he had to write a story that was currently needed by the customer, namely, Tsar Alexander I, who at the first stage of his reign showed sympathy for European liberalism.

However, under the influence of studies in Russian history, by 1810 Karamzin became a consistent conservative. During this period, the system of his political views finally took shape. Karamzin's statements that he is a "republican at heart" can only be adequately interpreted if one considers that we are talking about the "Platonic Republic of the Sages", an ideal social order based on state virtue, strict regulation and the denial of personal freedom. . At the beginning of 1810, Karamzin, through his relative Count F.V. Rostopchin, met in Moscow the leader of the “conservative party” at court, Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna (sister of Alexander I) and began to constantly visit her residence in Tver. The salon of the Grand Duchess represented the center of conservative opposition to the liberal-Western course, personified by the figure of M. M. Speransky. In this salon, Karamzin read excerpts from his "History ...", at the same time he met Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna, who became one of his patronesses.

In 1811, at the request of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, Karamzin wrote a note “On ancient and new Russia in its political and civil relations”, in which he outlined his ideas about the ideal structure of the Russian state and sharply criticized the policies of Alexander I and his immediate predecessors: Paul I , Catherine II and Peter I. In the 19th century, the note was never published in full and diverged only in handwritten lists. In Soviet times, the thoughts expressed by Karamzin in his message were perceived as a reaction of the extremely conservative nobility to the reforms of M. M. Speransky. The author himself was branded a "reactionary", an opponent of the liberation of the peasantry and other liberal steps taken by the government of Alexander I.

However, during the first full publication of the note in 1988, Yu. M. Lotman revealed its deeper content. In this document, Karamzin made a reasonable criticism of unprepared bureaucratic reforms carried out from above. While praising Alexander I, the author of the note at the same time attacks his advisers, referring, of course, to Speransky, who stood for constitutional reforms. Karamzin takes the liberty of proving to the tsar in detail, with reference to historical examples, that Russia is not ready either historically or politically to abolish serfdom and limit the autocratic monarchy by the constitution (following the example of the European powers). Some of his arguments (for example, about the uselessness of freeing peasants without land, the impossibility of constitutional democracy in Russia) look quite convincing and historically correct even today.

Along with an overview of Russian history and criticism of the political course of Emperor Alexander I, the note contained an integral, original and very complex theoretical concept of autocracy as a special, original Russian type of power, closely connected with Orthodoxy.

At the same time, Karamzin refused to identify "true autocracy" with despotism, tyranny or arbitrariness. He believed that such deviations from the norms were due to chance (Ivan IV the Terrible, Paul I) and were quickly eliminated by the inertia of the tradition of "wise" and "virtuous" monarchical rule. In cases of a sharp weakening and even complete absence of the supreme state and church power (for example, during the Time of Troubles), this powerful tradition led to the restoration of autocracy within a short historical period. Autocracy was the "palladium of Russia", the main reason for its power and prosperity. Therefore, the basic principles of monarchical government in Russia, according to Karamzin, should have been preserved in the future. They should have been supplemented only by a proper policy in the field of legislation and education, which would lead not to undermining the autocracy, but to its maximum strengthening. With such an understanding of autocracy, any attempt to limit it would be a crime against Russian history and the Russian people.

Initially, Karamzin's note only irritated the young emperor, who did not like criticism of his actions. In this note, the historiographer proved himself plus royaliste que le roi (greater royalist than the king himself). However, subsequently the brilliant "anthem to the Russian autocracy" as presented by Karamzin undoubtedly had its effect. After the war of 1812, the winner of Napoleon, Alexander I, curtailed many of his liberal projects: Speransky's reforms were not brought to an end, the constitution and the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200blimiting autocracy remained only in the minds of future Decembrists. And already in the 1830s, Karamzin's concept actually formed the basis of the ideology of the Russian Empire, designated by the "theory of official nationality" of Count S. Uvarov (Orthodoxy-Autocracy-Nationhood).

Before the publication of the first 8 volumes of "History ..." Karamzin lived in Moscow, from where he traveled only to Tver to the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna and to Nizhny Novgorod, while Moscow was occupied by the French. He usually spent his summers at Ostafyev, the estate of Prince Andrei Ivanovich Vyazemsky, whose illegitimate daughter, Ekaterina Andreevna, Karamzin married in 1804. (The first wife of Karamzin, Elizaveta Ivanovna Protasova, died in 1802).

In the last 10 years of his life, which Karamzin spent in St. Petersburg, he became very close to the royal family. Although Emperor Alexander I treated Karamzin with restraint from the time the Note was submitted, Karamzin often spent his summers in Tsarskoye Selo. At the request of the empresses (Maria Feodorovna and Elizaveta Alekseevna), he more than once conducted frank political conversations with Emperor Alexander, in which he acted as a spokesman for the opponents of drastic liberal reforms. In 1819-1825, Karamzin passionately rebelled against the intentions of the sovereign regarding Poland (submitted a note "Opinion of a Russian citizen"), condemned the increase in state taxes in peacetime, spoke of the ridiculous provincial system of finance, criticized the system of military settlements, the activities of the Ministry of Education, pointed to the strange choice by the sovereign of some of the most important dignitaries (for example, Arakcheev), spoke of the need to reduce internal troops, about the imaginary correction of roads, so painful for the people and constantly pointed out the need to have firm laws, civil and state.

Of course, having behind such intercessors as both empresses and Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, one could criticize, and argue, and show civil courage, and try to set the monarch "on the right path." It was not for nothing that Emperor Alexander I was called by his contemporaries and subsequent historians of his reign the “mysterious sphinx”. In words, the sovereign agreed with Karamzin’s critical remarks regarding military settlements, recognized the need to “give fundamental laws to Russia”, as well as to revise some aspects of domestic policy, but it just so happened in our country that in reality all the wise advice of state people remains “fruitless for Dear Fatherland"...

Karamzin as a historian

Karamzin is our first historian and last chronicler.
By his criticism he belongs to history,
innocence and apothegms - the chronicle.

A.S. Pushkin

Even from the point of view of Karamzin's modern historical science, no one dared to call the 12 volumes of his "History of the Russian State" a scientific work. Even then, it was clear to everyone that the honorary title of a court historiographer cannot make a writer a historian, give him the appropriate knowledge and proper training.

But, on the other hand, Karamzin did not initially set himself the task of taking on the role of a researcher. The newly minted historiographer was not going to write a scientific treatise and appropriate the laurels of his illustrious predecessors - Schlozer, Miller, Tatishchev, Shcherbatov, Boltin, etc.

Preliminary critical work on sources for Karamzin is only "a heavy tribute brought by reliability." He was, first of all, a writer, and therefore he wanted to apply his literary talent to ready-made material: “select, animate, colorize” and, thus, make Russian history “something attractive, strong, worthy of attention not only Russians, but also foreigners." And this task he performed brilliantly.

Today it is impossible to disagree with the fact that at the beginning of the 19th century source studies, paleography and other auxiliary historical disciplines were in their very infancy. Therefore, to demand professional criticism from the writer Karamzin, as well as strict adherence to one or another method of working with historical sources, is simply ridiculous.

One can often hear the opinion that Karamzin simply beautifully rewrote Prince M.M. family circle. This is not true.

Naturally, when writing his "History ..." Karamzin actively used the experience and works of his predecessors - Schlozer and Shcherbatov. Shcherbatov helped Karamzin navigate the sources of Russian history, significantly influencing both the choice of material and its arrangement in the text. Coincidentally or not, Karamzin brought The History of the Russian State to exactly the same place as Shcherbatov's History. However, in addition to following the scheme already developed by his predecessors, Karamzin cites in his essay a lot of references to the most extensive foreign historiography, almost unknown to the Russian reader. While working on his "History ...", for the first time he introduced into scientific circulation a mass of unknown and previously unexplored sources. These are Byzantine and Livonian chronicles, information from foreigners about the population of ancient Russia, as well as a large number of Russian chronicles that have not yet been touched by the hand of a historian. For comparison: M.M. Shcherbatov used only 21 Russian chronicles in writing his work, Karamzin actively cites more than 40. In addition to the chronicles, Karamzin attracted monuments of ancient Russian law and ancient Russian fiction to the study. A special chapter of "History ..." is devoted to "Russian Truth", and a number of pages - to the newly opened "Tale of Igor's Campaign".

Thanks to the diligent help of the directors of the Moscow Archive of the Ministry (Board) of Foreign Affairs N. N. Bantysh-Kamensky and A. F. Malinovsky, Karamzin was able to use those documents and materials that were not available to his predecessors. The Synodal depository, libraries of monasteries (Trinity Lavra, Volokolamsk Monastery and others), as well as private collections of Musin-Pushkin and N.P. Rumyantsev. Karamzin received especially many documents from Chancellor Rumyantsev, who collected historical materials in Russia and abroad through his numerous agents, as well as from AI Turgenev, who compiled a collection of documents from the papal archive.

Many of the sources used by Karamzin perished during the Moscow fire of 1812 and survived only in his "History ..." and extensive "Notes" to its text. Thus, Karamzin's work, to some extent, has itself acquired the status of a historical source, to which professional historians have every right to refer.

Among the main shortcomings of the "History of the Russian State" is traditionally noted the peculiar view of its author on the tasks of the historian. According to Karamzin, "knowledge" and "scholarship" in the historian "do not replace the talent to portray actions." Before the artistic task of history, even the moral one recedes into the background, which was set by Karamzin's patron, M.N. Muravyov. The characteristics of historical characters are given by Karamzin exclusively in a literary and romantic vein, characteristic of the direction of Russian sentimentalism he created. The first Russian princes according to Karamzin are distinguished by their "ardent romantic passion" for conquests, their retinue - nobility and loyal spirit, the "rabble" sometimes shows discontent, raising rebellions, but in the end agrees with the wisdom of noble rulers, etc., etc. P.

Meanwhile, the previous generation of historians, under the influence of Schlozer, had long developed the idea of ​​critical history, and among Karamzin's contemporaries, the requirements for criticizing historical sources, despite the lack of a clear methodology, were generally recognized. And the next generation has already come forward with the demand for philosophical history - with the identification of the laws of development of the state and society, the recognition of the main driving forces and laws of the historical process. Therefore, the overly “literary” creation of Karamzin was immediately subjected to well-founded criticism.

According to the idea, firmly rooted in Russian and foreign historiography of the 17th - 18th centuries, the development of the historical process depends on the development of monarchical power. Karamzin does not deviate one iota from this idea: the monarchical power glorified Russia in the Kievan period; the division of power between the princes was a political mistake, which was corrected by the state wisdom of the Moscow princes - the collectors of Russia. At the same time, it was the princes who corrected its consequences - the fragmentation of Russia and the Tatar yoke.

But before reproaching Karamzin for not contributing anything new to the development of Russian historiography, it should be remembered that the author of The History of the Russian State did not at all set himself the task of philosophical understanding of the historical process or blind imitation of the ideas of Western European romantics (F. Guizot , F. Mignet, J. Meshlet), who already then started talking about the "class struggle" and the "spirit of the people" as the main driving force of history. historical criticism Karamzin was not interested at all, and deliberately denied the "philosophical" trend in history. The researcher's conclusions from historical material, as well as his subjective fabrications, seem to Karamzin to be "metaphysics" that is not suitable "for depicting action and character."

Thus, with his peculiar views on the tasks of the historian, Karamzin, by and large, remained outside the dominant currents of Russian and European historiography of the 19th and 20th centuries. Of course, he participated in its consistent development, but only in the form of an object for constant criticism and clearest example how history should not be written.

The reaction of contemporaries

Karamzin's contemporaries - readers and admirers - enthusiastically accepted his new "historical" work. The first eight volumes of The History of the Russian State were printed in 1816-1817 and went on sale in February 1818. Huge for that time, the three-thousandth circulation sold out in 25 days. (And this despite the solid price - 50 rubles). A second edition was immediately required, which was carried out in 1818-1819 by I. V. Slyonin. In 1821 a new, ninth volume was published, and in 1824 the next two. The author did not have time to finish the twelfth volume of his work, which was published in 1829, almost three years after his death.

"History ..." was admired by Karamzin's literary friends and a vast public of non-specialist readers who suddenly discovered, like Count Tolstoy the American, that their Fatherland has a history. According to A.S. Pushkin, “everyone, even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, hitherto unknown to them. She was a new discovery for them. Ancient Russia seemed to be found by Karamzin, like America by Columbus.

Liberal intellectual circles of the 1820s found Karamzin's "History ..." backward in general views and unnecessarily tendentious:

Specialists-researchers, as already mentioned, treated Karamzin's work exactly as a work, sometimes even belittling its historical significance. It seemed to many that Karamzin's undertaking itself was too risky to undertake to write such an extensive work in the then state of Russian historical science.

Already during Karamzin's lifetime, critical analyzes of his "History ..." appeared, and soon after the author's death, attempts were made to determine general meaning this work in historiography. Lelevel pointed to an involuntary distortion of the truth, due to the patriotic, religious and political hobbies of Karamzin. Artsybashev showed the extent to which the writing of "history" is harmed by the literary techniques of a non-professional historian. Pogodin summed up all the shortcomings of the History, and N.A. Polevoy saw the common cause of these shortcomings in the fact that "Karamzin is a writer not of our time." All his points of view, both in literature and in philosophy, politics and history, became obsolete with the appearance in Russia of new influences of European romanticism. In opposition to Karamzin, Polevoy soon wrote his six-volume History of the Russian People, where he completely surrendered himself to the ideas of Guizot and other Western European romantics. Contemporaries rated this work as an "unworthy parody" of Karamzin, subjecting the author to rather vicious and not always deserved attacks.

In the 1830s, Karamzin's "History ..." becomes the banner of the officially "Russian" direction. With the assistance of the same Pogodin, its scientific rehabilitation is carried out, which is fully consistent with the spirit of Uvarov's "theory of official nationality".

In the second half of the 19th century, on the basis of the "History ...", a mass of popular science articles and other texts were written, which formed the basis of well-known educational and teaching aids. Based on the historical plots of Karamzin, many works for children and youth were created, the purpose of which for many years was to instill patriotism, fidelity to civic duty, and the responsibility of the younger generation for the fate of their homeland. This book, in our opinion, played a decisive role in shaping the views of more than one generation of Russian people, having a significant impact on the foundations of the patriotic education of young people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

December 14th. Final Karamzin.

The death of Emperor Alexander I and the December events of 1925 deeply shocked N.M. Karamzin and negatively affected his health.

On December 14, 1825, having received news of the uprising, the historian goes out into the street: “I saw terrible faces, heard terrible words, five or six stones fell at my feet.”

Karamzin, of course, regarded the performance of the nobility against their sovereign as a rebellion and a grave crime. But there were so many acquaintances among the rebels: the Muravyov brothers, Nikolai Turgenev, Bestuzhev, Ryleev, Kuchelbeker (he translated Karamzin's History into German).

A few days later, Karamzin will say about the Decembrists: "The errors and crimes of these young people are the errors and crimes of our age."

On December 14, during his travels around St. Petersburg, Karamzin caught a bad cold and fell ill with pneumonia. In the eyes of his contemporaries, he was another victim of this day: his idea of ​​the world collapsed, faith in the future was lost, and a new king ascended the throne, very far from the ideal image of an enlightened monarch. Half-ill, Karamzin visited the palace every day, where he talked with Empress Maria Feodorovna, from memories of the late sovereign Alexander, moving on to discussions about the tasks of the future reign.

Karamzin could no longer write. Volume XII of the "History ..." stopped at the interregnum of 1611 - 1612. The last words of the last volume are about a small Russian fortress: "Nutlet did not give up." The last thing that Karamzin really managed to do in the spring of 1826 was, together with Zhukovsky, he persuaded Nicholas I to return Pushkin from exile. A few years later, the emperor tried to pass the baton of the first Russian historiographer to the poet, but the “sun of Russian poetry” somehow did not fit into the role of the state ideologist and theorist ...

In the spring of 1826 N.M. Karamzin, on the advice of doctors, decided to go to southern France or Italy for treatment. Nicholas I agreed to sponsor his trip and kindly placed a frigate of the imperial fleet at the disposal of the historiographer. But Karamzin was already too weak to travel. He died on May 22 (June 3) 1826 in St. Petersburg. He was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

“... The people who despised their

history, contemptuously: for

frivolous, the ancestors were

no worse than him"

N.M. Karamzin /13, p.160/

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin - the master of the minds of Russia in the late 17th and early 19th centuries. The role of Karamzin in Russian culture is great and what he did for the good of the Motherland would be enough for more than one life. He embodied many of the best features of his century, appearing before his contemporaries as a first-class master of literature (poet, playwright, critic, translator), a reformer who laid the foundations of the modern literary language, a major journalist, publishing organizer, founder of remarkable magazines. A master of artistic expression and a talented historian merged in Karamzin's personality. In science, journalism, art, he left a noticeable mark. Karamzin largely prepared the success of younger contemporaries and followers - figures of the Pushkin period, the golden age of Russian literature. N.M. Karamzin was born on December 1, 1766. And in his fifty-nine years he lived an interesting and eventful life, full of dynamism and creativity. He received his education in a private boarding school in Simbirsk, then in the Moscow boarding school of Professor M.P. Shaden, then came to St. Petersburg for service and received the rank of non-commissioned officer. Then he works as a translator and editor in various magazines, closes with many famous people of that time (M.M. Novikov, M.T. Turgenev). Then for more than a year (from May 1789 to September 1790) he travels around Europe; while traveling, he makes notes, after processing which the famous “Letters of a Russian Traveler” appear.

The knowledge of the past and present led Karamzin to break with the Freemasons, who were quite influential in Russia in late XVIII in. He returns to his homeland with a wide program of publishing and journalism, hoping to contribute to the enlightenment of the people. He created the Moscow Journal (1791-1792) and Vestnik Evropy (1802-1803), published two volumes of the almanac Aglaya (1794-1795) and the poetic almanac Aonides. His creative path continues and completes the work "History of the Russian State", the work on which took many years, which became the main result of his work.

Karamzin approached the idea of ​​creating a large historical canvas for a long time. As proof of the long-standing existence of such plans, Karamzin's message in "Letters from a Russian Traveler" about a meeting in 1790 in Paris with P.-Sh. Level, the author of "Histoire de Russie, triee des chroniques originales, des pieces outertiques et des meillierus historiens de la nation" (only one volume was translated in Russia in 1797) /25, p.515/. Reflecting on the advantages and disadvantages of this work, the writer came to a disappointing conclusion: “It hurts, but it must be said in fairness that we still do not have a good Russian history” / 16, p. 252 /. He understood that such a work could not be written without free access to manuscripts and documents in official repositories. He turned to Emperor Alexander I through the mediation of M.M. Muravyov (trustee of the educational Moscow district). “The appeal was successful and on October 31, 1803 Karamzin was appointed historiographer and received an annual pension and access to archives” /14, p.251/. Imperial decrees provided the historiographer with optimal conditions for working on the "History ...".

Work on the "History of the Russian State" required self-denial, the rejection of the usual image and way of life. According to the figurative expression of P.A. Vyazemsky, Karamzin "cut his hair as a historian". And by the spring of 1818, the first eight volumes of the story appeared on bookstores. Three thousand copies of "History ..." were sold in twenty-five days. The recognition of compatriots inspired and encouraged the writer, especially after the relations between the historiographer and Alexander I deteriorated (after the release of the note “On Ancient and New Russia”, where Karamzin criticized Alexander I in a sense). The public and literary resonance of the first eight volumes of "History ..." in Russia and abroad turned out to be so great that even the Russian Academy, a longtime stronghold of Karamzin's opponents, was forced to recognize his merits.

The reader's success of the first eight volumes of the "History ..." gave the writer new strength for further work. In 1821, the ninth volume of his work saw the light of day. The death of Alexander I and the uprising of the Decembrists pushed back work on the "History ...". Having caught a cold in the street on the day of the uprising, the historiographer continued his work only in January 1826. But the doctors assured that only Italy could give a full recovery. Going to Italy and hoping to finish the last two chapters of the last volume there, Karamzin instructed D.N. Bludov all the cases on the future edition of the twelfth volume. But on May 22, 1826, without leaving Italy, Karamzin died. The twelfth volume was published only in 1828.

Picking up the work of N.M. Karamzin, we can only imagine how difficult the work of the historiographer was. The writer, the poet, the amateur historian, takes on a task of inconceivable complexity, requiring enormous special training. If he avoided serious, purely intelligent matter, but only vividly narrated about past times, “animating and coloring” - this would still be considered natural, but from the very beginning the volume is divided into two halves: in the first - a living story, and the one to whom this is enough, it may not look into the second section, where there are hundreds of notes, references to chronicles, Latin, Swedish, German sources. History is a very harsh science, even if we assume that the historian knows many languages, but in addition there are sources from Arabic, Hungarian, Jewish, Caucasian ... And even by the beginning of the 19th century. the science of history did not stand out sharply from literature, anyway, Karamzin the writer had to delve into paleography, philosophy, geography, archeography ... Tatishchev and Shcherbatov, however, combined history with serious state activity, but professionalism is constantly increasing; from the West, serious works of German and English scientists come; the ancient naive chronicle methods of historical writing are clearly dying out, and the question itself arises: when does Karamzin, a forty-year-old writer, master all the old and new wisdom? The answer to this question is given to us by N. Eidelman, who reports that “only in the third year Karamzin confesses to his close friends that he ceases to be afraid of the Schlozer ferula, that is, the rod with which a venerable German academician could flog a negligent student” / 70, p. 55/.

One historian alone cannot find and process such a large number of materials on the basis of which the "History of the Russian State" was written. It follows from this that N.M. Karamzin was helped by many of his friends. Of course, he went to the archive, but not too often: they searched for, selected, delivered ancient manuscripts directly to the historiographer's desk by several special employees, headed by the head of the Moscow Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and an excellent connoisseur of antiquities Alexei Fedorovich Malinovsky. Archives and book collections of the foreign collegium of the Synod, the Hermitage, the Imperial Public Library, Moscow University, the Trinity-Sergius and Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Volokolamsk, Resurrection monasteries; moreover, dozens of private collections, finally, archives and libraries of Oxford, Paris, Copenhagen and others foreign centers. Among those who worked for Karamzin (from the very beginning and later) were several scientists who would be remarkable in the future, for example, Stroev, Kalaidovich ... They sent comments on already published volumes more than others.

In some modern works, Karamzin is reproached for the fact that he worked “not alone” /70, p.55/. But otherwise it would take him not 25 years to write the "History ...", but much more. Eidelman rightly objects to this: “it is dangerous for one to judge an era according to the rules of another” /70, p.55/.

Later, when the author's personality of Karamzin develops, such a combination of a historiographer and junior collaborators will stand out that might seem delicate ... However, in the first years of the XIX. in such a combination seemed quite normal, and the doors of the archive would hardly have opened for the younger ones if there had not been an imperial decree on the elder. Karamzin himself, disinterested, with a heightened sense of honor, would never allow himself to become famous at the expense of his employees. Besides, was it only "the archival shelves worked for the Count of History"? /70, p.56/. It turns out that it doesn't. “Such great people as Derzhavin send him his thoughts on ancient Novgorod, young Alexander Turgenev brings the necessary books from Göttingen, D.I. promises to send old manuscripts. Yazykov, A.R. Vorontsov. Even more important is the participation of the main collectors: A.N. Musin-Pushkin, N.P. Rumyantsev; one of the future presidents of the Academy of Sciences A.N. Olenin sent Karamzin on July 12, 1806 the Ostromir Gospel of 1057.” /70, p.56/. But this does not mean that all the work of Karamzin was done for him by friends: he opened it himself and stimulated others with his work to search for it. Karamzin himself found the Ipatiev and Trinity Chronicles, the Sudebnik of Ivan the Terrible, "The Prayer of Daniil the Sharpener." For his "History ..." Karamzin used about forty chronicles (for comparison, let's say that Shcherbatov studied twenty-one chronicles). Also, the great merit of the historiographer is that he was not only able to bring all this material together, but also organize the de facto work of a real creative laboratory.

Work on "History ..." fell on a turning point in a sense, an era that influenced the worldview and methodology of the author. In the last quarter of the XVIII. in Russia, the features of the decomposition of the feudal-serf system of the economy became more and more noticeable. Changes in the economic and social life of Russia and the development of bourgeois relations in Europe influenced the domestic policy of the autocracy. Time put before the ruling class of Russia the need to develop socio-political reforms that would ensure the preservation of the dominant position for the class of landowners and the power of the autocracy.

“The end of Karamzin’s ideological searches can be attributed to this time. He became the ideologist of the conservative part of the Russian nobility” /36, p.141/. The final formulation of his socio-political program, the objective content of which was the preservation of the autocratic-feudal system, falls on the second decade of the 19th century, that is, at the time of the creation of the Notes on Ancient and New Russia. The revolution in France and the post-revolutionary development of France played a decisive role in the design of Karamzin's conservative political program. “It seemed to Karamzin that the events in France in the late 18th and early 19th centuries historically confirmed his theoretical conclusions about the ways of human development. He considered the path of gradual evolutionary development to be the only acceptable and correct one, without any revolutionary explosions and within the framework of those social relations, that state system that is characteristic of this people” /36, p.145/. Leaving in force the theory of the contractual origin of power, Karamzin now puts its forms in strict dependence on ancient traditions and folk character. Moreover, beliefs and customs are elevated to a kind of absolute, which determines the historical fate of the people. “The institutions of antiquity,” he wrote in the article “Remarkable Views, Hopes, and Desires of the Present Time,” have magical power which cannot be replaced by any power of the mind” /17, p.215/. Thus, historical tradition was opposed to revolutionary transformations. The socio-political system became directly dependent on it: the traditional ancient customs and institutions ultimately determined the political form of the state. This was very clearly seen in Karamzin's attitude towards the republic. The ideologist of autocracy, Karamzin, nevertheless, declared his sympathies for the republican system. His letter to P.A. is known. Vyazemsky dated 1820, in which he wrote: “I am a Republican in my soul and will die like that” /12, p.209/. Theoretically, Karamzin believed that a republic is a more modern form of government than a monarchy. But it can exist only if there are a number of conditions, and in their absence, the republic loses all meaning and right to exist. Karamzin recognized republics as a human form of organization of society, but made the possibility of the existence of a republic dependent on ancient customs and traditions, as well as on the moral state of society /36, p.151/.

Karamzin was a complex and controversial figure. As everyone who knew him noted, he was a man with great demands on himself and on those around him. As contemporaries noted, he was sincere in his actions and beliefs, had an independent way of thinking. Considering these qualities of the historiographer, the inconsistency of his character can be explained by the fact that he understood the outdatedness of the orders that existed in Russia, but the fear of the revolution, of the peasant uprising made him cling to the old: autocracy, the feudal system, which, as he believed, for several ensured the progressive development of Russia for centuries.

By the end of the XVIII century. Karamzin was firmly convinced that the monarchical form of government is most consistent with the existing level of development of morality and education in Russia. The historical situation in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, the aggravation of class contradictions in the country, the growing consciousness in Russian society of the need for social transformations - all this caused Karamzin to strive to oppose the influence of the new with something that could withstand this pressure. Under these conditions, firm autocratic power seemed to him a reliable guarantee of peace and security. At the end of the XVIII century. Karamzin's interest in the history of Russia and in the political life of the country is growing. The question of the nature of autocratic power, its relationship with the people and, above all, with the nobility, the personality of the tsar and his duty to society were at the center of his attention when writing the History of the Russian State.

Autocracy Karamzin understood as "the sole power of the autocrat, not limited by any institutions." But autocracy, in the understanding of Karamzin, does not mean the arbitrariness of the ruler. It presupposes the existence of "firm statutes" - laws according to which the autocrat governs the state, for civil society is where there are and are enforced laws, that is, in full compliance with the laws of rationalism of the 18th century. The autocrat acts in Karamzin as a legislator, the law adopted by him is obligatory not only for the subjects, but also for the autocrat himself /36, p.162/. Recognizing the monarchy as the only acceptable form of government for Russia, Karamzin naturally accepted the class division of society, since it lies in the very principle of the monarchical system. Karamzin considered such a division of society to be eternal and natural: "every estate had certain duties in relation to the state." Recognizing the importance and necessity of the two lower classes, Karamzin, in the spirit of the noble tradition, defended the right of the nobles to special privileges by the importance of their service to the state: “He considered the nobility as the main support of the throne” / 36, p. 176 /.

Thus, in the context of the beginning of the decomposition of the feudal-serf system of the economy, Karamzin came up with a program for its preservation in Russia. His socio-political program also included the education and enlightenment of the nobility. He hoped that the nobility in the future would begin to engage in art, science, literature and make them their professions. In this way it will strengthen its position by taking the apparatus of education into its hands.

Karamzin placed all his socio-political views in the "History of the Russian State" and with this work drew the line of all his activities.

Karamzin played a big role in the development of Russian culture. The complexity and inconsistency of his ideology reflects the falsity and inconsistency of the era itself, the complexity of the position of the noble class at a time when the feudal system had already lost its potential, and the nobility as a class was becoming a conservative and reactionary force.

"History of the Russian State" - the largest achievement of Russian and world historical science for its time, the first monographic description of Russian history from ancient times to the beginning of the 18th century.

Karamzin's work caused stormy and fruitful discussions for the development of historiography. In disputes with his concept, views on the historical process and events of the past, other ideas and generalizing historical studies arose - “The History of the Russian People” by M.A. Field, "History of Russia from ancient times" by S.M. Solovyov and other works. Losing its own scientific significance over the years, Karamzin's "History ..." retained its general cultural and historiographical significance; playwrights, artists and musicians drew plots from it. And therefore, this work of Karamzin is included “in the body of those classical texts, without the knowledge of which the history of Russian culture and historical science cannot be fully understood” /26, p.400/. But, unfortunately, after the October Revolution, the perception of "History ..." as a work of reactionary monarchy blocked its way to the reader for many decades. Since the mid-1980s, when a period of rethinking the historical path and the destruction of ideological stereotypes and oppressive ideas begins in society, a stream of new humanistic acquisitions, discoveries, the return to life of many creations of mankind, and with them a stream of new hopes and illusions. Along with these changes, N.M. returned to us. Karamzin with his immortal "History ...". What is the reason for this social and cultural phenomenon, the manifestation of which was the repeated publication of excerpts from the "History ...", its facsimile reproduction, reading of its individual parts on the radio, etc.? A.N. Sakharov suggested that "the reason for this lies in the enormous power of the spiritual impact on people of Karamzin's truly scientific and artistic talent" /58, p.416/. The author of this work fully shares this opinion - after all, years pass, and talent remains young. "History of the Russian State" revealed in Karamzin a true spirituality, which is based on the desire to answer the eternal questions that concern man and mankind - the questions of being and the purpose of life, the patterns of development of countries and peoples, the relationship between the individual, family and society, etc. N.M. Karamzin was just one of those who raised these issues, and tried, to the best of his ability, to solve them on the basis of national history. That is, we can say that this is a combination of scientific character and journalistic popularization in the spirit of historical works that are now fashionable, convenient for the reader's perception.

Since the publication of The History of the Russian State, historical science has come a long way. For many of Karamzin's contemporaries, the monarchical conception of the work of the historiographer of the Russian Empire seemed strained, unproven, and even harmful, and his desire, sometimes with objective data, to subordinate the story of the Russian historical process from ancient times to the 17th century to this conception. And, nevertheless, interest in this work immediately after the release was huge.

Alexander I expected Karamzin to tell the history of the Russian Empire. He wanted "the pen of an enlightened and recognized writer to tell about his empire and his ancestors" /66, p.267/. It turned out differently. Karamzin was the first in Russian historiography to promise with his headline not the history of the "kingdom", as in G.F. Miller, not just " Russian history", like M.V. Lomonosov, V.N. Tatishcheva, M.M. Shcherbatov, and the history of the Russian state as "the dominion of heterogeneous Russian tribes" /39, p.17/. This purely outward difference between Karamzin's title and previous historical works was not accidental. Russia does not belong to either tsars or emperors. Back in the 18th century progressive historiography in the fight against the theological approach in the study of the past, defending the progressive development of mankind, began to consider the history of society as the history of the state. The state was proclaimed an instrument of progress, and progress was evaluated from the point of view of the state principle. Accordingly, the “subject of history” becomes “state sights”, defined signs of the state, which seemed to be the most significant in ensuring human happiness /29, p. 7/. For Karamzin, the development of state attractions is also a measure of progress. He, as it were, compares it with ideas about an ideal state, among the most important "attractions" of which were: independence, internal strength, the development of crafts, trade, science, art, and, most importantly, a solid political organization that ensures all this - a certain form of government determined by the territory state, historical traditions, rights, customs. The idea of ​​state attractions, as well as the importance that Karamzin attached to each of them in the progressive development of the state itself, was already reflected in the structure of his work, the completeness of his coverage of various aspects of the historical past. The historiographer pays the most attention to the history of the political organization of the Russian state - autocracy, as well as to the events of political history in general: wars, diplomatic relations, and the improvement of legislation. He does not consider history in special chapters, concluding the end of an important, from his point of view, historical period or reign, attempting some kind of synthesis of the development of fairly stable "state attractions": the limits of the state, "civil laws", "martial art", "success of the mind" other..

Already Karamzin's contemporaries, including numerous critics of his work, drew attention to the defining feature of the "History ...", incomparable with any of the previous historical works - its integrity. “The wholeness of Karamzin's work was given by the concept in which the idea of ​​autocracy as the main factor in the historical process played a decisive role” /39, p.18/. This idea pervades all the pages of the "History ...", sometimes it is annoyingly annoying, sometimes it seems primitive. But even such irreconcilable critics of the autocracy as the Decembrists, disagreeing with Karamzin and easily proving his inconsistency, gave credit to the historiographer for his sincere devotion to this idea, the skill with which he carried it out in his work. The basis of Karamzin's concept goes back to Montesquieu's thesis that "a huge state can only have a monarchical form of government" /39, p.18/. Karamzin goes further: not only a monarchy, but also autocracy, that is, not only one-man hereditary rule, but also the unlimited power of a simple person who can even be elected to the throne. The main thing is that there should be "true autocracy" - the unlimited power of a person convicted of high powers, strictly and strictly observing the time-tested or thoughtfully adopted new laws, adhering to moral rules, caring for the welfare of his subjects. This ideal autocrat should embody "true autocracy" as the most important factor in state order and improvement. The Russian historical process, according to Karamzin, is a slow, sometimes zigzag, but steady movement towards “true autocracy.” and then the elimination by the autocracy of the traditions of ancient popular government. For Karamzin, the power of the aristocracy, the oligarchy, the specific princes and the power of the people are not only two irreconcilable, but also hostile to the prosperity of the state forces. In autocracy, he says, there is a force that subjugates the people, the aristocracy and the oligarchy in the interests of the state.

Karamzin already considers Vladimir I and Yaroslav the Wise to be autocratic sovereigns, that is, rulers with unlimited power. But after the death of the first, the autocratic power weakened and the state lost its independence. The subsequent history of Russia, according to Karamzin, is at first a difficult struggle with appanages, intensively ending with their liquidation under Vasily III, the son of Ivan III Vasilyevich, then the autocracy gradually overcomes all encroachments on power, and hence on the well-being of the state on the part of the boyars. During the reign of Vasily the Dark, “the number of sovereign princes decreased, and the power of the sovereign became unlimited in relation to the people” / 4, p. 219 /. The creator of true autocracy Karamzin draws Ivan III, who made the nobles and the people revere him” / 5, p. 214 /. Under Vasily III, princes, boyars and people became equal in relation to autocratic power. True, under the young Ivan IV, the autocracy was threatened by the oligarchy - the boyar council headed by Elena Glinskaya, and after her death - "the perfect aristocracy or the power of the boyars" / 7, p. 29 /. Blinded by ambitious encroachments on power, the boyars forgot the interests of the state, “they cared not about making the supreme power beneficial, but about establishing it in their own hands” / 7, p. 52 /. Only as an adult, Ivan IV was able to put an end to boyar rule. A new threat to autocratic power arose from the side of the boyars during the illness of Ivan IV in 1553. But Ivan the Terrible recovered, and suspicion of all dignitaries remained in his heart. From the point of view of Karamzin, Russian history of the 15th - early 17th centuries is a period of genuine national revival, hindered by the consequences of the incorrect economic policy of the Rurikovichs. Liberation from the Golden Horde yoke, strengthening of international trade relations and the international authority of Russia, the wise legislation of Vasily III and Ivan the Terrible, the gradual provision by the autocracy of the basic legal and property guarantees of subjects. On the whole, Karamzin draws the path to this revival as a continuous progressive process, associated primarily with the development of true autocracy, which was only complicated by the negative personal qualities of the bearers of autocratic power: the immorality and cruelty of Vasily III, Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov, Vasily Shuisky, the weakness of Fyodor Ivanovich, the excessive kindness of Ivan III.

N.M. Karamzin in "The History of the Russian State" emphasizes three political forces characteristic of the historical path of Russia: autocracy based on the army, bureaucracy and clergy, aristocracy and oligarchy represented by the boyars and the people. What is the people in the understanding of N.M. Karamzin?

In the traditional sense, the "people" - the inhabitants of the country, the state - is found in the "History" quite often. But even more often Karamzin put a different meaning into it. In 1495, Ivan III arrived in Novgorod, where he was met by "hierarchs, clergy, officials, people" /5, p. 167/. In 1498, after the death of the eldest son Ivan III, "the court, the nobles and the people were concerned about the issue of succession to the throne" /5, p.170/. “The boyars, together with the people, expressed concern after the departure of Ivan the Terrible to Alexandrov Sloboda” / 8, p. 188 /. Boris Godunov is asked to become king by "the clergy, the synod, the people" /9, p.129/. These examples show that Karamzin included in the concept of “people” everything that did not belong to the clergy, the boyars, the army, and government officials. The "people" is present in the "History ..." as a spectator or a direct participant in the events. However, in a number of cases, this concept did not satisfy Karamzin, and he, trying to more accurately and deeply convey his ideas, used the terms "citizens", "Russians".

The historiographer introduces another concept of "rabble", not only as a common people, but also in an openly political sense - when describing the class protest movements of the oppressed masses: "the mob of Nizhny Novgorod, as a result of a rebellious veche, killed many boyars" / 3, p. 106 / in 1304, in 1584, during the uprising in Moscow, “armed people, mob, citizens, boyar children” rushed to the Kremlin / 9, p. 8 /.

In a dismissive sense, the concept of "rabble" reflects Karamzin's idea of ​​powerful class protest movements in feudal Russia as manifestations of anarchist tendencies. Karamzin believed that the desire for liberty, which is incompatible with state interests, is always inherent in the people. But, denying the progressive political significance of the people in national history, the historiographer makes them the highest bearer of assessments of the plans and activities of representatives of the autocratic power. In the "History of the Russian State" the people become an impartial arbiter when we are talking about the struggle of the autocracy against the aristocracy and the oligarchy, then as a passive but interested spectator and even participant, when, by the will of historical fate, he himself finds himself face to face with the autocracy. In these cases, the presence in the "History ..." of the people becomes the most important creative technique of Karamzin, a means of expressing the author's attitude to the events described. The voice of the historian, merging with the “popular opinion” /39, p.21-22/, seems to burst into the narrative of the “History ...”.

In the "History of the Russian State" Karamzin attaches broad semantic meanings to popular opinion. First of all, people's feelings - from love to hatred for the autocrats. “There is no government that would not need the love of the people for its success,” proclaims the historiographer / 7, p. 12 /. The love of the people for the autocrat as the highest criterion for evaluating his actions and at the same time as a force capable of deciding the fate of the autocrat sounds especially strong in the last volumes of the History of the Russian State. Punished for a crime (the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry) by Providence, Godunov, despite all his efforts to win the love of the people, in the end finds himself without his support at a difficult moment for himself in the fight against False Dmitry. “Peoples are always grateful,” Karamzin writes, “leaving the sky to judge the secret of Borisov’s heart, the Russians sincerely praised the tsar, but, recognizing him as a tyrant, naturally hated him both for the present and for the past ...” / 8, p. 64 /. The situations in the historiographer's imagination are repeated both with False Dmitry, who, by his imprudence, contributed to the cooling of the people's love for him, and with Vasily Shuisky: equally important in the eyes of the people” /11, p.85/.

Thus, Karamzin, with the help of The History of the Russian State, told the whole of Russia about his views, ideas and statements.

By the time of writing the "History of the Russian State" Karamzin had come a long way of philosophical, moral and literary searches, which left a deep imprint on the idea and process of creating the "History ...". The era was not imbued with the conviction that without understanding the past, searching for patterns of social and cultural development of mankind, it is impossible to assess the present and try to look into the future: “Karamzin was among those thinkers who began to develop new principles for understanding history, national identity, and the idea of ​​continuity in development. civilization and enlightenment” /48, p.28/.

“N.M. Karamzin wrote truly at a turning point for Russia, and for the whole of Europe, times” / 58, p. 421 /, the main events of which were the Great French Revolution, which overturned the foundations of feudalism and absolutism; the appearance of M.M. Speransky with his liberal projects, the Jacobin terror, Napoleon and his very work were the answer to the questions posed by the era.

A.S. Pushkin called Karamzin "the last chronicler". But the author himself “protests” against this: “The reader will notice that I am not describing the event separately, by years and days, but by combining them for the most convenient perception. The historian is not a chronicler: the latter looks only at the time, and the former at the quality and connection of deeds: he can make a mistake in the distribution of places, but he must indicate his place to everything ”/1, p.V/. So, it is not the time-based description of events that interests him primarily, but "their properties and connection." And in this sense, N.M. Karamzin should not be called the "last chronicler", but the first truly genuine researcher of his fatherland.

An important principle in writing "History ..." is the principle of following the truth of history, as he understands it, even if it was sometimes bitter. “History is not a novel, and the world is not a garden where everything should be pleasant. It depicts the real world” /1, p. VIII/ notes Karamzin. But he understands the historian's limited ability to achieve historical truth, since in history "as in human affairs, there is an admixture of lies, but the nature of truth is always more or less preserved, and this is enough for us to form a general idea of ​​\u200b\u200bpeople and deeds” /1, p. VIII/. Consequently, the historian can create from the material that he has and he cannot produce “gold from copper, but he must also purify copper, he must know the whole price and properties; to reveal the great where it is hidden, and not to give the small the rights of the great” /1, p. XI/. Scientific authenticity is the leitmotif that constantly sounds restlessly throughout Karamzin's "History ..."

Another major achievement of the "History ..." is that a new philosophy of history is clearly revealed here: the historicism of the "History ...", which has just begun to take shape. Historicism discovered the principles of constant change, development and improvement of human society. He gave rise to an understanding of the place of each people in the history of mankind, the uniqueness of the culture of each science, the peculiarities of the national character. arts, customs, laws. Industry, moreover, Karamzin strives to “combine what has been handed down to us over the centuries into a clear system by harmonious convergence of parts” / 1, p. XI/. This comprehensive approach to history, imbued with the concept of the unity of the historical process, revealing the cause-and-effect relationships of events, forms the basis of Karamzin's historical concept.

But not in everything the historian was ahead of his time: “he was the son of the time both in the general noble mood of his ideology, although ennobled by enlightenment ideas and in the general providentialist approach to history, despite the desire to identify its everyday patterns, and sometimes naive attempts to assess the role of that or any other person in history. which fully corresponded to the spirit of that era” /58, p.452/.

His providentialism is felt in the assessment of major historical events. So, for example, he sincerely believes that the appearance of False Dmitry I in the history of Russia was a hand of conduct that punished Boris Godunov, in his opinion, for the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry

It is also impossible not to say that in his "History ..." Karamzin posed the problem of the artistic embodiment of the country's history. “Artistic presentation as an indispensable law of historical narrative was deliberately proclaimed by the historian” / 58, p. 428 /, who believed that: historical figures lived "not by one dry name ..." /1, p. III/. In the preface N.M. Karamzin lists: “order, clarity, strength, painting. He creates from the given substance…” /1, p. III/. Karamzin's "he" is a historian, and the authenticity of the material, the orderliness and clarity of presentation, the pictorial power of language - these are the expressive means at his disposal.

Precisely because of its literary nature, "History ..." was criticized by contemporaries and historians of subsequent years. So, “Karamzin’s desire to turn a historical presentation into an entertaining story that has a moral impact on the reader did not meet the ideas of S.M. Solovyov on the tasks of historical science. He writes that Karamzin looks at his history from the side of art” /67, p.18/. N.M. Tikhomirov accuses N.M. Karamzin's tendency "sometimes even to deviate somewhat from the source, just to present vivid pictures, vivid characters" /66, p.284/. Yes, we have fundamental works created by powerful research teams, but there are very few fascinating books on Russian history. The writer can deliberately complicate his style of presentation, complicate the language, create a multifaceted plot. And on the other hand, he can bring the reader closer to his work, make him a participant in the events, make the historical image real, which Karamzin did and his “History ...” was read with great pleasure. So is it possible to accuse a historian only of the fact that his manner of presentation is interesting to the reader?

“Karamzin got the opportunity to test his understanding of the reasons for the development of the historical process, his creative principles in practice. For us, this is especially interesting, since from the standpoint of modern scientific methodology, we clearly understand all the historical limitations of Karamzin's views” / 58, p. 429 /. But I think that the historian should not be judged from the heights of historical and dialectical materialism, but from the positions of those scientific possibilities that he had at his disposal.

So, Karamzin considered power, the state, to be the driving force of the historical process. And the whole Russian historical process appeared to him as a struggle between the autocratic principles and other manifestations of power - democracy, oligarchic and aristocratic rule, specific tendencies. The formation of autocracy, and then autocracy, became the pivot on which, according to Karamzin, the entire social life of Russia was strung. In connection with this approach, Karamzin created a tradition of Russian history, entirely dependent on the history of the autocracy. The structure and text of The History of the Russian State make it possible to quite accurately establish the specific periodization of history used by Karamzin. Briefly, it will look like this:

· The first period - from the calling of the Varangian princes (from the "first Russian autocrat" / 2, p. 7 /) to Svyatopolk Vladimirovich, who divided the states into destinies.

· The second period - from Svyatopolk Vladimirovich to Yaroslav II Vsevolodovich, who restored the unity of the state.

· The third period - from Yaroslav II Vsevolodovich to Ivan III (the time of the fall of the Russian state).

The fourth period - the time of the reign of Ivan III and Vasily III (the process of eliminating feudal fragmentation).

Fifth period - the reign of Ivan the Terrible and Fedor Ivanovich (aristocratic form of government)

The sixth period covers the Time of Troubles, which begins with the accession of Boris Godunov

Thus, the history of Russia according to Karamzin is a struggle of autocracy and fragmentation. The first person who brought autocracy to Russia was the Varangian Rurik, and the author of "History ..." is a consistent supporter of the Norman theory of the origin of the Russian state. Karamzin writes that the Varangians "should have been more educated than the Slavs", /2, p68/ and that the Varangians "legislators of our ancestors, were their mentors in the art of war... in the art of navigation" /2, p.145-146/. The rule of the Normans was noted by the author as "profitable and calm" /2, p.68/.

Along with this, Karamzin argues that the history of mankind is the history of world progress, the basis of which is the spiritual improvement of people, and that the history of mankind is made by great people. And, based on this, it is not accidental that the author built his work according to the following principle: each chapter contains a description of the life of an individual prince and is named after this ruler.

Our historiography has long and firmly established the image of Karamzin as an ardent monarchist, an unconditional supporter of autocracy. It was said that his love for the fatherland is just a love for autocracy. But today we can say that such assessments are a scientific stereotype of the past years, one of the ideologies on which historical science and historiography have been built for so long. There is no need to rehabilitate or justify Karamzin in any way. He was and remains a prominent spokesman for autocracy in Russia, a noble historiographer. But autocracy was not for him a primitive understanding of power, intended to suppress the "serfs" and raise the nobility, but was the personification of the high human idea of ​​\u200b\u200border, the safety of subjects, their well-being, the guarantor of the disclosure of all the best human qualities, civil and personal; public arbiter /58, p.434/. And he painted the ideal image of such a government.

“The main goal of strong government is to create conditions for the maximum disclosure of human abilities - a farmer, a writer, a scientist; it is this state of society that leads to true progress not only individual peoples, but the whole of humanity” /45, p.43/.

And this is possible if the society is ruled by an enlightened monarch. The great merit of Karamzin as a historian is that he not only used a magnificent corpus of sources for his time, but also the fact that he discovered many of the historical materials himself thanks to his work in archives with manuscripts. The source base of his work was unprecedented for that time. He was the first to introduce into scientific circulation the Laurentian and Trinity Chronicles, the Sudebnik of 1497, the writings of Cyril of Turov, and many diplomatic documents. He made extensive use of Greek chronicles and messages from Eastern authors, domestic and foreign epistolary and memoir literature. His story has become a truly Russian historical encyclopedia.

In a contradictory stream of opinions of contemporaries and later readers of the History of the Russian State, which eventually gave rise to many years of fierce controversy. One can easily find interesting feature- no matter how enthusiastic or harsh reviews of Karamzin's work were, on the whole they were unanimous in highly appreciated that part of the "History of the Russian State", which Karamzin himself called "Notes". The “Notes”, as it were, were taken out of the framework of the main text of the “History ...” and significantly exceeded its volume, already outwardly made the work of the historiographer different from the historical writings of the previous and subsequent times. Through the "Notes" Karamzin offered his readers a historical essay on two levels: artistic and scientific. They opened to the reader the possibility of an alternative view of Karamzin's view of the events of the past. "Notes" contain extensive extracts, quotations from sources, retelling of documents (often they are presented in their entirety), references to the historical writings of predecessors and contemporaries. Karamzin, to one degree or another, attracted all domestic publications about the events of national history until the beginning of the 17th century. and a number of foreign publications. As new volumes were being prepared, the number, and most importantly, the value of such materials, increased. And Karamzin decides to take a bold step - he expands their publication in the Notes. “If all the materials,” he wrote, “were collected, published, and purified by criticism, then I would only have to refer; but when most of them are in manuscript, in the dark; when hardly anything has been processed, explained, agreed upon, then one must arm oneself with patience” /1, p. XIII/. Therefore, the Notes became an important collection of sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

In essence, "Notes" is the first and most complete anthology of sources on Russian history up to the beginning of the 17th century. At the same time, this is the scientific part of the "History of the Russian State", in which Karamzin sought to confirm the story of the fatherland's past, analyzed the opinions of his predecessors, argued with them, and proved his own correctness.

Karamzin deliberately or forcedly turned his "Notes" into a kind of compromise between the requirements of scientific knowledge about the past and the consumer use of historical material, that is, selective, based on the desire to select sources and facts that correspond to his design. For example, when talking about the accession of Boris Godunov, the historiographer does not conceal artistic means to depict the general popular enthusiasm, following the Approved Charter of the Zemsky Sobor in 1598. But Karamzin was also aware of another source, which he placed in the Notes, telling that the “delight” was explained by rude coercion on the part of Boris Godunov’s minions.

However, when publishing sources in the Notes, Karamzin did not always accurately reproduce the texts. Here, there is a modernization of spelling, and semantic additions, and the omission of entire phrases. As a result, in the "Notes" it was as if a text that never existed was created. An example of this is the publication of "The Tale of Understanding Prince Andrei Ivanovich Staritsky" /7, p.16/. Often the historiographer published in notes those parts of the texts of the sources that corresponded to his narrative, excluding places that contradicted this.

All of the above makes us treat with caution the texts placed in the Notes. And this is not surprising. "Notes" for Karamzin is a proof not only of how it was, but also a confirmation of his views on how it was. The initial position of this approach was expressed by the historiographer as follows: “But history, they say, is filled with lies; let's say rather that in it, as in human affairs, there is an admixture of falsehood, but the character of truth is always more or less preserved; and this is sufficient for us to compose general concept about people and deeds” /1, p.12/. The satisfaction of the historiographer with the "character of the truth" about the past, in essence, meant for him to follow those sources that corresponded to his historical concept.

The ambiguity of assessments of the “History of the Russian State”, creativity and personality of N.M. Karamzin are characteristic from the time of the publication of the first volume of the "History of the Russian State" up to the present day. But everyone is unanimous that this is the rarest example in the history of world culture, when a monument of historical thought would be perceived by contemporaries as descendants as the pinnacle of fiction.

Karamzin in history is characterized by strict solemnity, a clear and, as it were, slowed down rhythm of presentation, a more bookish language. Noticeably deliberate stylistic property in the descriptions of deeds and characters, a clear drawing of particulars. The controversy of scientists and publicists of the late 1810s - early 1830s. in connection with the appearance of volumes of Karamzin's "History ...", reflections and responses of the first readers, especially the Decembrists and Pushkin, in relation to the legacy of Karamzin of the next generations, knowledge of the "History of the Russian State" in the development of historical science, literature, the Russian language - topics that have long attracted Attention. However, "History ..." Karamzin as a phenomenon scientific life not yet studied enough. Meanwhile, this work left a sensual imprint on the ideas of Russian people about the past of their fatherland, and indeed, about history. For almost a century there was no other historical work in Russia. And there was no other historical work that, having lost its former significance in the eyes of scientists, would have remained so long in the everyday life of the so-called culture. general public.

The "History of the Russian State" continued to be perceived as a given of Russian culture even when knowledge about Ancient Russia was significantly enriched and new concepts of the historical development of Russia and the historical process as a whole began to dominate. Without knowledge of "History ..." Karamzin was unthinkable to be called in Russia an educated person. And, probably, V.O. Klyuchevsky found the correct explanation for this, noting that "Karamzin's view of history ... was based on moral and psychological aesthetics" / 37, p. 134 /. Figurative perception precedes logical perception, and these first images are retained in consciousness longer than logical constructions, which are supplanted later by more solid concepts.

Historical knowledge is the most important part of our cultural life. Education in history is inseparable from moral education, from the formation of socio-political views, even aesthetic ideas. The publication of the "History of the Russian State", and in its entirety, helps to see not only the primary sources major events in the history of Russian science, literature, language, but also facilitates the study of historical psychology, the history of social consciousness. Therefore, the work of N.M. Karamzin for a long time became a model of approaches to the study of the main plots of Russian history.

The historical views of Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin were formed, improved in accordance with the whole structure of his life, with his gifted, well-balanced nature and his colossal historical intuition, artistic writing talent, which helped him to penetrate into the essence of the era and the characters of historical figures.

Having already embarked on the path of a scientist, having given himself entirely to the history of Russia, Karamzin was guided by the great goal of unfolding his own great history before the people. It was this understanding of the great goal, the great general useful work that N.M. Karamzin throughout the creation of his "History". He returns to this thought on its pages repeatedly.

And the very meaning of his historical concept, expressed in the twelve volumes of "History" and "Note on Ancient and New Russia", in which he quite fully expounded his view of the historical process, consists in the movement of Russia from historical non-existence through thorns to the heights of the organization of the state system and, on the basis of this, to the heights of civilization, as N.M. understood them. Karamzin.

The account “from the great” is also visible in his maxim that “nothing great is done for money,” expressed in the Note. And the entire "Note" with its conceptual assessment of the history of Russia, with its passionate criticism of modern imperfections, and even criminal violations in the Russian state system by N.M. Karamzin, clearly testifies to the depth of the historian's civic interest in Russia's movement along the path of progress, again in his, Karamzin's, understanding.

N.M. Karamzin - this staunch monarchist, a supporter of the autocratic power of the tsar as a guarantee of the prosperity of Russia, its subjects, each person individually, lashes out with fierce criticism at the existing vices of governance in the country, which remove the country from true greatness.

He sharply criticizes financial policy governments, squandering of the treasury, inflation associated with foreign trade problems after the conclusion of the Tilsit peace.

N.M. Karamzin accomplished the feat of a loner, but this does not mean at all that he was alone in his work. Firstly, the work that he conceived had fertile ground under it in the form of world historiography and Russian historical writings that preceded it, and secondly, everyone who purely and sincerely loved the history of the Fatherland, who was devoted to scientific its reading, which N.M. actually claimed. Karamzin, gave him moral and material support, sympathy, sincerely helped him.

And yet N.M. Karamzin did not repeat his predecessors in anything. He did not repeat them, first of all, according to his plan, the scope of the problem. His "History", although not finished, cut short by the illness and death of the historiographer on the events of the "interregnum", the misfortunes of Russia during the period of "troubles", embraces almost more than two thousand years and begins with the first ancient mentions of Roman and Greek writers about the peoples, living on the territory of Russia. In combination with the "Note", which, albeit in a compressed, but conceptually complete form, brings the history of Russia to the beginning of the 19th century, N.M. Karamzin gave his reader the opportunity to imagine the whole path of the country as a whole.

He did not repeat them in the historical and philosophical orientation of his work. N.M. Karamzin wrote truly at a turning point for Russia, and indeed for all of Europe, time. And his work itself was a response to the questions posed by the era. In the first phrases of the Notes, he speaks of this quite definitely: " The present is a consequence of the past. To judge the former, one must remember the latter. One is complemented by the other, so to speak, and in connection appears clearer to thoughts.".

The same thoughts are expressed by him in the first lines of his "History"; " History is, in a certain sense, the sacred book of nations: the main, necessary; a mirror of their being and activity; the tablet of revelations and rules; the covenant of ancestors to posterity; addition, explanation of the present and an example of the future"; history, according to N.M. Karamzin," imagining a series of centuries with their passions, customs, deeds, expands the limits of our own being; By its creative power we live with people of all times, we see and hear them, we love and hate them, without even thinking about the benefits, we already enjoy the contemplation of diverse cases and characters that occupy the mind and nourish the sensitivity".

That was the era, the main event of which was the Great French Revolution, which overturned the foundations of feudalism and absolutism and opened the way for new bourgeois public relations. The developing bourgeois way of life had its impact on all aspects of Russian life, including the spiritual sphere. Enlightenment views of Novikov, radicalism of Radishchev, the emergence of the future Decembrist ideology indirectly reflected these changes, on the one hand.

On the other hand, the tsarist government, renewed by the conspiracy of 1801, headed by an intelligent monarch, who was also shocked by the murder of his father, tried, as is often the case at the beginning of any new government, with a few liberal steps without a radical breakdown of the system to calm the minds, to bring rapidly dilapidated autocratic temple in some accordance with the socio-economic requirements of the time. The government was criticized "from the left" and "from the right". It seemed to both of them that life was changing, but it was going "in the wrong direction" at all, and only they were destined to give it a truly right direction.

Widely educated, well-read, having traveled half of Europe N.M. Karamzin found himself in the whirlpool of all these new European and Russian tendencies. He vigilantly peered into life, compared modern events with the movement of world history, and its modern heroes with heroes of the past, painfully reflected on current affairs, sought, using the experience of history, to determine the path of Russia in the coming years. This was partly reflected in his Letters of a Russian Traveler, but in full measure in the History of the Russian State.

Having taken up his monumental work, the historian sought to comprehend the entire course of Russian history, to illuminate its course from the standpoint of his time. And in this sense, the present dictated to him the ways of understanding the past, just as the past came to help in understanding the present. It was a completely new, conceptual history, glimpses of which only flickered in the writings of previous historians.

But it would be wrong to think that we are facing an ordinary "propagandist" who is trying to squeeze his ideas into the Procrustean bed of history, push it apart, adapt it for his ideological manipulations. This is not true. The era and his own talent as a scientist and artist, able to penetrate the essence of a social phenomenon, only dictated to N.M. Karamzin's depth, the scale of approaches to the historical past, helped to see the retrospection of the process.

He worked out the instrument of this cognition, comprehended it in accordance with the level of historical knowledge then achieved and tirelessly improved it, created it anew in many respects, and in this sense taught future generations of scientists a truly research lesson, which alone is capable of justifying a historian who takes up a learned pen. It was in this sense that his historical vision was relevant, modern, he assessed history from the height of the tasks set by society and created a toolkit of knowledge corresponding to these tasks.

A.S. Pushkin called N.M. Karamzin "the last chronicler". This figurative characterization, given by a genius, turned out to be as brilliant as it was erroneous. It was not such only in the sense that N.M. Karamzin was indeed "the last" in time of those scientists who tried to recreate the history of the country. But the author of the "History" and "Notes" can least of all be awarded the title of an archaic, industrious chronicler.

N.M. Karamzin himself protests against identifying him with the chronicler: "The reader will notice that I do not describe the deeds separately (emphasis added by the author - A.S.), by years and days, but I combine them for the most convenient impression in my memory. The historian is not a chronicler: the latter looks only at time, and the former at the property and connection of deeds; may make a mistake in the distribution of places, but must indicate their place to everything". So, it is not the time-based description of events that interests him primarily, but their "property and connection." And in this sense, N.M. Karamzin should not be called the "last chronicler", but the first truly genuine researcher of the history of his Fatherland.

He himself carefully explains to the reader what he understands by the words "property and connection". In essence, this is a whole scientific program, which sometimes does not interfere with a closer look even for those who today claim the high title of historian of their people. Of course, we will not find in it those methodological heights that came into the world along with discoveries in the field of social science in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

It is all the more surprising that at the beginning of the XIX century. N.M. Karamzin, relying on the world scientific potential achieved by that time, reflecting a lot on the experience of the past, guided by his colossal research and artistic intuition, formulated a number of research principles that are sometimes unresolved for the historian even today.

To the fore N.M. Karamzin certainly exposes love for the Fatherland, but he can hardly be suspected of leavened patriotism - it was not the same intellect, not the same artistic taste. He understands this love as a heightened interest in the history of his people, which is part of world history, as a thrilling experience for all the ups and downs sent down to Russia. He does not oppose this love to interest in the history of other peoples and states.

On the contrary, they complement and enrich each other. " If any history, - he writes, - even unskillfully written, is pleasant, as Pliny says, especially domestic ... We are all citizens, in Europe and in India, in Mexico and in Abyssinia; the personality of each is closely connected with the fatherland: we love it, because we love ourselves. Let the Greeks, the Romans captivate the imagination; they belong to the family of the human race, and are not strangers to us in their virtues and weaknesses, glory and disasters; but the Russian name has a special charm for us: my heart beats even stronger for Pozharsky than for Themistocles or Scipio"; for the historian, - N.M. Karamzin is sure, - " love for the fatherland gives his brush heat, strength, charm. Where there is no love, there is no soul".

His other principle is to follow the truth of history, no matter how bitter it is.. "History is not a novel and the world is not a garden where everything should be pleasant, N.M. Karamzin - she depicts the real world". What do we sometimes see in history?" the author asks. the bloody feast of the violent Romans", and the "monster of tyranny", "mistakes and robberies" - and all this is by no means just an unpleasant privilege Western history. We read something similar on the tablets of our Fatherland. There are "difficult pages" in the history of every nation - such is the thought of N.M. Karamzin.

Such a research principle of a historian as the desire to comprehend events from the inside, to look at them not from the height of centuries, not to look at them with the detached superiority of descendants, but to see through the eyes of a contemporary, is extremely important. " We must see for ourselves the actions and the actors: then we know the History", - writes N.M. Karamzin.

N.M. Karamzin understands the limited possibilities of the historian in comprehending historical truth, since in history, " as in human affairs, it can be straighter than a lie; however, the character of truth is always more or less preserved; and this is enough for us to form a general conception of people and deeds". The historian can and should create from the material that he has, he cannot produce "gold from copper, but he must also purify copper; he must know the price and property of everything; discover the great where it is hidden, and not give the small the rights of the great" .

So self-critically and rather modestly he evaluates his research capabilities, believing that the main thing for a historian is to correctly grasp the “general concept” and, if the material allows him to complete the rest, depicting “what is or was, and not what could be” . Scientific clarity and conscientiousness are the leitmotif that constantly sounds restlessly throughout Karamzin's "History".

N.M. Karamzin proclaimed as one of his principles the creation of the history of society as a whole, a description of everything that is "a part of the civil existence of people: the successes of the mind, art, customs, laws, industry", and sought to "combine what has been passed down to us for centuries into a system This complex approach to history, permeated with the concept of the unity of the historical process, revealing cause-and-effect relationships of events, is the core of the historical concept of N.M. Karamzin.

He highly appreciated N.M. Karamzin conscientiousness in the approach to historical material. His notes are, according to the author himself, "a painful sacrifice" of authenticity.

And, finally, it is impossible not to say that in his "History" N.M. Karamzin also posed the problem of the artistic embodiment of the country's history. The artistic style of writing was chosen by the historian not by chance, and the point here is not that his literary talent clearly predisposed to this. The artistry of presentation, as an indispensable law of historical narration, was deliberately proclaimed by the historian, who believed that "to see actions and actors", to strive to ensure that historical figures live in memory "not with one dry name, but with some moral physiognomy" - it means knowing and feeling history.

He considered power, the state, to be the driving force of the historical process. which, on the one hand, concentrates the various efforts of society, and on the other hand, is itself a powerful stimulus for social movement. And the entire Russian historical process, according to Karamzin, was essentially a struggle between the beginnings of the autocrats and other manifestations of power - people's rule, oligarchic or aristocratic rule, specific tendencies. The formation of first unity, and then autocracy, became the pivot on which, according to the historian, the entire social life of Russia was strung.

The whole history of Russia is divided, in his opinion, into "the most ancient" (from Rurik to Ivan III), "middle" (from Ivan III to Peter I) and "new" (from Peter I to Alexander I). The main feature of the first period was the system of appanages, the second - autocracy and the third - "change of civil customs". What is the reason for such a great stability of the "state" approach to history? It is very simple and lies in the fact that it is in the political sphere, as the most vividly expressing the socio-economic, material interests of people, classes, estates, that the historical process itself is sublimated. On the surface remains the problem of power, reflecting these material interests.

Karamzin absolutely correctly caught the external, superficial outline of events. He convincingly determined that in those periods of its history, when Russia relied on a strong central government, it achieved great success both in the organization of internal life and in the sphere of foreign policy.

The destruction of autocracy led to anarchy, internecine strife, bloody struggle, ruining the people's forces, and in the external sphere - to defeat and loss of independence; and only a new revival of autocracy brought salvation to the country. Of the European countries, perhaps, no other has survived such a long, such a monstrous specific civil strife, which ended with Russia's loss of independence, the establishment of two hundred and forty years of foreign yoke and another two hundred years of constant pressure from Polish-Lithuanian state in the West, the constant raids of hostile Kazan rulers and Crimeans on the southern and southeastern borders of the country.

These events, which determined the course of Russia's development for hundreds of years, struck the imagination of any researcher who touched them. They struck N.M. Karamzin with their connection with the problem of a unified statehood. The people's misfortune put pressure on the consciousness of Russia for too long, and this found indirect expression in the concept of N.M. Karamzin, for whom, as we have already seen, love for the Fatherland with all its ups and downs, successes and failures, joys and tragedies was sacred.

And here is the general result, which brings N.M. Karamzin: "What, besides unlimited autocracy, can produce unity of action in this colossus?" "Russia was founded by victories and unity of command, perished from discord, but was saved by autocracy."

Essentially, the line of struggle between two principles in the history of Russia - centralization and decentralization - he conducted brilliantly, vividly personified it, gave it an artistic and psychological coloring, which made it even more vital, real. To deny this line just because there are no other, deeper grounds behind it is, perhaps, hardly expedient. And this richness of the palette of the political history of the country returns to us together with the "History" of N.M. Karamzin.

In our minds, as already noted, the image of Karamzin has long and firmly developed as an ardent monarchist, an unconditional supporter of autocracy, a man who, as was said in the epigram of that time (repeated with pleasure now) for "the need for autocracy and the charms of the whip" ( although, as recent research shows, A. S. Pushkin, to whom this epigram is attributed, did not at all consider Karamzin a champion of serfdom). It was also said that love for the Fatherland for him meant, first of all, love for autocracy, that he failed to be a true patriot, because he denied his people freedom and liberties.

It seems to me that assessments of this kind are one of those numerous stereotypes not backed up by science, one of those "ideologisms" on which our social thought has been based for so long and thoughtlessly.

Autocracy was for N.M. Karamzin not with a primitive understanding of power, intended to "drag and not let go", suppress "serfs" and support the nobility, but was the personification of the high human idea of ​​\u200b\u200border, the safety of subjects, their well-being, the guarantor of revealing all the best human qualities, civil and personal.

In the best traditions of enlightenment, in the spirit of enlightened absolutism, he painted for himself an ideal image of such a government, which was hardly ever and anywhere possible at all. His autocracy is a beautiful utopia of a noble intellectual, which itself was shattered to smithereens by the cruelty of the country's past history and the real contemporary life.

First of all, autocracy for N.M. Karamzin is the supreme arbiter of society, a force that balances between the tendencies of the rule of the people, the aristocracy, and between different estates. The main goal of a strong government is to create conditions for the maximum disclosure of human abilities - a farmer, a writer, a scientist; it is this state of society that leads to true progress not only of individual peoples, but of all mankind.

This is possible only if enlightenment reigns in society, if the monarch leads the people in this direction. N.M. Karam-zin considered the suppression of the oligarchy, whose "torment" for Russia was "the most dangerous and most intolerable", to be a particularly important task of the autocracy. “It is easier to hide from one,” he wrote, not at all idealizing the real monarchical power, “than from twenty persecutors.”

Of particular importance is N.M. Karamzin to the fulfillment by the monarch of his high duties of leading the country; its main duty is to "watch over the happiness of the people", and where there is duty, there is law, "autocracy is not the absence of laws." "The sovereign, no less than his subjects, must fulfill his sacred duties." It is not the personal qualities of the autocrat that concern the historian, but the expression of state plans by him. Autocracy in this sense for N.M. Karamzin is the "image of the Fatherland", since all authorities are united in it, while enlightenment is the basis of the prosperity of the Fatherland.

Defending the idea of ​​autocracy in its humanistic and enlightened expression, standing up for the ideal, N.M. Karamzin did not spare the real bearers of this idea. He denounced Yaroslav the Wise for introducing a system of appanages, leaving no stone unturned from petty possessive self-lovers of the "specific" period. He frankly wrote about the deceit, cruelty, envy of Yuri Dolgoruky, did not spare the first Moscow princes, in particular the son of Alexander Nevsky Yuri Alexandrovich, for "vile intrigues" in the Horde. Gets from him and his beloved hero - Dmitry Donskoy.

He reproaches him for cowardice, shown in repelling the raid of Tokhtamysh in 1382. Speaking about the personal qualities of the ruler, he, as applied to Dmitry Donskoy, allows himself to make the following remark: “But the virtues of the sovereign, contrary to the strength, security, tranquility of the state, are not virtue." Highly placing the state abilities of Ivan III, he nevertheless denounces his cowardice during the period of the struggle with Akhmat, in particular, the departure of the grand-ducal family to the north of the country, where the retinue of Sophia Vitovtovna mocked the villagers.

He frankly writes about the cruelty of Ivan III, who threw his grandson Dmitry into prison, where he died already in the time of Vasily III. The unfortunate Dmitry, according to N.M. Karamzin, became "one of the touching victims of a fierce policy," and this policy was aimed at establishing "autocracy." And this is not about some unknown rulers, but about the pillars of Russia - Ivan III and Vasily III.

Using the example of Ivan the Terrible, the historian shows how a monarch should not be. The description of his reign after the death of Anastasia is essentially a terrible martyrology, an endless chain of villainies against all strata of Russian society, a description of some kind of monsters. "Tyranny is only an abuse of autocracy," he convinces. But it was about a bright representative of the Rurik house, who did a lot to establish the autocratic power, so dear to N.M. Karamzin. And it is no coincidence that Metropolitan Filaret of St. Petersburg, having attended a public reading at the Russian Academy of Sciences of excerpts from the "History" dedicated to the time of Ivan the Terrible, said that it was hard for him to see the "gloomy features" that the historian "put" "in the name of the Russian Tsar" .

A derogatory characterization is given by Karamzin and Boris Godunov, who sacrificed state interests to his ambition, and Shuisky. And along the way, he vividly, figuratively, juicy draws the ulcers of autocratic rule, despotic arbitrariness, favoritism, abuses of the tsarist administration, careerism, the emerging bureaucracy and the consequences of this process that are deadly for Russia, the luxury of those in power.

Peter I N.M. Karamzin estimates very contradictory. On the one hand, this is a sovereign who has done a lot for the greatness of Russia, strengthening autocracy in it, and on the other, he went for such a “perfect appropriation of European customs, which caused enormous damage to the country. Passion for the new in his actions crossed all boundaries." Everything Russian, special, was eradicated, "the higher ones separated from the lower ones" (this observation, which has a social character, is striking). “We have become citizens of the world, but in some cases we have ceased to be citizens of Russia,” Peter is to blame.

As you know, his "History" N.M. Karamzin prefaced the "dedication" to Alexander I, which, both in the past and now, surprises readers with loyal rhetoric. At the end of this monument to court acting, which, perhaps, freed the "History" from censorship and gave it the stamp of the king, N.M. Karamzin even declares: "The history of the people belongs to the tsar."

At one time, the historian M.P. Pogodin called "Dedication" "sub-carrier". But even here N.M. Karamzin managed to give his assessment of the reign and recommend to Alexander I steps in the spirit of the concept of enlightened absolutism. Noting that with the victory over Napoleon a “new era” began in Russia, in which the majority of thinking society then believed, N.M. Karamzin further emphasizes that peace is necessary for the sovereign in order to "rule for the benefit of people, for the success of morality, virtue, sciences, civil arts, public and private welfare." The program is outlined; again N.M. Karamzin returns to his favorite, but, alas, utopian idea of ​​autocracy as a power that exists for the sake of the prosperity of society and the well-being of man.

Domestic history under the pen of N.M. Karamzin moves along with the history of Europe and Asia, they are inseparable from each other. He tells in detail, using eastern sources, about the creation of the power of Genghis Khan and the beginning of his military enterprises; and turning to the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols on Russian lands, he acquaints the reader not only with their internal situation, but also with the state of the western borders - the relationship of Russia with Hungary, Sweden, the Order, Lithuania.

The reader gets acquainted with the discovery of America, the history of the "split Luther", the invention of printing, and other remarkable events in world history. With each period, the complexity and multi-layeredness of national history grows in the presentation of N.M. Karamzin, more and more new lines are included, due to the development of the country, the events taking place in neighboring countries.

An organic component of national history is N.M. Karamzin people. Of course, he does not stand at the forefront of history like the great princes, kings, famous generals, church hierarchs, but his invisible presence is felt everywhere. This presence of the people in history, it seems, was laid down in the narration by the author of our famous chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years" and since then this tradition, enriched, has gone from chronicle to chronicle, from one historical work to another.

The people are seen and heard in the descriptions of rural life, crafts; the historian conveys to his reader pictures of the hard work of the plowman and artisan, the feat of arms of ordinary people in numerous wars. The people are visible on the fortress walls during the defense of Russian cities from foreign invaders and during the internecine battles of Russian princes. His formidable voice is heard during numerous riots since Kievan Rus. N.M. Karamzin practically does not bypass any major popular performances of antiquity.

Increasingly, his pen turns to pages describing popular unrest during the construction of the Muscovite kingdom and its further strengthening in the 16th century. "Moscow was agitated," began the "murmur of the people" - this refrain is very constant in the "History", dedicated to the period of the creation of the Russian centralized state. We cannot give up the idea that all the big politics of the royal palace, the intrigues of the boyars, the struggle of the ancient princely and boyar clans took place against the backdrop of the tireless activity of the masses, their interest in this or that political enterprise.

And to the same people, as N.M. Karamzin, one often has to pay a high price for the manifestation of certain political sympathies and antipathies. People's blood flows like a river on the pages of the "History of the Russian State".

Creating "History", N.M. Karamzin cast his mind's eye not only over the entire movement of Russian society, but also constantly kept in mind the history of Russia, as part of European and global history. It was not an artificial Europeanism of a Westerner or a tribute to the comparative-historical method of presentation. For him, the entire history of the continent - and more broadly: the entire history of Eurasia - was a single whole, only manifested in the specifics of individual countries. It was also the political approach of a mature, deep mind, free both from the tendencies of pro-Western nihilism and Russophile isolationism.

The very appearance in the East of Europe of a large East Slavic state N.M. Karamzin considers it as a natural phenomenon that followed the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of new states on its ruins. Russia, he writes, entered the "general system" of the European peoples after Rome "weakened in languor and fell, crushed by the muscle of the northern barbarians." Until the middle of the 11th century, according to the historian, Russia was in no way inferior in strength and civic education to the first European powers ..., having the same character, the same laws, customs, state charters ..., appeared in the new political system of Europe with substantial rights to celebrity and with the important benefit of being under the influence of Greece, the only power , uncontested by the barbarians".

What we slowly approached with great hesitation, discussions, bursts of nihilism only very recently, N.M. Karamzin tried to substantiate already at the beginning of the 19th century.

From a pan-European perspective, N.M. Karamzin and the onset of the period of feudal fragmentation. The disintegration into destinies, he writes, is a "general ulcer" of that time, characteristic of all of Europe. It was here that Russia's lagging behind the West began. In the course of the "partition" and "internecine wars" "we stood or moved slowly when Europe aspired to enlightenment." Russia experienced the blow of the Tatar-Mongolian hordes, which "overthrew" her. When the West, parting with "slavery", developed enlightenment, opened universities, Russia "strained its forces solely in order not to disappear."

The further centralization of the Russian state under Ivan III is assessed by him in the same way as a manifestation of pan-European trends: Ivan III appeared when "a new state system, together with the new power of sovereigns, arose in the whole of Europe." Together with Ivan III, in his opinion, Russia again joined the host of European powers, from which it was knocked out by the Tatar-Mongol invasion. The return of Russia to Europe actively continued in the 17th century, but especially rapidly under Peter I.

Even in personal characteristics, believing that over the centuries "people have not changed in their main properties," he seeks to find common patterns. Ivan IV N.M. Karamzin compares with Caligula, Nero, Louis XI, Godunov reminds him of Cromwell's mind.

This is how N.M. Karamzin general connection of Russia with European history.

In our historiography, it has been repeatedly noted that N.M. Karamzin not only used a magnificent corpus of sources for his time, but also the fact that he discovered many of the historical materials himself thanks to his work in the archives, with manuscripts that were sent to him for work by friends and kind people. So he first introduced into scientific circulation the Laurentian and Trinity Chronicles, the Sudebnik of 1497, the works of Cyril of Turov, Daniil Zatochnik, and many act and diplomatic materials.

He made extensive use of Greek chronicles, messages from Eastern authors, data from Western annals, domestic and foreign memoirs and epistolary literature. His "History" became a truly Russian encyclopedia of sources, it meant a serious step forward in the development of the research documentary base, pointed out controversial places, still existing gaps, called scientists to further advance in this area.

Sometimes the historian was reproached for a consumerist approach to the source, sometimes for "textual cunning", and the principle of strict adherence to the text of the source, checking it for authenticity, was put forward against him. There is no doubt that N.M. Karamzin understood these problems as well as his critics. Indeed, sometimes he relied on data that were not sufficiently verified by criticism, say, Stryikovsky's chronicle, Nikon's chronicle, a number of Iordan's messages. He can also be reproached for some enthusiasm for a certain type of sources. Thus, drawing the tyranny of Ivan the Terrible, his villainy, the historian mainly operated on foreign reports given by A. Kurbsky, the tendentiousness of which is largely obvious.

As for the consumer approach, it would be difficult to expect something different from a work designed for the mass reader. "History" N.M. Karamzin, as well as "History" by S.M. Solovyov, is a work as scientific as it is popular - a rare, alas, combination in Russian historiography. At the same time, N.M. Karamzin understood perfectly scientific significance source, the need for a critical approach to it. One can cite as an example his attitude to the so-called Joachim Chronicle. In essence, he disavowed it, transferred the dispute over its authenticity to the Notes, and spoke out against using its data. He did the same on other occasions. On the other hand, he accepted a number of sources as reliable, and only later criticism revealed their inconsistency.

But the historian did not anticipate his age in everything: he was a son of the time both in terms of the general noble mood of his ideology, although ennobled by enlightenment ideas, and in terms of the general providentialist approach to history, despite the desire to reveal its everyday patterns, sometimes naive , purely idealistic assessments of the role of a particular person in history.

His providentialism is felt in the assessment of major historical turns. He sincerely believes that the appearance of False Dmitry I in the history of Russia was the hand of Providence, who punished Boris Godunov for his terrible sin - organizing the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry. N.M. Karamzin did not doubt for a minute that it was Godunov who was the true culprit in the death of the prince and his system of evidence cannot be discounted.

In any case, A.S. Pushkin, it seems, was completely convinced, and the historical instinct of our great poet was extremely developed. An equally providential approach is felt in the assessment of Moscow's role in the unification of Russian lands and organizing the struggle against the Golden Horde. "The power of Providence" is constantly present on the pages of "History", giving bizarre outlines in many respects to historically accurate, spontaneously correctly understood by the historian, the processes of development of the country.

N.M. Karamzin masterfully draws the psychological conditionality of the actions of certain historical figures. It shows the throwing of Oleg Ryazansky on the eve of the Battle of Kulikovo, his fear of Mamai and hatred of Moscow, which crushes one Russian principality after another. He thinks a lot about the character of Ivan III, who "not being a tyrant like his grandson," nevertheless had natural cruelty in nature, "tempered in him by the power of reason."

N.M. Karamzin very subtly caught the psychological turn in the mood of Ivan IV after the illness and the hitch with the oath on the part of a group of boyars of allegiance to his son Dmitry, but especially after the death of Tsarina Anastasia; carefully assessed the role of the royal environment in various kinds of influences on the young Ivan IV. Perhaps the only one among historians, he identified the psychological turns in the various stages of the life of Boris Godunov and tried to interpret his policy, which largely proceeds from these turns.

Karamzin Nikolai Mikhailovich was born on December 1, 1766 and died on May 22, 1826. For 56 years of his life, this great person did a lot for the development of our state. Later he will be called a remarkable writer, a representative of the era of sentimentalism, a journalist and historiographer. But let's go back to the beginning of this story.

It all started in early childhood. After the death of his mother, the boy receives a key to a closet with a huge number of books based on moralizing novels. Even then, Karamzin plunged into the world of literature and easily read dozens of works in a short period of time.

He receives a good education in the humanities in the private boarding school of Professor Shaden, Ph.D., which gave him an excellent knowledge of old and new languages. Later he enters military service in the Preobrazhensky Regiment, but after serving a little over a year, Karamzin returns to the Little Motherland. As an easy conversationalist and a deep personality, he attracts the attention of the writer and translator Ivan Petrovich Turgenev who came to the province. This meeting turns his whole life upside down. He begins his career by translating foreign works, and then publishes his own, which are distinguished by a special style that testifies to taste and aesthetic principles. Beginning in 1791, the work "Letter from a Russian Traveler" was published, the reason for writing which was Karamzin's trips to Western Europe. It was the "letters" that brought Karamzin great fame. Then the story "Poor Liza" is published, thanks to only two works, a whole era appears, the era of sentimentalism. Based on his submission, the vocabulary of the Russian state is replenished with a large number of new words that have a popular application. He explored all the possibilities of the Russian language and betrayed expressiveness. The enrichment of vocabulary has led to the emergence of such words as "touching", "political science", "industry" and hundreds of equally important others. For the first time, it was he who began to use neologisms and barbarisms, moving away from church vocabulary, using a model of French grammar. Moreover, the writer tries to learn something new abroad, but does not forget about the successes of Russia, which he also shares with foreigners.

A new period in his life is the time when, in 1803, Alexander I appoints a famous writer as a historiographer, whose task is to perform invaluable work on the "History of the Russian State" from 1816-1824, Karamzin devotes his whole life to this. Despite the failure of Vasily Tatishchev and M. Shcherbatov, Karamzin did not retreat from his goal and built a new basis for writing books. His literary talent and political knowledge led him to a masterpiece, thanks to which the information of past and long-forgotten years has reached the modern world. Lucien Febvre wrote that a historian is not one who knows, but one who seeks. It was this quality that Karamzin possessed, disappearing for days within the walls of the imperial library. "You want to be an author: read the history of the misfortunes of the human race - and if your heart does not bleed, then leave the pen, or it will portray to us the cold gloom of your soul," said Nikolai Mikhailovich. His sensuality and ability to correctly express thoughts allowed him to create 12 great volumes (the first 8 were published in 1818, the next 3 were published in other years, and the last one was published after the death of Nikolai Mikhailovich), which were published in a huge circulation, were of interest to society and even translated into foreign languages ​​... "All ", even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, hitherto unknown to them. It was a new discovery for them. Ancient Russia seemed to be found by Karamzin, like America by Columbus "
Karamzin adhered to the views of an absolute monarchy, the death of the emperor and the uprising of the Decembrists left him bewildered. In the last years of his life, his health deteriorated noticeably, due to nervous breakdowns and lack of material resources, moreover, the historiographer worked for Alexander I for free and received a minimum salary. And these incidents in politics completely undermined his health completely. Karamzin died in 1826, leaving us a huge legacy. The great contribution made to the history of our Fatherland is invaluable.

Aida Tormozova

Student of Gymnasium No. 30, Stavropol