He left the school of guards ensigns (formally - resigning "due to illness") and entered St. Petersburg University in the category of oriental languages. Here Pleshcheev's circle of acquaintances began to take shape: the rector of the university P. A. Pletnev, A. A. Kraevsky, Maykovy, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Gradually, Pleshcheev made acquaintances in literary circles (established mainly at soirees in the house of A. Kraevsky). Pleshcheev sent his very first selection of poems to Pletnev, rector of St. Petersburg University and publisher of the Sovremennik magazine. In a letter to J.K. Grot, the latter wrote:

Did you see in Contemporary poems with signature A. P-v? I found out that this is our 1st year student, Pleshcheev. He shows talent. I called him to me and caressed him. He walks through the eastern section, lives with his mother, whose only son he is... :9

In the summer of 1845, Pleshcheev left the university due to cramped financial situation and dissatisfaction with the educational process itself. After leaving the university, he devoted himself exclusively to literary activity, but he did not give up hope of completing his education, intending to prepare the entire university course and pass it as an external student: 9. At the same time, he did not interrupt contacts with the members of the circle; Petrashevites often met at his house; Pleshcheev was perceived by them as " a wrestling poet, his own Andre Chenier".

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

Poems to the maiden and the moon are over forever. Another era is coming: doubt and endless torments of doubt are in progress, suffering from universal human questions, bitter lamentation at the shortcomings and disasters of mankind, at the disorder of society, complaints about the trifles of modern characters and the solemn recognition of their insignificance and impotence, imbued with lyrical pathos to the truth ... In that miserable the position in which our poetry has been since the death of Lermontov, Mr. Pleshcheev is undoubtedly our first poet at the present time ... He, as can be seen from his poems, took up the work of a poet by vocation, he strongly sympathizes with the issues of his time, suffers from all the ailments of the century, painfully tormented by the imperfections of society ...

Pleshcheev's poetry turned out to be in fact the first literary reaction in Russia to the events in France. In many respects, this is precisely why his work was so valued by the Petrashevites, who set as their immediate goal the transfer of revolutionary ideas to domestic soil. Subsequently, Pleshcheev himself wrote in a letter to A.P. Chekhov:

Poem " New Year” (“Clicks are heard - congratulations ...”), published with a “secret” subtitle “Cantata from Italian”, was a direct response to the French Revolution. Written at the end of 1848, it could not deceive the vigilance of the censorship and was published only in 1861:240.

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

Link

In the winter of 1848-1849, Pleshcheev arranged meetings of the Petrashevites at his home. They were visited by F. M. Dostoevsky, M. M. Dostoevsky, S. F. Durov, A. I. Palm, N. A. Speshnev, A. P. Milyukov, N. A. Mombelli, N. Ya. Danilevsky (future conservative author of the work "Russia and Europe"), P. I. Lamansky. Pleshcheev belonged to the more moderate part of the Petrashevites. He was left indifferent by the speeches of other radical speakers who replaced the idea of ​​a personal God with "truth in nature", who rejected the institution of family and marriage and professed republicanism. He was a stranger to extremes and sought to harmonize his thoughts and feelings. An ardent passion for new socialist beliefs was not accompanied by a decisive rejection of one's former faith and only merged the religion of socialism and the Christian doctrine of truth and love of one's neighbor into a single whole. No wonder he took the words of Lamenne as his epigraph to the poem “Dream”: “The earth is sad and dry, but it will turn green again. The breath of evil will not forever sweep over her like a scorching breath. .

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

"Rite of execution on the Semyonovsky parade ground". Drawing by B. Pokrovsky, 1849

On December 22, together with the rest of the condemned Petrashevites, A. Pleshcheev was brought to the Semyonovsky parade ground to a special civil execution scaffold. A staging followed, which was subsequently described in detail by F. Dostoevsky in the novel The Idiot, after which the decree of Emperor Nicholas I was read, according to which the death penalty was replaced by various terms of exile to hard labor or to prison companies: 11. A. Pleshcheev was first sentenced to four years of hard labor, then transferred as a private to Uralsk in the Separate Orenburg Corps.

"Before leaving"
Pleshcheev's poem of 1853, published with the dedication "L. Z. D. ”, was addressed to Lyubov Zakharyevna Dandeville, the wife of Lieutenant Colonel Dandeville.
Spring again! Again a long way!
There is an anxious doubt in my soul;
Involuntary fear squeezes my chest:
Will the dawn of liberation shine?
Does God command to rest from grief,
Ile fatal, destructive lead
Put an end to all aspirations?
The future does not give an answer ...
And I go, obedient to the will of fate
Where is my star leading me?
To the desert land, under the skies of the East!
And I only pray that I be remembered
To the few that I loved here...
Oh, trust me, you are the first of them...
The poet sent it to the addressee before leaving for the active army, to storm the Ak-Mechet fortress :241 .

In the winter of 1850, in Uralsk, Pleshcheev met Sigismund Serakovsky and his circle; they met later, in the Ak-Mosque, where both served. In Serakovsky's circle, Pleshcheev again found himself in an atmosphere of intense discussion of the same socio-political issues that worried him in St. Petersburg. “One exile supported another. The highest happiness was being in the circle of his comrades. After the drill, friendly interviews were often held. Letters from home, news brought by newspapers, were the subject of endless discussion. None of them lost courage and hope for a return ... ”, - its member Br. Zalessky. Serakovsky's biographer specified that the circle discussed "issues related to the liberation of the peasants and the allocation of land to them, as well as the abolition of corporal punishment in the army" .

Resumption of literary activity

Already during the years of exile, A. Pleshcheev again resumed his literary activity, although he was forced to write in fits and starts. Pleshcheev's poems began to be published in 1856 in the Russkiy Vestnik under the characteristic title: "Old Songs in a New Way". Pleshcheev of the 1840s was, according to M. L. Mikhailov, inclined towards romanticism; in the poems of the period of exile, romantic tendencies were preserved, but criticism noted that here they began to explore more deeply inner world a man who "dedicated himself to the struggle for the people's happiness."

In 1857, several more of his poems were published in Russkiy Vestnik. For researchers of the poet's work, it remained unclear which of them were really new, and which belonged to the years of exile. It was assumed that the translation of G. Heine " life path"(At Pleshcheev -" And laughter, and songs, and the sun shine! .. "), printed in 1858, is one of the latter. The same line of “fidelity to ideals” was continued by the poem “In the Steppe” (“But let my days pass without joy ...”). The expression of the general sentiments of the Orenburg exiled revolutionaries was the poem "After reading the newspapers", the main idea of ​​which is the condemnation Crimean War- was in tune with the mood of the Polish and Ukrainian exiles.

A. N. Pleshcheev, 1850s

In 1858, after an almost ten-year break, Pleshcheev's second collection of poems was published. The epigraph to it, the words of Heine: "I was not able to sing ...", indirectly indicated that in exile the poet was almost not engaged in creative activity. Poems dated 1849-1851 did not survive at all, and Pleshcheev himself admitted in 1853 that he had long "lost the habit of writing." The main theme of the 1858 collection was "pain for the enslaved homeland and faith in the rightness of one's cause", the spiritual insight of a person who refuses a thoughtless and contemplative attitude to life. The collection opened with the poem "Dedication", which in many respects echoed the poem "And laughter, and songs, and the sun shine! ..". Among those who sympathetically appreciated Pleshcheev's second collection was N. A. Dobrolyubov. He pointed to the socio-historical conditionality of dreary intonations by the circumstances of life, which "ugly break the most noble and strong personalities ...". “In this respect, Mr. Pleshcheev’s talent was also stamped with the same bitter consciousness of his powerlessness before fate, the same color of “painful longing and desolate thoughts” that followed the ardent, proud dreams of youth,” the critic wrote.

In the late 1850s, A. Pleshcheev turned to prose, first to the short story genre, then published several stories, in particular, "Inheritance" and "Father and Daughter" (both - 1857), partly autobiographical "Budnev" (1858) , "Pashintsev" and "Two Careers" (both - 1859). The main target of Pleshcheev's satire as a prose writer was pseudo-liberal accusation and romantic epigonism, as well as the principles of "pure art" in literature (the story "Literary Evening"). Dobrolyubov wrote about the story “Pashintsev” (published in the “Russian Bulletin” 1859, Nos. 11 and 12): “The public element constantly penetrates them and this distinguishes them from the many colorless stories of the thirties and fifties ... In the history of each hero of Pleshcheev’s stories, you see how he is bound by his environment, as this little world weighs on him with its demands and relations - in a word, you see in the hero a social being, and not a solitary one.

"Moscow Bulletin"

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

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

1860s

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

In Moscow, Nekrasov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, A. F. Pisemsky, A. G. Rubinshtein, P. I. Tchaikovsky, actors of the Maly Theater visited literary and musical evenings in Pleshcheev’s house. Pleshcheev was a member and was elected the elder of the Artistic Circle.

In 1861, Pleshcheev decided to create a new journal, Foreign Review, and invited M. L. Mikhailov to participate in it. A year later, with Saltykov, A. M. Unkovsky, A. F. Golovachev, A. I. Europeus and B. I. Utin, he developed a project for the journal Russkaya Pravda, but in May 1862 he was refused permission to the journal. At the same time, an unfulfilled plan arose for the purchase of the already outgoing newspaper Vek.

Pleshcheev's position on the reforms of 1861 changed over time. At first, he received the news of them with hope (evidence of this is the poem “You poor people worked, not knowing rest ...”). Already in 1860, the poet rethought his attitude towards the liberation of the peasants - largely under the influence of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. In letters to E. I. Baranovsky, Pleshcheev noted: the "bureaucratic and plantation" parties are ready to give "the poor peasant as a victim of bureaucratic robbery", renouncing the old hopes that the peasant "will be freed from the heavy landowner's paw".

Period of political activity

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

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

The poems “To youth” and “False teachers” published in Sovremennik in 1862, connected with the events of the autumn of 1861, when the arrests of students were met with complete indifference of the broad masses, also had the character of a political speech. From Pleshcheev’s letter to A.N. Supenev, to whom the poem “To Youth” was sent for transfer to Nekrasov, it appears that on February 25, 1862, Pleshcheev read “To Youth” at a literary evening in favor of twenty expelled students. The poet also took part in raising money in favor of the affected students. In the poem "To youth" Pleshcheev urged students "not to retreat before the crowd, to throw stones ready." The poem "To False Teachers" was a response to a lecture by B. N. Chicherin, read on October 28, 1861 and directed against the "anarchy of minds" and the "violent revelry of thought" of students. In November 1861, Pleshcheev wrote to A.P. Milyukov:

Have you read Chicherin's lecture in Moskovskie Vedomosti? No matter how little you sympathize with the students, whose antics are indeed often childish, you must admit that one cannot but feel sorry for the poor youth, condemned to listen to such flabby nonsense, such shabby as soldier's trousers, commonplaces and empty doctrinaire phrases! Is this a living word of science and truth? And this lecture was applauded by the comrades of the venerable doctrinaire Babst, Ketcher, Shchepkin and Co.

In the reports of the secret police during these years, A. N. Pleshcheev still appeared as a "conspirator"; it was written that although Pleshcheev "behaves very secretively," he is still "suspected of spreading ideas that disagree with the types of government": 14. There were some grounds for such suspicion.

Honest people, dear thorny
Walking towards the light with a firm foot,
Iron will, clear conscience
You are terrible for human malice!
Let him not weave victorious wreaths for you
Crushed by grief, sleeping people, -
Your labors will not perish without a trace;
Good seed will bear fruit...
A poem written in 1863 about the trial of Chernyshevsky was not published until 1905. Chernyshevsky, with whom Pleshcheev had common views and personal friendship, noted the latter as "a writer whose work is impeccable and useful."

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

Literary activity in the 1860s

In 1860, two volumes of Pleshcheev's Tales and Stories were published; in 1861 and 1863 - two more collections of Pleshcheev's poems. The researchers noted that as a poet, Pleshcheev joined the Nekrasov school; Against the backdrop of the public upsurge of the 1860s, he created socially critical, protest-conscription poems (“Oh youth, youth, where are you?”, “Oh, don’t forget that you are a debtor”, “A boring picture!”). At the same time, by the nature of poetic creativity, he was close in the 1860s to N. P. Ogaryov; the work of both poets developed on the basis of common literary traditions, although it was noted that Pleshcheev's poetry is more lyrical. Among contemporaries, however, the opinion prevailed that Pleshcheev remained a “man of the forties”, somewhat romantic and abstract. “Such a spiritual warehouse did not quite coincide with the character of the new people, the sober sixties, who demanded deeds and, above all, deeds”:13, - noted N. Bannikov, the poet's biographer.

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

Literary earnings brought the poet a meager income, he led the existence of a "literary proletarian", as F. M. Dostoevsky called such people (including himself). But, as contemporaries noted, Pleshcheev behaved independently, remaining faithful to "the high humanistic Schillerian idealism learned in his youth": 101. As Yu. Zobnin wrote, “Pleshcheev, with the courageous simplicity of an exiled prince, endured the constant need of these years, huddled with his large family in tiny apartments, but did not compromise either his civic or literary conscience one iota”: 101.

Years of disappointment

In 1864, A. Pleshcheev was forced to enter the service and received the position of auditor of the control chamber of the Moscow post office. “Life has completely torn me apart. In my years, fighting like a fish on ice and wearing a uniform for which I never prepared, how hard it is ”: 14, he complained two years later in a letter to Nekrasov.

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

In the 1870s, the revolutionary mood in the work of Pleshcheev acquired the character of reminiscences; Characteristic in this sense is the poem “I quietly walked along a deserted street ...” (1877), which is considered one of the most significant in his work, dedicated to the memory of V. G. Belinsky. As if drawing a line under a long period of disappointment and collapse of hopes, the poem “Without hopes and expectations ...” (1881), which was a direct response to the state of affairs in the country.

Pleshcheev in St. Petersburg

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

Creativity of the 1880s

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

D. S. Merezhkovsky - A. N. Pleshcheev

For the new generation of Russian writers of the late 19th century, A. N. Pleshcheev was "a living symbol of the chivalrous Russian literary free-thinking of immemorial pre-reform times": 101 .

…You are dear to us, which is not just a word,
But with all your soul, with all your life you are a poet,
And in these sixty hard, long years -
In deaf exile, in battle, in harsh labor -
You were warmed everywhere by a pure flame.
But do you know, poet, to whom you are dearest of all,
Who will send you the warmest hello?
You best friend for us, for Russian youth,
For those whom you called: "Forward, forward!"
With his captivating, deep kindness,
As a patriarch, you united us into a family, -
And that's why we love you with all our hearts,
And that's what we now raise a glass to!

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

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

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

A. N. Pleshcheev wrote 13 original plays. Basically, these were small-scale and "entertaining" lyric-satirical comedies from provincial landowner life. Theatrical performances based on his dramaturgical works "Service" and "There is no blessing without good" (both - 1860), "The Happy Couple", "Commander" (both - 1862) "What Often Happens" and "Brothers" (both - 1864), etc.) were shown in the leading theaters of the country. In the same years he reworked about thirty comedies by foreign playwrights for the Russian stage.

Children's literature

An important place in the work of Pleshcheev in the last decade of his life was occupied by children's poetry and literature. His collections Snowdrop (1878) and Grandfather's Songs (1891) were successful. Some poems have become textbooks ("The Old Man", "Grandmother and Granddaughters"). The poet took an active part in publishing, in line with the development of children's literature. In 1861, together with F. N. Berg, he published a collection-reader "Children's Book", in 1873 (with N. A. Aleksandrov) - a collection of works for children's reading "On a holiday." Also, thanks to the efforts of Pleshcheev, seven school manuals were published under the general heading "Geographical essays and paintings".

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

Romances on poems by Pleshcheev

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

Pleshcheev's poems and children's songs became a source of inspiration for P. I. Tchaikovsky, who appreciated their "heartfelt lyricism and spontaneity, excitement and clarity of thought." Tchaikovsky's interest in Pleshcheev's poetry was largely due to the fact of their personal acquaintance. They met at the end of the 1860s in Moscow in the Artistic Circle and maintained good friendly relations for the rest of their lives.

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

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

A. N. Pleshcheev and A. P. Chekhov

Photograph donated by A. N. Pleshcheev to A. P. Chekhov in 1888.
I really love getting letters from you. Do not be told as a compliment, there is always so much apt wit in them, all your characteristics of both people and things are so good that you read them as talented literary work; and these qualities, combined with the idea that a good person remembers you and is disposed towards you, make your letters very valuable.
From a letter from A.N. Pleshcheev to A.P. Chekhov on July 15, 1888.

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

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

The story "Steppe" Chekhov wrote in January 1888 for the "Northern Messenger"; at the same time, he shared his thoughts and doubts in detail in his letters (“I am shy and afraid that my Steppe it will come out insignificant ... Frankly speaking, I squeeze myself out, strain and pout, but still, in general, it does not satisfy me, although in some places there are verses in prose in it"). Pleshcheev became the first reader of the story (in manuscript) and repeatedly expressed delight in letters (“You wrote or almost wrote a great thing. Praise and honor to you! .. It hurts me that you wrote so many lovely, truly artistic things - and are less famous, than writers unworthy to untie the belt at your feet").

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

In 1888, Pleshcheev visited Chekhov in Sumy, and the latter spoke of this visit in a letter to Suvorin:

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

Pleshcheev criticized Chekhov's "Name Day", in particular, its middle part, with which Chekhov agreed ("... I wrote it lazily and carelessly. Accustomed to short stories consisting only of a beginning and an end, I get bored and start chewing when I feel that I write the middle"), then spoke sharply about the story "Leshy" (which Merezhkovsky and Urusov had previously praised). On the contrary, the story "A Boring Story" received his highest rating.

Correspondence began to come to naught after Chekhov, having gone to Tyumen, did not answer several letters from the poet, however, even after receiving an inheritance with subsequent relocation to Paris, Pleshcheev continued to describe in detail his life, illnesses and treatment. A total of 60 Chekhov's letters and 53 Pleshcheev's letters have been preserved. The first publication of the correspondence was prepared by the poet's son, writer and journalist Alexander Alekseevich Pleshcheev and was published in 1904 by The Theatergoer's Petersburg Diary.

last years of life

For the last three years of his life, Pleshcheev was freed from worries about earnings. In 1890, he received a huge inheritance from a Penza relative Alexei Pavlovich Pleshcheev and settled with his daughters in luxurious apartments in the Mirabeau Hotel in Paris, where he called all his acquaintances writers and generously gave them large sums of money. According to the memoirs of Z. Gippius, the poet changed only outwardly (having lost weight from the onset of the disease). Huge wealth, suddenly fallen on him "from the sky", he accepted "with noble indifference, remaining the same simple and hospitable owner, as in a small cell on Preobrazhenskaya Square". “What is wealth to me. That's just the joy that I was able to provide for the children, well, I myself sighed a little ... before my death ":101, - this is how the poetess conveyed his words. Pleshcheev himself took guests to the sights of Paris, ordered sumptuous dinners in restaurants and "respectfully asked" to accept from him an "advance" for travel - a thousand rubles: 101.

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

K. D. Balmont. In memory of Pleshcheev.

His soul was pure as snow;
Man was sacred to him;
He was always a singer of goodness and light;
He was full of love for the downtrodden.
Oh youth! Bow down, bless
The cooled ashes of a silent poet.

This poem sounded on the day of the funeral over the coffin of A. N. Pleshcheev. :586

Pleshcheev wrote that he was avoiding the beau monde, mentioning among those with whom communication gives him pleasure, only professor M. Kovalevsky, zoologist Korotnev, vice-consul Yurasov, the Merezhkovsky couple.

In 1893, already seriously ill, A. N. Pleshcheev once again went to Nice for treatment, and on the way, on September 26 (October 8), he died of apoplexy: 15. His body was transported to Moscow and buried in the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent.

The authorities forbade the publication of any “panegyric word” on the death of the poet, but at the farewell ceremony on October 6, great amount people. At the funeral, as contemporaries testified, mostly young people were present, including many then-unknown writers, in particular, K. Balmont, who delivered a farewell speech over the coffin: 18.

Reviews of critics and contemporaries

Researchers of the poet's work noted the huge resonance that one of his first poems, "Forward", laid the foundation for "the public, civic side of his poetry ...". It was noted, first of all, the strength of Pleshcheev's civic position, the full compliance of the personal qualities of the ideals proclaimed by them. Peter Weinberg, in particular, wrote:

Pleshcheev's poetry is in many ways an expression and reflection of his life. He belongs to the category of poets with a completely definite character, the essence of which is exhausted by some one motive, grouping around itself its modifications and ramifications, always preserving, however, the basic foundation inviolable. In Pleshcheev's poetry, this motif is humanity in the broadest and noblest sense of the word. Being applied mainly to the public phenomena surrounding the poet, this humanity naturally had to take on an elegiac character, but his sadness is always accompanied by an unshakable faith in the victory - sooner or later - of good over evil ....

Many critics at the same time reservedly evaluated the early works of A. Pleshcheev. It was noted that it was "colored with the ideas of socialist utopianism"; the traditional romantic motifs of disappointment, loneliness, longing "were interpreted by him as a reaction to social disadvantage", in the context of the theme of "holy suffering" of the lyrical hero ("Dream", "Wanderer", "Call of friends"). The humanistic pathos of Pleshcheev's lyrics was combined with a prophetic tone characteristic of the mood of utopians, nourished by the hope of "seeing the eternal ideal" ("To the Poet", 1846). Faith in the possibility of a harmonious world order, the expectation of imminent changes, was also expressed in P.'s most famous poem, extremely popular among the Petrashevites (as well as among the revolutionary-minded youth of the next generations, "Forward! Without fear and doubt ..." (1846) .

N. A. Dobrolyubov about the poetry of A. N. Pleshcheev
Speaking about Pleshcheev's early poems, Dobrolyubov noted that “there was a lot of indefinite, weak, immature in them; but among the same poems was this bold call, full of such faith in oneself, faith in people, faith in a better future ":

Friends! Let's give each other hands
And let's move forward together
And let, under the banner of science,
Our Union is growing stronger and growing ...
... Let us be a guiding star
Holy truth burns.
And believe me, noble voice
No wonder the world will sound.

“This pure confidence, so firmly expressed, this fraternal call for an alliance - not in the name of reckless feasts and remote exploits, but precisely under the banner of science ... denounced in the author, if not a remarkable poetic talent, then at least an energetic decision to devote his literary activity to honest service to the public good, ”the critic admitted.

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

Critics and writers of later generations assessed the poet's minor intonations somewhat differently, finding them consonant with the time in which he lived. “He held the torch of thought on a rainy day. Sobs sounded in his soul. In his stanzas there was the sound of native sadness, the dull groan of distant villages, a call for freedom, a gentle sigh of greeting and the first ray of the coming dawn ": 330, - wrote K. Balmont in a posthumous dedication.

A. N. Pleshcheev was not an innovator of form: his poetic system, formed in line with the Pushkin and Lermontov traditions, was based on stable phrases, established rhythmic-syntactic schemes, and a well-developed system of images. To some critics, this seemed to be evidence of genuine taste and talent, while to others it gave reason to call some of his poems “colorless”, to accuse him of “non-independence” and “monotonity”. At the same time, contemporaries, for the most part, highly appreciated the "social significance" of Pleshcheev's poetry, its "noble and pure direction", deep sincerity, and the call for "honest service to society".

Pleshcheev was often reproached for his fascination with abstract concepts and high-flown metaphors (“To all enemies of black untruth, rebelling against evil”, “The sword of the peoples is stained”, “But high aspirations were sacrificed to human vulgarity ...”). At the same time, the poet's supporters noted that didacticism of this kind was a form of Aesopian speech, an attempt to circumvent censorship. M. Mikhailov, who at one time criticized Pleshcheev, already in 1861 wrote that "... Pleshcheev left one force - the force of the call to honest service to society and neighbors."

Over the years, critics have paid more and more attention to the individual, "special purity and transparency of Pleshcheev's poetic language", sincerity and sincerity; the softness of the tones of his poetic palette, the emotional depth of outwardly extremely simple, artless lines: 16.

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

Influences

Most often, critics attributed Pleshcheev's poetry to the Nekrasov school. Indeed, already in the 1850s, the poet began to appear poems, as if reproducing the satirical and social lines of Nekrasov's poetry (“The children of the century are all sick ...”, 1858, etc.). The first comprehensive satirical image of a liberal appeared in Pleshcheev's poem "My Friend" (1858); critics immediately noted that many attributes of figurativeness were borrowed from Nekrasov (his father, who went bankrupt "on dancers", the hero's provincial career, etc.). The same accusatory line continued in the poem “The Lucky One” (“Slander! A member of charitable different societies and I. Philanthropists take five rubles every year from me.”) » (1862).

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

Lermontov's motives

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

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

Like-minded people and followers

Critics noted that, by the nature and kind of poetic activity Pleshcheev in the 1860s was closest to N.P. Ogaryov. He himself insisted on this creative "kinship". On January 20, 1883 the poet wrote to S. Ya. Pleshcheev's landscape and landscape-philosophical lyrics were considered by critics as "interesting", but rational and largely secondary, in particular, in relation to the work of A. A. Fet.

Researchers of the 20th century have already noted that the idea of ​​​​Pleshcheev as a “poet of the 40s”, who outlived his time, or a Nekrasov epigone, planted by the liberal press, was largely motivated by political intrigues, the desire to belittle the authority of a potentially dangerous, oppositional author. Biographer N. Bannikov noted that Pleshcheev's poetic work developed; in his later poems there was less romantic pathos, more - on the one hand, contemplation and philosophical reflection, on the other - satirical motives ("My friend", "Lucky"): 15. Such protest works of the poet as “Honest people, dear thorny ...”, “I feel sorry for those whose strength is dying” had quite independent value; poems that ridiculed “superfluous people” degraded in their passive “opposition” (poetic short story “She and He”, poem “Children of the century are all sick ...”, 1858).

"Dedication"
Do sounds of familiar songs come to you,
Friends of my dead young years?
And will I hear your brotherly greetings?
Are you still the same as you were before the separation?
Maybe I can't count the others!
And those - in a strange, distant side -
Forgotten about me...
And there is no one to respond to the songs!
The poem, dated 1858 and addressed to fellow Petrashevites, found a warm response among the latter, as evidenced by N. S. Kashkin. The latter responded with his verse:241:
Go ahead, don't be discouraged!
Goodness and truth on the road
Call your friends out loud.
Forward without fear and doubt
And if someone's blood has cooled,
Your living songs
He will be awakened to life again.

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

S. Ya. Nadson was considered the most obvious and vivid follower of Pleshcheev, who protested in the same tones against the “Kingdom of Baal”, sang about the shedding of “the righteous blood of fallen fighters”, using a similar didactic style, symbols and signs. The main difference was that the feelings of despair and doom in Nadson's poetry took on almost grotesque forms. It was noted that Pleshcheev’s poetry had a noticeable influence on the poems of N. Dobrolyubov of 1856-1861 (“When a bright ray of knowledge penetrated through the darkness of ignorance to us ...”), on the work of P. F. Yakubovich, early N. M. Minsky, I. Z. Surikova, V. G. Bogoraz. A direct retelling of Pleshcheev was a poem by G. A. Machtet “Forgive me the last!”, Pleshcheev’s lines were quoted by F. V. Volkhovsky (“To Friends”), S. S. Sinegub (“To the bust of Belinsky”), P. L. Lavrov, in his poem "Forward!" who used part of Pleshcheev's program poem: 239.

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

Criticism from the Left

Pleshcheev was criticized not only by liberals, but also - especially in the 1860s - by radical writers, whose ideals the poet tried to live up to. Among the poems that, according to critics, gave out sympathy for liberal ideas, it was noted “You poor people worked, not knowing rest ...” (from which it followed that the peasants, “submissive to fate”, patiently carried “their cross, like a righteous person carries”, but it came “the time of the holy rebirth”, etc.). This liberal "prayer" evoked a sharp response from Dobrolyubov, who, on the whole, was always sympathetic to the poet. He also parodied (in the poem "From the motives of modern Russian poetry") Pleshcheev's "praise" of the "tsar-liberator" that seemed to him liberal. However, the parody was not printed for ethical reasons. Dobrolyubov criticized Pleshcheev for "abstract didacticism" and allegorical images (entry in the critic's diary dated February 8, 1858).

Radical authors and publicists also criticized Pleshcheev for being too “broad-minded,” in their opinion. Often he supported conflicting ideas and currents, sympathizing only with their "opposition"; breadth of views "often turned into uncertainty of judgments".

N. A. Dobrolyubov about Pleshcheev's prose

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

N. A. Dobrolyubov, reviewing in 1860 a two-volume book, which included 8 stories by A. N. Pleshcheev, noted that they “... were published in all our best journals and were read at one time. Then they forgot about them. Talks and disputes about his story were never aroused either in the public or in literary criticism: no one praised them especially, but no one scolded either. For the most part they read the story and were satisfied; that was the end of it…” Comparing the novels and stories of Pleshcheev with the works of contemporary writers of the second plan, the critic noted that "... the social element constantly penetrates them and this distinguishes them from the many colorless stories of the thirties and fifties."

The world of Pleshcheev's prose is the world of "petty officials, teachers, artists, small landowners, semi-secular ladies and young ladies." In the history of each hero of Pleshcheev's stories, however, there is a noticeable connection with the environment, which "burdens over him with its demands." This, according to Dobrolyubov, is the main advantage of Pleshcheev's stories, however, - the dignity is not unique, belonging to him "on a par with so many of modern fiction writers." The dominant motif of Pleshcheev's prose, according to the critic, can be reduced to the phrase: "the environment seizes a person." However -

When reading ... the stories of Mr. Pleshcheev, a fresh and sensible reader immediately has a question: what exactly do these well-meaning heroes want, why are they killed? .. Here we do not meet anything definite: everything is so vague, fragmentary, petty you will deduce a general thought, you will not form an idea about the purpose of the life of these gentlemen ... All that is good in them is the desire that someone come, pull them out of the swamp in which they are bogged down, put them on their shoulders and drag them to a place clean and bright.

Describing the protagonist of the story of the same name, Dobrolyubov notes: “This Pashintsev is neither this nor that, neither day nor night, neither darkness nor light,” like many other heroes of stories of this kind, “does not represent a phenomenon at all; the whole environment that seizes it consists of exactly the same people. The reason for the death of Gorodkov, the hero of the story "Blessing" (1859), according to the critic, is "... His own naivety." Ignorance of life, uncertainty in means and goals, and poverty of means also distinguish Kostin, the hero of the story “Two Careers” (1859), who dies in consumption (“Irreproachable heroes in Mr. Pleshcheev, like in Mr. Turgenev and others, die from debilitating diseases,” the author of the article ironically), “having done nothing anywhere; but we do not know what he could do in the world, even if he did not suffer from consumption and was not constantly choked by the environment. Dobrolyubov notes, however, the fact that the shortcomings of the poet’s prose also have a subjective side: “If Mr. Pleshcheev draws his Kostins and Gorodkovs for us with exaggerated sympathy, it is<следствие того, что>other, more sustained practically types, in the same direction, have not yet been represented by Russian society.

The meaning of creativity

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

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

"The Song of the Workers"
In the leaflet interpretation of the "South Russian Workers' Union", the Pleshcheev anthem looked like this:
Forward without fear and doubt
On a valiant feat, friends
For a long time longing for unity
Working friendly family!
We will give each other hands,
Join in a tight circle, -
And let the torture and torment
A true friend will go for a friend!
We want brotherhood and freedom!
May the vile age of slavery perish!
Is it mother nature
Isn't everyone equal?
The eternal covenant given to us by Marx -
Obey that command:
"Come closer, workers of all countries,
Unite in one Union!“

Meanwhile, in general, the significance of the work of A. N. Pleshcheev was not limited to his contribution to the development of Russian revolutionary poetry. Critics noted that the poet did a great job (mainly on the pages of Otechestvennye zapiski and Birzhevye Vedomosti), analyzing the development of European literature, accompanying publications with his own translations (Zola, Stendhal, the Goncourt brothers, Alphonse Daudet). Pleshcheev's poems for children ("On the Shore", "The Old Man") are recognized as classic. Along with Pushkin and Nekrasov, he is considered one of the founders of Russian poetry for children:16.

Pleshcheev's translations

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

Pleshcheev did not hide the fact that he did not see any special differences in the methodology of working on the translation and his own, original poem. He admitted that he uses translation as a means of promoting the most important ideas for this period, and in a letter to Markovich dated December 10, 1870, he directly indicated: “I prefer to translate those poets in whom the universal human element takes precedence over the folk, in which culture affects !" The poet knew how to find "democratic motives" even among poets of clearly expressed conservative views (Souty - early poems "The Blenheim Battle" and "Complaints of the Poor"). When translating Tennyson, he emphasized empathy English poet to the "fighter for an honest cause" ("Funeral Song"), to the people ("May Queen").

At the same time, Pleshcheev often interpreted the possibilities of translation as a field of improvisation, in which he often departed from the original source. The poet freely altered, shortened or enlarged the translated work: for example, Robert Prutz's poem “Did you look at the Alps at sunset ...” turned from a sonnet into a triple quatrain; Syrokomli’s large poem “The Plowman to the Lark” (“Oracz do skowronku”, 1851), which consisted of two parts, he retold under the arbitrary name “Bird” in abbreviation (24 lines in the original, 18 in the translation). Genre poetic translation the poet considered as a means of promoting new ideas. He freely interpreted, in particular, Heine's poetry, often introducing his own (or Nekrasov's) ideas and motives (translation of "Countess Gudel von Gudelsfeld"). It is known that in 1849, having visited Moscow University, the poet told students that “... it is necessary to awaken self-consciousness among the people, and the best way to do this would be to translate foreign works into Russian, adapting to the common language of speech, to distribute them in manuscript ... ”, and that a society has already arisen in St. Petersburg for this purpose: 238 .

Character and personal qualities

All those who left memories of Pleshcheev characterized him as a person of high moral qualities. Pyotr Weinberg wrote about him as a poet who “… in the midst of the harsh and frequent jolts of reality, even exhausted under them… still continued to be the purest idealist and called others to the same ideal service to humanity”, never betrayed himself, “ nowhere and never (as it was said in a poetic address on the occasion of his fortieth birthday) without sacrificing good feelings before the world.

From the posthumous dedication of K. D. Balmont:

He was one of those whom fate led
Silicon paths of testing.
Whom danger guarded everywhere,
Mockingly threatening with anguish of exile.
But the blizzard of life, poverty, cold, haze
They did not kill the burning desire in him -
Be proud, brave, fight against evil
To awaken holy hopes in others ...

"A man of the forties in the best sense of the term, an incorrigible idealist,<Плещеев>put his living soul, his meek heart into his songs, and that's why they are so beautiful ": 16, - wrote the publisher P. V. Bykov. A. Blok, reflecting in 1908 on old Russian poetry, especially noted Pleshcheev’s poems, which “woke up some dormant strings, evoked high and noble feelings”: 16.

Contemporaries and later researchers of creativity noted the extraordinary clarity of mind, integrity of nature, kindness and nobility of Pleshcheev; characterized him as a person who "was notable for the purity of his soul that was not overshadowed by anything"; retained "despite all the dashing hard labor and soldiers' decades ... a childish faith in the purity and nobility of human nature, and was always inclined to exaggerate the talent of the next debutant poet" .

Z. Gippius, who at the first personal meeting was “completely fascinated” by Pleshcheev, wrote down her first impressions of him in this way:

He is a large, somewhat overweight old man, with smooth, rather thick hair, yellow-white (gray blonde), and a magnificent, completely white beard that gently spreads over his waistcoat. Correct, slightly blurred features, a thoroughbred nose and seemingly severe eyebrows ... but in the bluish eyes - such Russian softness, special, Russian, to the point of scattering, kindness and childishness, that even the eyebrows seem severe - on purpose: 102.

Pleshcheev's grave in the Novodevichy Convent

Addresses

Artworks

Poems

During his lifetime, five collections of poems by A. N. Pleshcheev were published, the last of them in 1887. The most significant posthumous edition is considered to be the edition edited by P. V. Bykov: “Poems by A. N. Pleshcheev (1844-1891). Fourth, revised edition. St. Petersburg, 1905. Pleshcheev's poetic works in Soviet times were published in the Large and Small series of the Poet's Library: 237.

1840s Desdemona "Meanwhile, as the noise of applause ..." Unaccountable sadness “I love to strive with a dream ...” grave For memory "After the thunder, after the storm..." farewell song Shuttle old man at the piano “Let's go ashore; there are waves... "Goodnight!" - you said…" "When I'm in a crowded hall..." Singer love At the call of friends “Me again, full of thoughts…” Neighbor Wanderer "I hear familiar sounds..." "Forward! without fear or doubt... Meeting Sounds “Why dream about what will happen after ...” To the motive of a French poet chant “We feel like brothers, you and I…” Poet sorry “Accidentally we met with you…” “He suffered a lot in his life, a lot ...” “Like a Spanish fly, melancholy…” New Year "Another great voice is silent..." 1850s Spring Before leaving When sending the Raphael Madonna After reading newspapers "Before you lies a wide new path..." in the steppe A leaf from a diary "Don't say it's wrong..." “Oh, if you knew, friends of my spring…” Meditation "There are days: neither malice nor love..." Winter skiing “When your meek, clear gaze…” Prayer S. F. Durov “You only clear my days…” “You are sweet to me, it’s time for sunset!…” “There was a time: their sons…” Past “Children of the century are all sick…” “Familiar sounds, wonderful sounds!…” “When I returned to my native city…” “When I meet the one torn by the struggle…” “A lot of evil and stupid jokes…” My acquaintance My garden “Oh no, not everyone is given…” “He walked resignedly on a thorny path ...” Song

dedication birdie heart Wanderer lucky man “You poor people worked, not knowing rest ...” “Do you remember: drooping willows…” “You want songs, I don’t sing ...” Flower "What a baby head..." 1860s moonlit night empty house ghosts “I drink for a glorious artist…” Decembrist “If at the hour when the stars light up…” On the street “There is no rest, my friend, on the path of life…” "A boring picture!..." “I grew up with my mother in the hall ...” "Blessed is he who has not worked..." Sick Spring "Friends of Free Art..." “It is envious of me to look at the sages…” plea "Not! Better death without return ... " beggars New Year "Oh, don't forget that you're in debt..." “Oh, youth, youth, where are you ...” (“Contemporary”, 1862, April) Clouds In memory of K. S. Aksakov "In front of the dilapidated hut ..." Poet "A pale ray of the moon has broken through..." In the woods. From Heine ("Contemporary", 1863, January-February) “All, all my path ...” (“Contemporary”, 1863, January-February) two roads "The scent of roses and jasmine..." “And here is your blue tent…” To youth false teachers “I love the forest path in the evening ...” "Anger boiled in my heart..." "The night flew over the world..." At night She and he “I’ll have a rest, I’ll sit at the edge of the forest ...” Fatherland “Mother nature! I'm coming to you..." native Wise men's advice ("Contemporary", 1863, January-February) "The sun of the mountain gilded ..." “In court, he heard the verdict…” Spring “Why, with the sounds of these songs…” Hypochondria Autumn Dying "Honest people, dear thorny ..." “What a year, then a new loss…”

“What are you drooping, green willow?…” Guests "If you want it to be peaceful..." “I look at her and admire…” Apostaten Marsch In memory of E. A. Pleshcheeva “Snow melts quickly, streams run…” “When I suddenly see a burial…” Slavic guests "Where are you, it's time for fun meetings ..." “I feel sorry for those whose strength is dying…” "When you harsh silence ..." Clouds Words for music Old men "Heavy, painful thought..." 1870s “Or those days are still far away…” Expectation "Blessed are you to whom it is given..." spring night “He is in his white coffin…” toasts Into the storm Spring Childhood Winter evening From life Toiler's grave “There is no peace for me from the fierce grief ...” "Warm spring day..." On the shore At night Memory Tomorrow In the country Bad weather Old man “I was walking quietly down the deserted street…” Grandmother and granddaughter "I parted with deceptive dreams ..." "I owe you my salvation..." 1880s "The lights went out in the house..." In memory of Pushkin Song of the Exile “Without hopes and expectations…” "The muddy river was seething..." From old songs "You yearned for the truth, you yearned for the light..." Past In memory of N. A. Nekrasov September 27, 1883 (In memory of I. S. Turgenev) (“Notes of the Fatherland”, 1883, October) Last Wednesday January 1st, 1884 To the portrait of the singer “How often an image is dear…” On the Sunset Words for music To Anton Rubinstein's album Anton Pavlovich Chekhov At the funeral of Vsevolod Garshin "It's so hard, so bitter and painful for me..." “Like in the days of bad weather the sun is a ray ...” "Who are you, beauty, with wild flowers ..." Reproach "It's a fiery sun..."

Tales (selected)

Plays (selected)

Bibliography

• Arseniev K. K. One of the poets of the forties. Poems by A. N. Pleshcheev. // Bulletin of Europe, 1887, March, pp. 432-437.
• Krasnov P. N. Poetry Pleshcheev. // Books of the Week, 1893, December, pp. 206-216.
, 1988. - 192 p. - (Literary criticism and linguistics). - 44,000 copies. (reg.)
• Pustilnik L. S. Life and work of A. N. Pleshcheev / Ed. ed. I. L. Volgin. - M .: Science, 2008. - 344, p. - (Popular science literature). - ISBN 978-5-02-034492-1(in trans.)
• A.N. Pleshcheev and Russian literature: a collection of scientific articles. - Kostroma: KSU im. ON THE. Nekrasova, 2006

Alexei Nikolaevich Pleshcheev was born in Kostroma on November 22 (December 4), 1825, into an impoverished noble family that belonged to the ancient Pleshcheev family (St. Alexy of Moscow was among the poet's ancestors). The family honored literary traditions: there were several writers in the Pleshcheev family, including a well-known in late XVIII century writer S. I. Pleshcheev.

The poet's father, Nikolai Sergeevich, served under the Olonets, Vologda and Arkhangelsk governors. A. N. Pleshcheev’s childhood passed in Nizhny Novgorod, where since 1827 his father served as a provincial forester. After the death of Nikolai Sergeevich Pleshcheev in 1832, his mother, Elena Aleksandrovna (née Gorskina), was engaged in raising her son. Until the age of thirteen, the boy studied at home and received a good education having mastered three languages; then, at the request of his mother, he entered the St. Petersburg school of guards ensigns, moving to St. Petersburg. Here, the future poet had to face the "stupefying and corrupting" atmosphere of the "Nikolaev militarism", which forever settled in his soul "the most sincere antipathy." Having lost interest in military service, Pleshcheev left the school of guards ensigns in 1843 (formally, having resigned "due to illness") and entered St. Petersburg University in the category of oriental languages. Here, Pleshcheev's circle of acquaintances began to take shape: the rector of the university, P. A. Pletnev, A. A. Kraevsky, the Maykovs, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Gradually, Pleshcheev made acquaintances in literary circles (established mainly at soirees in the house of A. Kraevsky). Pleshcheev sent his very first collection of poems to Pletnev, rector of St. Petersburg University and publisher of the Sovremennik magazine. In a letter to J.K. Grot, the latter wrote:

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

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

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

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

V. N. Maikov, in a review of the first collection of Pleshcheev’s poems, wrote with special sympathy about the poet’s faith in “the triumph on earth of truth, love and brotherhood”, calling the author “our first poet at the present time”:

Poems and stories by A. Pleshcheev, who during these years was charged with faith in the coming kingdom of "human cosmopolitanism" (as Maikov put it), were also published in Otechestvennye Zapiski (1847-1849).

Pleshcheev's poetry turned out to be in fact the first literary reaction in Russia to the events in France. In many ways, this is precisely why his work was so valued by the Petrashevites, who set as their immediate goal the transfer of revolutionary ideas to domestic soil. Subsequently, Pleshcheev himself wrote in a letter to A.P. Chekhov:

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

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

Link

In the winter of 1848-1849, Pleshcheev arranged meetings of the Petrashevites at his home. They were visited by F. M. Dostoevsky, M. M. Dostoevsky, S. F. Durov, A. I. Palm, N. A. Speshnev, A. P. Milyukov, N. A. Mombelli, N. Ya. Danilevsky (future conservative author of the work "Russia and Europe"), P. I. Lamansky. Pleshcheev belonged to the more moderate part of the Petrashevites. He was left indifferent by the speeches of other radical speakers who replaced the idea of ​​a personal God with "truth in nature", who rejected the institution of family and marriage and professed republicanism. He was a stranger to extremes and sought to harmonize his thoughts and feelings. An ardent passion for new socialist beliefs was not accompanied by a decisive rejection of one's former faith and only merged the religion of socialism and the Christian doctrine of truth and love of one's neighbor into a single whole. No wonder he took the words of Lamenne as his epigraph to the poem “Dream”: “The earth is sad and dry, but it will turn green again. The breath of evil will not forever sweep over her like a scorching breath. .

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

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

On January 6, 1850, Pleshcheev arrived in Uralsk and was enlisted as an ordinary soldier in the 1st Orenburg linear battalion. March 25, 1852 he was transferred to Orenburg in the 3rd line battalion. The poet's stay in the region lasted eight years, of which seven he remained in military service. Pleshcheev recalled that the first years of service were given to him with difficulty, largely due to the hostile attitude of the officers towards him. “At first, his life in a new place of exile was downright terrible,” testified M. Dandeville. Vacations were not granted to him, there was no question of creative activity. The steppes themselves made a painful impression on the poet. “This boundless steppe expanse, expanse, callous vegetation, dead silence and loneliness are terrible,” wrote Pleshcheev.

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

"Before leaving"
Pleshcheev's poem of 1853, published with the dedication "L. Z. D. ”, was addressed to Lyubov Zakharyevna Dandeville, the wife of Lieutenant Colonel Dandeville.
Spring again! Again a long way!
There is an anxious doubt in my soul;
Involuntary fear squeezes my chest:
Will the dawn of liberation shine?
Does God command to rest from grief,
Ile fatal, destructive lead
Put an end to all aspirations?
The future does not give an answer ...
And I go, obedient to the will of fate
Where is my star leading me?
To the desert land, under the skies of the East!
And I only pray that I be remembered
To the few that I loved here...
Oh, trust me, you are the first of them...
The poet sent it to the addressee before leaving for the active army, to storm the Ak-Mechet fortress.

In the winter of 1850, in Uralsk, Pleshcheev met Sigismund Serakovsky and his circle; they met later, in the Ak-Mechet, where both served. In Serakovsky's circle, Pleshcheev again found himself in an atmosphere of intense discussion of the same socio-political issues that worried him in St. Petersburg. “One exile supported another. The highest happiness was being in the circle of his comrades. After the drill, friendly interviews were often held. Letters from home, news brought by newspapers, were the subject of endless discussion. Not one of them lost courage and hope for a return…”, - its member Br. Zalessky. Serakovsky's biographer specified that the circle discussed "issues related to the liberation of the peasants and the allocation of land to them, as well as the abolition of corporal punishment in the army."

On March 2, 1853, Pleshcheev, at his own request, was transferred to the 4th linear battalion, which was sent to a dangerous steppe hike. He took part in the Turkestan campaigns organized by Perovsky, in particular, in the siege and assault of the Kokand fortress Ak-Mechet). In a letter to an Orenburg friend, Pleshcheev explained this decision by saying that "the purpose of the campaign was noble - the protection of the oppressed, and nothing inspires like a noble goal." For courage, he was promoted to non-commissioned officer, and in May 1856 he received the rank of ensign and with him the opportunity to go to civil service. Pleshcheev resigned in December "with the renaming of collegiate registrars and with permission to enter the civil service, except for the capitals" and entered the service of the Orenburg Border Commission. Here he served until September 1858, after which he moved to the office of the Orenburg civil governor. From the Orenburg Territory, the poet sent his poems and stories to magazines (mainly to the Russian Messenger).

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

Resumption of literary activity

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

In 1857, several more of his poems were published in Russkiy Vestnik. For researchers of the poet's work, it remained unclear which of them were really new, and which belonged to the years of exile. It was assumed that G. Heine's translation of "The Way of Life" (according to Pleshcheev - "And laughter, and songs, and the sun shine! .."), published in 1858, is one of the latter. The same line of “fidelity to ideals” was continued by the poem “In the Steppe” (“But let my days pass without joy ...”). The expression of the general sentiments of the Orenburg exiled revolutionaries was the poem "After reading the newspapers", the main idea of ​​which - the condemnation of the Crimean War - was in tune with the moods of the Polish and Ukrainian exiles.

In 1858, after an almost ten-year break, Pleshcheev's second collection of poems was published. The epigraph to it, the words of Heine: "I was not able to sing ...", indirectly indicated that in exile the poet was almost not engaged in creative activity. Poems dated 1849-1851 did not survive at all, and Pleshcheev himself admitted in 1853 that he had long "lost the habit of writing." The main theme of the 1858 collection was "pain for the enslaved homeland and faith in the rightness of one's cause", the spiritual insight of a person who refuses a thoughtless and contemplative attitude to life. The collection opened with the poem "Dedication", which in many respects echoed the poem "And laughter, and songs, and the sun shine! ..". Among those who sympathetically appreciated Pleshcheev's second collection was N. A. Dobrolyubov. He pointed to the socio-historical conditionality of dreary intonations by the circumstances of life, which "ugly break the most noble and strong personalities ...". “In this regard, Mr. Pleshcheev’s talent was also stamped with the same bitter consciousness of his powerlessness before fate, the same color of“ painful longing and desolate thoughts ”that followed the ardent, proud dreams of youth,” wrote the critic.

In August 1859, after a short return to Orenburg, A. N. Pleshcheev settled in Moscow (under "the strictest supervision") and devoted himself entirely to literature, becoming an active contributor to the Sovremennik magazine. Taking advantage of the Orenburg acquaintance with the poet M. L. Mikhailov, Pleshcheev established contacts with the updated editors of the journal: with N. A. Nekrasov, N. G. Chernyshevsky, N. A. Dobrolyubov. Among the publications where the poet published poems were also "Russian Word" (1859-1864), "Time" (1861-1862), the newspapers "Vek" (1861), "Day" (1861-1862) and "Moscow Bulletin "(The editorial position in which he held in 1859-1860), St. Petersburg publications ("Svetoch", "Iskra", "Time", "Russian Word").

In the late 1850s, Pleshcheev returned to prose, publishing two novels that are believed to be largely autobiographical: Budnev (1858) and Two Careers (1859). In them, the motif of the suffering of a “dreamer by nature”, enthusiastic and noble, but succumbing to cruel reality, again appeared. The main target of Pleshcheev's satire as a prose writer was pseudo-liberal accusation and romantic epigonism, as well as the principles of "pure art" in literature (the story "Literary Evening").

On December 19, 1859, the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature elected A. Pleshcheev as a full member.

"Moscow Bulletin"

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

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

1860s

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

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

In 1861, Pleshcheev decided to create a new journal, Foreign Review, and invited M. L. Mikhailov to participate in it. A year later, with Saltykov, A. M. Unkovsky, A. F. Golovachev, A. I. Evropeyus and B. I. Utin, he developed a project for the journal Russkaya Pravda, but in May 1862 he was denied permission to the journal. At the same time, an unfulfilled plan arose for the purchase of the already outgoing newspaper Vek.

Pleshcheev's position on the reforms of 1861 changed over time. At first, he received the news of them with hope (evidence of this is the poem “You poor people worked, not knowing rest ...”). Already in 1860, the poet rethought his attitude towards the liberation of the peasants - largely under the influence of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. In letters to E. I. Baranovsky, Pleshcheev noted: the "bureaucratic and plantation" parties are ready to give "the poor peasant as a victim of bureaucratic robbery", renouncing the old hopes that the peasant "will be freed from the heavy paw of the landowner."

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

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

The poems “To youth” and “False teachers” published in Sovremennik in 1862, connected with the events of the autumn of 1861, when the arrests of students were met with complete indifference of the broad masses, also had the character of a political speech. From Pleshcheev’s letter to A.N. Supenev, to whom the poem “To Youth” was sent for transfer to Nekrasov, it appears that on February 25, 1862, Pleshcheev read “To Youth” at a literary evening in favor of twenty expelled students. The poet also took part in raising money in favor of the affected students. In the poem "To Youth", Pleshcheev urged students "not to retreat before the crowd, to throw stones ready." The poem "To False Teachers" was a response to a lecture by B. N. Chicherin, read on October 28, 1861 and directed against the "anarchy of minds" and "violent revelry of thought" of students. In November 1861, Pleshcheev wrote to A.P. Milyukov:

In the reports of the secret police during these years, A. N. Pleshcheev still appeared as a "conspirator"; it was written that although Pleshcheev "behaves very secretively," he is still "suspected of spreading ideas that disagree with the types of government." There were some grounds for such suspicion.

Honest people, dear thorny
Walking towards the light with a firm foot,
Iron will, clear conscience
You are terrible for human malice!
Let him not weave victorious wreaths for you
Crushed by grief, sleeping people, -
Your labors will not perish without a trace;
Good seed will bear fruit...
A poem written in 1863 about the trial of Chernyshevsky was not published until 1905. Chernyshevsky, with whom Pleshcheev was connected by a commonality of views and personal friendship, noted the latter as "a writer whose work is impeccable and useful."

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

It is known that on July 3, 1863, a note was drawn up in the III Department, stating that the poet-translator F.N. Berg visited Pleshcheev at the dacha and saw leaflets and typographical font from him. “Fyodor Berg said that Pleshcheev ... is positively one of the leaders of the Land and Freedom society,” the note said. On July 11, 1863, a search was carried out at Pleshcheev's, which did not bring any results. In a letter to the manager of the 1st expedition of the III Division, F.F. Krantz, the poet was indignant about this; He explained the presence in the house of portraits of Herzen and Ogaryov, as well as several forbidden books, by literary interests.

There is no exact data on Pleshcheev's participation in Land and Freedom. Many contemporaries believed that Pleshcheev not only belonged to secret society, but also contained an underground printing house, which, in particular, was written by P. D. Boborykin. M. N. Sleptsova, in her memoirs “Navigators of the Coming Storm”, claimed that Pleshcheev was among the people who were members of “Land and Freedom” and personally knew her: “In the 60s he was in charge of a printing house in Moscow, where "Young Russia", and, moreover, participated in the "Russian Vedomosti", which had just begun at that time in Moscow, it seems, as a reviewer of foreign literature. He was a member of the Land and Freedom, which has long associated him with Sleptsov, ”she claimed. Indirectly, these statements are confirmed by the letters of Pleshcheev himself. So, on September 16, 1860, he wrote to F.V. Chizhov about his intention to “set up a printing house”. In a letter to Dostoevsky dated October 27, 1859, it was said: "I am starting a printing house myself - although not alone."

In the late 1850s, A. Pleshcheev turned to prose, first to the genre of the story, then published several stories, among which the most significant are "Inheritance" and "Father and Daughter" (both - 1857), partly autobiographical "Pashintseva" and "Two Careers" (both - 1859), "Vocation" (1860). Dobrolyubov wrote about the story “Pashintsev” (published in the “Russian Bulletin” 1859, Nos. 11 and 12): “The public element constantly penetrates them and this distinguishes them from the many colorless stories of the thirties and fifties ... In the history of each hero of Pleshcheev’s stories, you see how he is bound by his environment, as this little world weighs on him with its demands and relations - in a word, you see in the hero a social being, and not a solitary one.

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

N. D. Khvoshchinskaya (under the pseudonym "V. Krestovsky" in a review of Pleshcheev's collection of 1861, highly appreciating in retrospect the work of the poet, who wrote "living, warm modern things that made us sympathize with him", sharply criticized the "uncertainty" of feelings and ideas, in some verses capturing decadence, in some - sympathy for liberalism. Pleshcheev himself indirectly agreed with this assessment, in the poem "Meditation" he admitted about "miserable disbelief" and "belief in the futility of the struggle ...".

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

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

Years of disappointment

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

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

In the 1870s, the revolutionary mood in the work of Pleshcheev acquired the character of reminiscences; Characteristic in this sense is the poem “I quietly walked along a deserted street ...” (1877), which is considered one of the most significant in his work, dedicated to the memory of V. G. Belinsky. As if drawing a line under a long period of disappointment and collapse of hopes, the poem “Without hopes and expectations ...” (1881), which was a direct response to the state of affairs in the country.

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

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

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

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

Creativity of the 1880s

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

... You are dear to us, which is not just a word,
But with all your soul, with all your life you are a poet,
And in these sixty hard, long years -
In deaf exile, in battle, in harsh labor -
You were warmed everywhere by a pure flame.
But do you know, poet, to whom you are dearest of all,
Who will send you the warmest hello?
You are the best friend for us, for Russian youth,
For those whom you called: "Forward, forward!"
With his captivating, deep kindness,
As a patriarch, you united us into a family, -
And that's why we love you with all our hearts,
And that's what we now raise a glass to!

These poems by D. S. Merezhkovsky, read by him “on behalf of the youth” at the anniversary celebrations on November 22, 1885, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the poet, fully reflected the attitude of the new generation of the Russian intelligentsia towards the patriarch.

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

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

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

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

A. N. Pleshcheev wrote 13 original plays. Basically, these were small-scale and "entertaining" lyric-satirical comedies from provincial landowner life. Theatrical performances based on his dramaturgical works "Service" and "There is no blessing without good" (both - 1860), "The Happy Couple", "Commander" (both - 1862) "What Often Happens" and "Brothers" (both - 1864), etc.) were shown in the leading theaters of the country. In the same years, he reworked for the Russian stage about thirty comedies by foreign playwrights.

An important place in the work of Pleshcheev in the last decade of his life was occupied by children's poetry and literature. His collections Snowdrop (1878) and Grandfather's Songs (1891) were successful. Some poems have become textbooks ("The Old Man", "Grandmother and Granddaughters"). The poet took an active part in publishing, in line with the development of children's literature. In 1861, together with F. N. Berg, he published a collection-reader "Children's Book", in 1873 (with N. A. Aleksandrov) - a collection of works for children's reading "On a holiday." Also, thanks to the efforts of Pleshcheev, seven school manuals were published under the general heading "Geographical essays and paintings."

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

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

Pleshcheev's poems and children's songs became a source of inspiration for P. I. Tchaikovsky, who appreciated their "heartfelt lyricism and spontaneity, excitement and clarity of thought." Tchaikovsky's interest in Pleshcheev's poetry was largely due to the fact of their personal acquaintance. They met at the end of the 1860s in Moscow in the Artistic Circle and maintained good friendly relations for the rest of their lives.

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

“This work is light and very pleasant, because I took the text of Pleshcheev’s Snowdrop, where there are a lot of lovely gizmos,” the composer wrote to M. I. Tchaikovsky while working on this cycle. In the House-Museum of P. I. Tchaikovsky in Klin, in the composer’s library, a collection of Pleshcheev’s poems “Snowdrop” has been preserved with the poet’s dedication inscription: “To Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as a token of location and gratitude for his beautiful music to my bad words. A. N. Pleshcheev. February 18, 1881 St. Petersburg.

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

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

The story "Steppe" Chekhov wrote in January 1888 for the "Northern Messenger"; at the same time, he shared his thoughts and doubts in detail in his letters (“I am shy and afraid that my Steppe will come out insignificant ... Frankly, I squeeze myself out, strain and pout, but still, in general, it does not satisfy me, although in some places they come across her poetry in prose"). Pleshcheev became the first reader of the story (in manuscript) and repeatedly expressed delight in letters (“You wrote or almost wrote a great thing. Praise and honor to you! .. It hurts me that you wrote so many lovely, truly artistic things - and are less famous, than writers unworthy to untie the belt at your feet").

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

In 1888, Pleshcheev visited Chekhov in Sumy, and the latter spoke of this visit in a letter to Suvorin:

Pleshcheev criticized Chekhov's "Name Day", in particular, its middle part, with which Chekhov agreed ("... I wrote it lazily and carelessly. Having got used to short stories consisting only of a beginning and an end, I get bored and start chewing when I feel that I write the middle"), then spoke sharply about the story "Leshy" (which Merezhkovsky and Urusov had previously praised). On the contrary, the story "A Boring Story" was awarded the highest rating.

Correspondence began to come to naught after Chekhov, having gone to Tyumen, did not answer several letters from the poet, however, even after receiving an inheritance with subsequent relocation to Paris, Pleshcheev continued to describe in detail his life, illnesses and treatment. A total of 60 Chekhov's letters and 53 Pleshcheev's letters have been preserved. The first publication of the correspondence was prepared by the son of the poet, writer and journalist Alexander Alekseevich Pleshcheev and was published in 1904 by the Petersburg Diary of a Theatergoer.

last years of life

For the last three years of his life, Pleshcheev was freed from worries about earnings. In 1890, he received a huge inheritance from a Penza relative Alexei Pavlovich Pleshcheev and settled with his daughters in luxurious apartments in the Mirabeau Hotel in Paris, where he called all his acquaintances writers and generously gave them large sums of money. According to the memoirs of Z. Gippius, the poet changed only outwardly (having lost weight from the onset of the disease). Huge wealth, suddenly fallen on him "from heaven", he accepted "with noble indifference, remaining the same simple and hospitable owner, as in a small cell on Preobrazhenskaya Square." “What is wealth to me. That's just the joy that I was able to provide for the children, well, I myself sighed a little ... before my death, ”the poetess conveyed his words. Pleshcheev himself took guests to the sights of Paris, ordered sumptuous dinners in restaurants and "respectfully asked" to accept from him an "advance" for travel - a thousand rubles.

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

On January 2, 1892, from Nice, Pleshcheev wrote to Chekhov that his son Nikolai bought himself an estate in the Smolensk province, that in July in Lucerne his left arm and leg were taken away from him, he described in detail consultations with famous doctors (including "... the famous Kusmaul, whom Botkin wrote to himself before his death "- the latter forbade him to return to Russia in the winter), and also mentioned the treatment with" electricity and massage ":

K. D. Balmont. In memory of Pleshcheev.

His soul was pure as snow;
Man was sacred to him;
He was always a singer of goodness and light;
He was full of love for the downtrodden.
Oh youth! Bow down, bless
The cooled ashes of a silent poet.

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

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

The authorities forbade the publication of any "panegyric word" on the death of the poet, but a huge number of people gathered at the farewell ceremony on October 6. The funeral, as contemporaries testified, was attended mainly by young people, including many then unknown writers, in particular, K. Balmont, who delivered a farewell speech over the coffin.

Reviews of critics and contemporaries

Researchers of the poet's work noted the huge resonance that one of his first poems, "Forward", laid the foundation for "the public, civic side of his poetry ...". It was noted, first of all, the strength of Pleshcheev's civic position, the full compliance of the personal qualities of the ideals proclaimed by them. Peter Weinberg, in particular, wrote:

Many critics at the same time reservedly evaluated the early works of A. Pleshcheev. It was noted that it was "colored with the ideas of socialist utopianism"; the traditional romantic motifs of disappointment, loneliness, longing "were interpreted by him as a reaction to social disadvantage", in the context of the theme of "holy suffering" of the lyrical hero ("Dream", "Wanderer", "Call of Friends"). The humanistic pathos of Pleshcheev's lyrics was combined with a prophetic tone characteristic of the mood of utopians, nourished by the hope of "seeing the eternal ideal" ("To the Poet", 1846). Faith in the possibility of a harmonious world order, the expectation of imminent change, was also expressed in P.'s most famous poem, extremely popular among the Petrashevites (as well as among the revolutionary-minded youth of the next generations, "Forward! Without fear and doubt ..." (1846).

Friends! Let's give each other hands
And let's move forward together
And let, under the banner of science,
Our Union is growing stronger and growing ...
... Let us be a guiding star
Holy truth burns.
And believe me, noble voice
No wonder the world will sound.

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

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

A. N. Pleshcheev was not an innovator of form: his poetic system, formed in line with the Pushkin and Lermontov traditions, was based on stable phrases, established rhythmic-syntactic schemes, and a well-developed system of images. To some critics, this seemed to be evidence of genuine taste and talent, to others it gave reason to call some of his poems "colorless", to accuse him of "lack of independence" and "monotonity". At the same time, contemporaries, for the most part, highly appreciated the "social significance" of Pleshcheev's poetry, its "noble and pure direction", deep sincerity, and the call for "honest service to society."

Pleshcheev was often reproached for his fascination with abstract concepts and high-flown metaphors (“To all enemies of black untruth, rebelling against evil”, “The sword of the peoples is stained”, “But high aspirations were sacrificed to human vulgarity ...”). At the same time, the poet's supporters noted that didacticism of this kind was a form of Aesopian speech, an attempt to circumvent censorship. M. Mikhailov, who at one time criticized Pleshcheev, already in 1861 wrote that "... Pleshcheev left one force - the force of the call to honest service to society and neighbors."

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

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

Influences

Most often, critics attributed Pleshcheev's poetry to the Nekrasov school. Indeed, already in the 1850s, the poet began to appear poems, as if reproducing the satirical and social lines of Nekrasov's poetry (“The children of the century are all sick ...”, 1858, etc.). The first comprehensive satirical image of a liberal appeared in Pleshcheev's poem "My Friend" (1858); critics immediately noted that many attributes of figurativeness were borrowed from Nekrasov (his father, who went bankrupt "on dancers", the hero's provincial career, etc.). The same accusatory line continued in the poem “The Lucky One” (“Slander! A member of charitable different societies and I. Philanthropists take five rubles every year from me.”) » (1862).

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

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

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

Critics noted that, in terms of the nature and nature of his poetic activity, Pleshcheev in the 1860s was closest to N.P. Ogaryov. He himself insisted on this creative "kinship". On January 20, 1883 the poet wrote to S. Ya. Pleshcheev's landscape and landscape-philosophical lyrics were considered by critics as "interesting", but rational and largely secondary, in particular, in relation to the work of A. A. Fet.

Researchers of the 20th century have already noted that the idea of ​​Pleshcheev as a “poet of the 40s”, who outlived his time, or a Nekrasov epigone, planted by the liberal press, was largely motivated by political intrigues, a desire to belittle the authority of a potentially dangerous opposition author. Biographer N. Bannikov noted that Pleshcheev's poetic work developed; in his later poems there was less romantic pathos, more - on the one hand, contemplation and philosophical reflections, on the other - satirical motives ("My friend", "Lucky"). Such protest works of the poet as “Honest people, dear thorny ...”, “I feel sorry for those whose strength is dying” had quite independent value; poems that ridiculed “superfluous people” degraded in their passive “opposition” (poetic short story “She and He”, poem “Children of the century are all sick ...”, 1858).

"Dedication"
Do sounds of familiar songs come to you,
Friends of my lost youth?
And will I hear your brotherly greetings?
Are you still the same as you were before the separation?
Maybe I can't count the others!
And those - in a strange, distant side -
Forgotten about me...
And there is no one to respond to the songs!
The poem, dated 1858 and addressed to fellow Petrashevites, found a warm response among the latter, as evidenced by N. S. Kashkin. The latter responded with his verse:
Go ahead, don't be discouraged!
Goodness and truth on the road
Call your friends out loud.
Forward without fear and doubt
And if someone's blood has cooled,
Your living songs
He will be awakened to life again.

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

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

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

Pleshcheev was criticized not only by liberals, but also - especially in the 1860s - by radical writers, whose ideals the poet tried to live up to. Among the poems that, according to critics, gave out sympathy for liberal ideas, it was noted “You poor people worked, not knowing rest ...” (from which it followed that the peasants, “submissive to fate”, patiently carried “their cross, like a righteous person carries”, but it came “the time of the holy rebirth”, etc.). This liberal "prayer" evoked a sharp response from Dobrolyubov, who, on the whole, was always sympathetic to the poet. He also parodied (in the poem "From the motives of modern Russian poetry") Pleshcheev's "praise" of the "tsar-liberator" that seemed to him liberal. However, the parody was not printed for ethical reasons. Dobrolyubov criticized Pleshcheev for "abstract didacticism" and allegorical images (entry in the critic's diary dated February 8, 1858).

Radical authors and publicists also criticized Pleshcheev for being too “broad-minded,” in their opinion. Often he supported conflicting ideas and currents, sympathizing only with their "opposition"; breadth of views "often turned into uncertainty of judgments."

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

N. A. Dobrolyubov, reviewing in 1860 a two-volume book, which included 8 stories by A. N. Pleshcheev, noted that they “... were published in all our best journals and were read at one time. Then they forgot about them. Talks and disputes about his story were never aroused either in the public or in literary criticism: no one praised them especially, but no one scolded either. For the most part they read the story and were satisfied; that was the end of it…” Comparing the novels and stories of Pleshcheev with the works of contemporary writers of the second plan, the critic noted that "... the social element constantly penetrates them and this distinguishes them from the many colorless stories of the thirties and fifties."

The world of Pleshcheev's prose is the world of "petty officials, teachers, artists, small landowners, semi-secular ladies and young ladies." In the history of each hero of Pleshcheev's stories, however, there is a noticeable connection with the environment, which "burdens over him with its demands." This, according to Dobrolyubov, is the main advantage of Pleshcheev's stories, however, - the dignity is not unique, belonging to him "on a par with so many of the modern fiction writers." The dominant motif of Pleshcheev's prose, according to the critic, can be reduced to the phrase: "the environment seizes a person." However -

Describing the protagonist of the story of the same name, Dobrolyubov notes: “This Pashintsev is neither this nor that, neither day nor night, neither darkness nor light,” like many other heroes of stories of this kind, “does not represent a phenomenon at all; the whole environment that seizes it consists of exactly the same people. The reason for the death of Gorodkov, the hero of the story "Blessing" (1859), according to the critic, is "... His own naivety." Ignorance of life, uncertainty in means and goals, and poverty of means also distinguish Kostin, the hero of the story “Two Careers” (1859), who dies in consumption (“Irreproachable heroes in Mr. Pleshcheev, like in Mr. Turgenev and others, die from debilitating diseases,” the author of the article ironically), “having done nothing anywhere; but we do not know what he could do in the world, even if he did not suffer from consumption and was not constantly choked by the environment. Dobrolyubov notes, however, the fact that the shortcomings of the poet’s prose also have a subjective side: “If Mr. Pleshcheev draws his Kostins and Gorodkovs for us with exaggerated sympathy, it is<следствие того, что>other, more sustained practically types, in the same direction, have not yet been represented by Russian society.

The meaning of creativity

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

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

"The Song of the Workers"
In the leaflet interpretation of the "South Russian Workers' Union", the Pleshcheev anthem looked like this:
Forward without fear and doubt
On a valiant feat, friends
For a long time longing for unity
Working friendly family!
We will shake hands with each other
Let's unite in a close circle, -
And let the torture and torment
A true friend will go for a friend!
We want brotherhood and freedom!
May the vile age of slavery perish!
Is it mother nature
Isn't everyone equal?
The eternal covenant given to us by Marx -
Obey this covenant:
“Come closer, workers of all countries,
Unite in one Union!“

N. A. Morozov testified that the poem was popular among the revolutionary intelligentsia. The song (in a slightly modified version: The time will come, the time will come, the young forces will grow up / The eagles will fly up and peck the chain of violence with an iron beak ...) was loved in the Ulyanov family.

In January 1886, the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the activity of A. N. Pleshcheev took place. This celebration was treated with great sympathy not only by old Petrashevite comrades-in-arms (in particular, N. S. Kashkin, who wrote to the poet on April 12, 1886, that he followed the anniversary "with sincere joy and lively sympathy"). Members revolutionary movement of the new generation reacted to this event even more vividly: some of them, in particular, the one who signed the "editor of Echoes", called the poet their teacher.

Pleshcheev was known and highly valued by revolutionary-democratic circles in Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, where he was perceived solely as a political poet. The founder of the new Bulgarian literature, Petko Slaveikov, in 1866 translated “Forward! without fear and doubt…”, after which the verse became the anthem of the Bulgarian revolutionaries. Emanuel Vavra mentioned Pleshcheev, Shevchenko, Ogarev and Mikhailov among the "most deserving, talented, truly valuable" Slavic poets. Demanding that the poetry that moves "forward the people" be "humanistic, truthful and reasonable," he listed Burns, Byron, Beranger, Pleshcheev and Taras Shevchenko in the same row. Appreciated Creativity Pleshcheeva gave in 1893 the Slovenian writer Fran Celestin. In 1871, Pleshcheev's first translations were published in Ukraine. Since 1895, P. A. Grabovsky became his permanent translator here. Ivan Franko wrote about Pleshcheev that he “deservedly takes a place in the galaxy of the most prominent writers in Russian literature of the 40s ...”

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

Pleshcheev's translations

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

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

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

Character and personal qualities

All those who left memories of Pleshcheev characterized him as a person of high moral qualities. Pyotr Weinberg wrote about him as a poet who “… in the midst of the harsh and frequent jolts of reality, even exhausted under them… still continued to be the purest idealist and called others to the same ideal service to humanity”, never betrayed himself, “ nowhere and never (as it was said in a poetic address on the occasion of his fortieth birthday) without sacrificing good feelings before the world.

He was one of those whom fate led
Silicon paths of testing.
Whom danger guarded everywhere,
Mockingly threatening with anguish of exile.
But the blizzard of life, poverty, cold, haze
They did not kill the burning desire in him -
Be proud, brave, fight against evil
To awaken holy hopes in others ...

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

Contemporaries and later researchers of creativity noted the extraordinary clarity of mind, integrity of nature, kindness and nobility of Pleshcheev; characterized him as a person who "was notable for the purity of his soul that was not overshadowed by anything"; retained "despite all the dashing hard labor and soldiers' decades ... a childish faith in the purity and nobility of human nature, and was always inclined to exaggerate the talent of the next debutant poet."

Z. Gippius, who at the first personal meeting was “completely fascinated” by Pleshcheev, wrote down her first impressions of him in this way:

Noting that, as if without effort, “wonderful poems for children” came out from the pen of A. Pleshcheev, N. Bannikov remarked: “It can be seen that there was something in the poet’s heart that easily opened the world of a child to him.” As P. Bykov wrote, Pleshcheev "... all was reflected in his poetry, all with his conscience, clear as a crystal, fiery faith in goodness and people, with his whole personality, ... deeply sympathetic, gentle, soft."

Findings of researchers

• Numerous propaganda poems were created among the Petrashevites, but few of them have survived. Presumably, many of Pleshcheev's propaganda poems also disappeared. There is an assumption that some of the unsigned works that appeared in the emigrant collections of the Lute series may belong to Pleshcheev; among them is the poem "The Righteous", marked: "S. Petersburg. January 18, 1847."
• The poem “By feelings, we are brothers with you ...” (1846) was attributed to K. F. Ryleev for a long time. Its belonging to Pleshcheev was established in 1954 by E. Bushkants, who found out that the addressee was V. A. Milyutin (1826-1855), a member of the Petrashevsky circle, an economist, whose work Belinsky and Chernyshevsky paid attention to.
• The poem "Autumn has come, the flowers have dried up ...", attributed to Pleshcheev in all collections of children's poetry, but absent in all collections of his works, does not actually belong to Pleshcheev. As the literary critic M.N. Zolotonosov established, the author of this text is the inspector of the Moscow educational district Alexei Grigorievich Baranov (1844-1911), the compiler of the collection where this poem was first published.
• The poem “I feel sorry for her ...” (“Give me your hand. I understand your ominous sadness ...”) was published with a dedication to D. A. Tolstoy, with whom the poet was friends in his youth. Tolstoy, however, subsequently acquired a reputation as a "reactionary" and even became the chief of the gendarme corps. In this regard, as it turned out later, A. A. Pleshcheev, the son of the poet, urged P. V. Bykov not to include the poem in the collection or delete the dedication.
• For a long time there were disputes about who the poem “S ... y” (1885) could be addressed to, which began with the words: “Before you lies a wide new path ...”. The most convincing was the version of S. A. Makashin, according to which Saltykov-Shchedrin was the addressee. In a magazine publication, it had the subtitle: "On entry into the field." Shchedrin was valued by Pleshcheev as “a really huge talent”, he attributed it to “ the best people of their country."

Addresses

• In Moscow: Nashchokinsky lane, 10 (the house has not been preserved); Trubnikovsky lane (on Prechistenka), 35; Arbat, 36; Malaya Dmitrovka, 22 (reconstructed); Gun lane, 3.
• In St. Petersburg: 1872-1890 - the house of M. B. Bulatova - Bolshaya Spasskaya street, 1.

Artworks

Poems

During his lifetime, five collections of poems by A. N. Pleshcheev were published, the last of them in 1887. The most significant of the posthumous publications is considered to be the edition edited by P. V. Bykov: “Poems by A. N. Pleshcheev (1844-1891). Fourth, revised edition. St. Petersburg, 1905. During the Soviet era, Pleshcheev's poetic works were published in the Large and Small series of the Poet's Library.

Bibliography

• Arsenyev K. K. One of the poets of the forties. Poems by A. N. Pleshcheev. // Bulletin of Europe, 1887, March, pp. 432-437.
• Krasnov P. N. Pleshcheev's poetry. // Books of the Week, 1893, December, pp. 206-216.
• Yudin P. L. Pleshcheev in reference. // Historical Bulletin, 1897, May.
• Yudin P. L. To the biography of Pleshcheev. // Historical Bulletin, 1905, December.
• Dandeville M. V. A. N. Pleshcheev in Fort Petrovsky. (According to unpublished letters). // Past years, 1908, October, pp. 103-141.
• Sakulin P. N. Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev. (1825-1893). // History of Russian literature XIX century. Edited by D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovskiy. - M .: Mir Publishing House, 1911. - Volume 3. Pp. 481-490.
• Pustilnik L. S. Life and work of A. N. Pleshcheev. - M.: Nauka, 1981. - 193 p.
• A.N. Pleshcheev and Russian literature: a collection of scientific articles. - Kostroma: KSU im. ON THE. Nekrasova, 2006

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

Childhood and youth

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

In 1843, Pleshcheev entered St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Oriental Languages. In St. Petersburg, a circle of his contacts is formed: Dostoevsky, Goncharov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, the Maykov brothers. By 1845, Pleshcheev's acquaintance with the circle of Petrashevists, professing the ideas of socialism, dates back.

The poet's first collection of poems was published in 1846 and was permeated with revolutionary aspirations. The verse published in it “Forward! Without fear and doubt, the youth perceived it as a “Russian Marseillaise”. Pleshcheev's poems of the early period are the first Russian response to the events of the French Revolution, some of them were banned by censorship until the beginning of the 20th century.

Link

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

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

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

Creativity after the link

The second collection of the poet's poems was published in 1858 with Heine's foreword "I was unable to sing ...". Upon his return to Moscow, Pleshcheev actively collaborated with the Sovremennik magazine, published poems in various publications in Moscow. By this time there is an appeal to prose. Created novels ("Inheritance", "Father and Daughter", "Pashintsev", "Two Careers", etc.).

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

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

In 1872, Pleshcheev returned to St. Petersburg and headed the Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, and then Severny Vestnik. The return to the circle of like-minded people contributed to a new creative impulse.

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

Peru Pleshcheev owns translations of poems and prose of a number of foreign authors. Significant works of the poet in dramaturgy. His plays "The Happy Couple", "There is a blessing in disguise", "The Commander" are successfully staged in theaters.

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

Russian writer, poet, translator; literary and theater critic

Alexey Pleshcheev

short biography

Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev(December 4, 1825, Kostroma - October 8, 1893, Paris) - Russian writer, poet, translator; literary and theater critic. In 1846, the very first collection of poems made Pleshcheev famous among the revolutionary youth; as a member of the Petrashevsky circle, he was arrested in 1849 and some time later sent into exile, where he spent almost ten years in military service. Upon his return from exile, Pleshcheev continued his literary activity; having gone through years of poverty and deprivation, he became an authoritative writer, critic, publisher, and, at the end of his life, a philanthropist. Many of the poet's works (especially poems for children) have become textbooks and are considered classics. More than a hundred romances have been written by the most famous Russian composers to Pleshcheev's poems.

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

The poet's father, Nikolai Sergeevich, served under the Olonets, Vologda and Arkhangelsk governors. A. N. Pleshcheev’s childhood passed in Nizhny Novgorod, where since 1827 his father served as a provincial forester. After the death of Nikolai Sergeevich Pleshcheev in 1832, mother Elena Alexandrovna (nee Gorskina) took care of raising her son. Until the age of thirteen, the boy studied at home and received a good education, having mastered three languages; then, at the request of his mother, he entered the St. Petersburg school of guards ensigns and moved to St. Petersburg. Here, the future poet had to face the "stupefying and corrupting" atmosphere of the "Nikolaev militarism", which forever settled in his soul "the most sincere antipathy." Having lost interest in military service, Pleshcheev left the school of guards ensigns in 1843 (formally, having resigned "due to illness") and entered St. Petersburg University in the category of oriental languages. Here, Pleshcheev's circle of acquaintances began to take shape: the rector of the university, P. A. Pletnev, A. A. Kraevsky, the Maykovs, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Gradually, Pleshcheev made acquaintances in literary circles (established mainly at soirees in the house of A. Kraevsky). Pleshcheev sent his very first collection of poems to Pletnev, rector of St. Petersburg University and publisher of the Sovremennik magazine. In a letter to J.K. Grot, the latter wrote:

Have you seen poems in Sovremennik signed by A. P-v? I found out that this is our 1st year student, Pleshcheev. He shows talent. I called him to me and caressed him. He walks through the eastern section, lives with his mother, whose only son he is...

In 1845, A. N. Pleshcheev, carried away by socialist ideas, met through the Beketov brothers with members of the circle of M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky.

At the beginning of 1846, Pleshcheev began to attend the literary and philosophical circle of the Beketov brothers (Alexey, Andrey and Nikolai), which included the poet A. N. Maikov, critic V. N. Maikov, doctor S. D. Yanovsky, D. V. Grigorovich and others. In the circle of the Beketov brothers, Pleshcheev met F. M. Dostoevsky, with whom he had a long-term friendship.

Pleshcheev, to whom Dostoevsky dedicated his story "White Nights", became the prototype of the Dreamer in this work.

The circle of Petrashevsky included writers - F. M. Dostoevsky, N. A. Speshnev, S. F. Durov, A. V. Khanykov. These days N. Speshnev had a great influence on Pleshcheev, whom the poet later spoke of as a man of "strong will and an extremely honest character."

The Petrashevites paid considerable attention to political poetry, discussing questions of its development on Fridays. It is known that at a dinner in honor of C. Fourier, Beranger's "Les fous" was read in translation - a work dedicated to the utopian socialists. Pleshcheev not only took an active part in the discussions and creation of propaganda poems, but also delivered forbidden manuscripts to the circle participants. Together with N. A. Mordvinov, he began to translate the book of the founder of Christian socialism F.-R. de Lamenne's "The Word of the Believer", which was supposed to be printed in an underground printing house.

In the summer of 1845, Pleshcheev left the university due to a cramped financial situation and dissatisfaction with the very process of education. After leaving the university, he devoted himself exclusively to literary activity. However, he did not leave hopes to complete his education, intending to prepare the entire university course and pass it as an external student. At the same time, he did not interrupt contacts with the members of the circle; Petrashevites often met at his house; Pleshcheev was perceived by them as "a poet-fighter, his Andre Chenier."

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

V. N. Maikov, in a review of the first collection of Pleshcheev’s poems, wrote with special sympathy about the poet’s faith in “the triumph on earth of truth, love and brotherhood”, calling the author “our first poet at the present time”:

Poems to the maiden and the moon are over forever. Another era is coming: doubt and endless torments of doubt are in progress, suffering from universal human questions, bitter lamentation at the shortcomings and disasters of mankind, at the disorder of society, complaints about the trifles of modern characters and the solemn recognition of their insignificance and impotence, imbued with lyrical pathos to the truth ... In that miserable the position in which our poetry has been since the death of Lermontov, Mr. Pleshcheev is undoubtedly our first poet at the present time ... He, as can be seen from his poems, took up the work of a poet by vocation, he strongly sympathizes with the issues of his time, suffers from all the ailments of the century, painfully tormented by the imperfections of society ...

Poems and stories by A. Pleshcheev, who during these years was charged with faith in the coming kingdom of "human cosmopolitanism" (as Maikov put it), were also published in Otechestvennye Zapiski (1847-1849).

Pleshcheev's poetry turned out to be in fact the first literary reaction in Russia to the events in France. In many ways, this is precisely why his work was so valued by the Petrashevites, who set as their immediate goal the transfer of revolutionary ideas to domestic soil. Subsequently, Pleshcheev himself wrote in a letter to A.P. Chekhov:

And for our brother - a man of the second half of the 40s - France is very close to my heart. Then in internal politics it was not allowed to poke your nose - and we were brought up and developed on French culture, on the ideas of 48 years. You won't exterminate us... In many ways, of course, we had to be disappointed later - but we remained true to many things.

A. Pleshcheev - A. Chekhov, 1888

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

In the second half of the 1840s, Pleshcheev began to publish as a prose writer. His stories “Coon coat. The story is not without morality” (1847), “Cigarette. True incident "(1848)," Protection. Experienced History” (1848) were noticed by critics, who found the influence of N.V. Gogol in them and attributed them to the “natural school”. In the same years, the poet wrote the stories "Prank" (1848) and "Friendly Advice" (1849), in which some motives of the novel "White Nights" by F. M. Dostoevsky, dedicated to Pleshcheev, were developed.

Link

In the winter of 1848-1849, Pleshcheev arranged meetings of the Petrashevites at his home. They were visited by F. M. Dostoevsky, M. M. Dostoevsky, S. F. Durov, A. I. Palm, N. A. Speshnev, A. P. Milyukov, N. A. Mombelli, N. Ya. Danilevsky (future conservative author of the work "Russia and Europe"), P. I. Lamansky. Pleshcheev belonged to the more moderate part of the Petrashevites. He was left indifferent by the speeches of other radical speakers who replaced the idea of ​​a personal God with "truth in nature", rejected the institution of family and marriage and professed republicanism. He was a stranger to extremes and sought to harmonize his thoughts and feelings. An ardent enthusiasm for new socialist beliefs was not accompanied by a decisive rejection of one's former faith, and only united the religion of socialism and the Christian doctrine of truth and love for one's neighbor into a single whole. No wonder he took the words of Lamenne as his epigraph to the poem “Dream”: “The earth is sad and dry, but it will turn green again. The breath of evil will not forever sweep over her like a scorching breath.

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

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

On January 6, 1850, Pleshcheev arrived in Uralsk and was enlisted as an ordinary soldier in the 1st Orenburg linear battalion. March 25, 1852 he was transferred to Orenburg in the 3rd line battalion. The poet lived in the region for eight years, seven of which he remained in military service. Pleshcheev recalled that the first years of service were given to him with difficulty, largely due to the hostile attitude of the officers towards him. “At first, his life in a new place of exile was downright terrible,” testified M. Dandeville. He was not granted leave, there was no question of creative activity. The steppes themselves made a painful impression on the poet. “This boundless steppe expanse, expanse, callous vegetation, dead silence and loneliness are terrible,” wrote Pleshcheev.

The situation changed for the better after the Governor-General Count V. A. Perovsky, an old acquaintance of his mother, began to patronize the poet. Pleshcheev got access to books, became friends with the family of Lieutenant Colonel (later General) V. D. Dandeville, who was fond of art and literature, devoting several poems of those years to him, with Polish exiles, with Taras Shevchenko, who was serving in the same parts of the exile, with one of the creators the literary mask of Kozma Prutkov by A. M. Zhemchuzhnikov and the poet-revolutionary M. L. Mikhailov.

"Before leaving"
Pleshcheev's poem of 1853, published with the dedication "L. Z. D. ”, was addressed to Lyubov Zakharyevna Dandeville, the wife of Lieutenant Colonel Dandeville.

Spring again! Again a long way!
There is an anxious doubt in my soul;
Involuntary fear squeezes my chest:
Will the dawn of liberation shine?
Does God command to rest from grief,
Ile fatal, destructive lead
Put an end to all aspirations?
The future does not give an answer ...
And I go, obedient to the will of fate
Where is my star leading me?
To the desert land, under the skies of the East!
And I only pray that I be remembered
To the few that I loved here...
Oh, trust me, you are the first of them...

The poet sent it to the addressee before leaving for the active army, to storm the Ak-Mechet fortress.

In the winter of 1850 in Uralsk, Pleshcheev met Sigismund Serakovsky and his circle. Subsequently, they met in the Ak-Mechet, where both served. In Serakovsky's circle, Pleshcheev again found himself in an atmosphere of intense discussion of the same socio-political issues that worried him in St. Petersburg. “One exile supported another. The highest happiness was being in the circle of his comrades. After the drill, friendly interviews were often held. Letters from home, news brought by newspapers, were the subject of endless discussion. Not one of them lost courage and hope for a return…”, - its member Br. Zalessky. Serakovsky's biographer specified that the circle discussed "issues related to the liberation of the peasants and the allocation of land to them, as well as the abolition of corporal punishment in the army."

On March 2, 1853, Pleshcheev, at his own request, was transferred to the 4th linear battalion, which was setting off on a dangerous steppe campaign. He took part in the Turkestan campaigns organized by Perovsky, in particular, in the siege and assault of the Kokand fortress Ak-Mechet). In a letter to an Orenburg friend, Pleshcheev explained this decision by saying that "the purpose of the campaign was noble - the protection of the oppressed, and nothing inspires like a noble goal." For courage, he was promoted to non-commissioned officer, and in May 1856 he received the rank of ensign and with him the opportunity to go to civil service. Pleshcheev resigned in December 1856 "with the renaming of collegiate registrars and with permission to enter the civil service, except for the capitals" and entered the service of the Orenburg Border Commission. After serving there until September 1858, he moved to the office of the Orenburg civil governor. From the Orenburg Territory, the poet sent his poems and stories to magazines (mainly to the Russian Messenger).

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

Resumption of literary activity

Already during the years of exile, A. Pleshcheev resumed his literary activity, although he was forced to write in fits and starts. Pleshcheev's poems began to be published in 1856 in the Russkiy Vestnik under the characteristic title: "Old Songs in a New Way". Pleshcheev of the 1840s was, according to M. L. Mikhailov, inclined towards romanticism; romantic tendencies were preserved in the poems of the period of exile, but criticism noted that here the inner world of a person who “dedicated himself to the struggle for the happiness of the people” began to be more deeply explored.

In 1857, several more of his poems were published in Russkiy Vestnik. For researchers of the poet's work, it remained unclear which of them were really new, and which belonged to the years of exile. It was assumed that G. Heine's translation of "The Way of Life" (according to Pleshcheev - "And laughter, and songs, and the sun shine! .."), published in 1858, is one of the latter. The same line of “fidelity to ideals” was continued by the poem “In the Steppe” (“But let my days pass without joy ...”). The expression of the general sentiments of the Orenburg exiled revolutionaries was the poem "After reading the newspapers", the main idea of ​​which - the condemnation of the Crimean War - was in tune with the moods of the Polish and Ukrainian exiles.

A. N. Pleshcheev, 1850s

In 1858, after an almost ten-year break, Pleshcheev's second collection of poems was published. The epigraph to it, the words of Heine: "I was not able to sing ...", indirectly indicated that in exile the poet was almost not engaged in creative activity. Poems dated 1849-1851 did not survive at all, and Pleshcheev himself admitted in 1853 that he had long "lost the habit of writing." The main theme of the 1858 collection was "pain for the enslaved homeland and faith in the rightness of one's cause", the spiritual insight of a person who refuses a thoughtless and contemplative attitude to life. The collection opened with the poem "Dedication", which in many respects echoed the poem "And laughter, and songs, and the sun shine! ..". Among those who sympathetically appreciated Pleshcheev's second collection was N. A. Dobrolyubov. He pointed to the socio-historical conditionality of dreary intonations by the circumstances of life, which "ugly break the most noble and strong personalities ...". “In this regard, Mr. Pleshcheev’s talent was also stamped with the same bitter consciousness of his powerlessness before fate, the same color of“ painful longing and desolate thoughts ”that followed the ardent, proud dreams of youth,” wrote the critic.

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

In the late 1850s, A. Pleshcheev turned to prose, first to the short story genre, then published several stories, in particular, "Inheritance" and "Father and Daughter" (both - 1857), partly autobiographical "Budnev" (1858) , "Pashintsev" and "Two Careers" (both - 1859). The main target of Pleshcheev's satire as a prose writer was pseudo-liberal accusation and romantic epigonism, as well as the principles of "pure art" in literature (the story "Literary Evening"). Dobrolyubov wrote about the story “Pashintsev” (published in the “Russian Bulletin” 1859, Nos. 11 and 12): “The public element constantly penetrates them and this distinguishes them from the many colorless stories of the thirties and fifties ... In the history of each hero of Pleshcheev’s stories, you see how he is bound by his environment, as this little world weighs on him with its demands and relations - in a word, you see in the hero a social being, and not a solitary one.

"Moscow Bulletin"

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

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

1860s

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

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

In 1861, Pleshcheev decided to create a new journal called "Foreign Review", and invited M. L. Mikhailov to participate in it. A year later, with Saltykov, A. M. Unkovsky, A. F. Golovachev, A. I. Evropeyus and B. I. Utin, he developed a project for the journal Russkaya Pravda, but in May 1862 he was refused permission to open the journal. At the same time, Pleshcheev had an unfulfilled plan to buy the already outgoing newspaper Vek.

Pleshcheev's position on the reforms of 1861 changed over time. At first, he received the news of them with hope (evidence of this is the poem “You poor people worked, not knowing rest ...”). In 1860, the poet rethought his attitude towards the liberation of the peasants - largely under the influence of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. In letters to E. I. Baranovsky, Pleshcheev noted: the "bureaucratic and plantation" parties are ready to give "the poor peasant as a victim of bureaucratic robbery", renouncing the old hopes that the peasant "will be freed from the heavy paw of the landowner."

Period of political activity

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

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

The poems “To youth” and “False teachers” published in Sovremennik in 1862, connected with the events of the autumn of 1861, when the arrests of students were met with complete indifference of the broad masses, also had the character of a political speech. From Pleshcheev’s letter to A.N. Supenev, to whom the poem “To Youth” was sent for transfer to Nekrasov, it appears that on February 25, 1862, Pleshcheev read “To Youth” at a literary evening in favor of twenty expelled students. The poet also took part in raising money in favor of the affected students. In the poem "To Youth", he urged students "not to retreat before the crowd, to throw stones ready." The poem "To False Teachers" was a response to a lecture by B. N. Chicherin, given on October 28, 1861, and directed against the "anarchy of minds" and "violent revelry of thought" of students. In November 1861, Pleshcheev wrote to A.P. Milyukov:

Have you read Chicherin's lecture in Moskovskie Vedomosti? No matter how little you sympathize with the students, whose antics are indeed often childish, you must admit that one cannot but feel sorry for the poor youth, condemned to listen to such flabby nonsense, such shabby as soldier's trousers, commonplaces and empty doctrinaire phrases! Is this a living word of science and truth? And this lecture was applauded by associates of the venerable doctrinaire Babst, Ketcher, Shchepkin and Co.

In the reports of the secret police over the years, A. N. Pleshcheev still appeared as a "conspirator". They emphasized that although Pleshcheev "behaves very secretively," he is still "suspected of spreading ideas that disagree with the types of government." There were some grounds for such suspicion.

Honest people, dear thorny

Honest people, dear thorny
Walking towards the light with a firm foot,
Iron will, clear conscience
You are terrible for human malice!
Let him not weave victorious wreaths for you
Crushed by grief, sleeping people, -
Your labors will not perish without a trace;
Good seed will bear fruit...

A poem written in 1863 about the trial of Chernyshevsky was not published until 1905. Chernyshevsky, with whom Pleshcheev was connected by a commonality of views and personal friendship, noted the latter as "a writer whose work is impeccable and useful."

Even before N. Pleshcheev moved to Moscow, the closest associates of N. G. Chernyshevsky were preparing the creation of an all-Russian secret revolutionary organization. Many of the poet's friends took an active part in its preparation: S. I. Serakovsky, M. L. Mikhailov, Ya. Stanevich, N. A. Serno-Solovyevich, N. V. Shelgunov. Therefore, the police considered Pleshcheev as a full member of this secret organization. In the denunciation of Vsevolod Kostomarov, the poet was called a "conspirator"; it was he who was credited with the creation of the Letter to the Peasants, the famous proclamation of Chernyshevsky.

It is known that on July 3, 1863, a note was drawn up in the III Department, stating that the poet-translator F.N. Berg visited Pleshcheev at the dacha and saw leaflets and typographical font from him. “Fyodor Berg said that Pleshcheev ... is positively one of the leaders of the Land and Freedom society,” the note said. On July 11, 1863, Pleshcheev was searched, which did not bring any results. In a letter to the manager of the 1st expedition of the III Department, F.F. Krantz, the poet was indignant about this, and explained the presence in the house of portraits of Herzen and Ogaryov and several forbidden books by literary interests. There is no exact data on Pleshcheev's participation in Land and Freedom. Many contemporaries believed that Pleshcheev not only belonged to a secret society, but also maintained an underground printing house, which, in particular, P. D. Boborykin wrote about. M. N. Sleptsova, in her memoirs “Navigators of the Coming Storm”, claimed that Pleshcheev was among the people who were members of “Land and Freedom” and personally knew her: “In the 60s he was in charge of a printing house in Moscow, where "Young Russia", and, moreover, participated in the "Russian Vedomosti", which had just begun at that time in Moscow, it seems, as a reviewer of foreign literature. He was a member of the Land and Freedom, which has long associated him with Sleptsov, ”she claimed. Indirectly, these statements are confirmed by the letters of Pleshcheev himself. So, on September 16, 1860, he wrote to F.V. Chizhov about his intention to “set up a printing house”. In a letter to Dostoevsky dated October 27, 1859, it was said: "I am starting a printing house myself - although not alone."

Literary activity in the 1860s

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

N. D. Khvoshchinskaya under the pseudonym “V. Krestovsky" in a review of Pleshcheev's 1861 collection, highly appreciating in retrospect the work of the poet, who wrote "living, warm modern things that made us sympathize with him", but sharply criticized the "uncertainty" of feelings and ideas, catching decadence in some verses, in some - sympathy for liberalism. Pleshcheev himself indirectly agreed with such an assessment, in the poem “Meditation” he admitted about “miserable disbelief” and “belief in the futility of the struggle ...”.

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

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

Years of disappointment

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

There were other reasons that led to the sharp deterioration in the general mood of the poet, which was outlined by the end of the 1860s, the predominance of feelings of bitterness and depression in his works. His hopes for popular action in response to the reform suffered a collapse; many of his friends died or were arrested (Dobrolyubov, Shevchenko, Chernyshevsky, Mikhailov, Serno-Solovyevich, Shelgunov). A heavy blow for the poet was the death of his wife, which followed on December 3, 1864. After the closure of the journals Sovremennik and Russkoye Slovo in 1866 (the journals of the Dostoevsky brothers Vremya and Epoch had been discontinued even earlier), Pleshcheev was among the writers who practically lost the magazine platform. The main theme of his poems of this time was the exposure of betrayal and betrayal (“If you want it to be peaceful ...”, “Apostaten-Marsch”, “I pity those whose strength is dying ...”).

In the 1870s, the revolutionary mood in the work of Pleshcheev acquired the character of reminiscences. Characteristic in this sense is one of the most significant poems in his work, “I quietly walked along a deserted street ...” (1877), dedicated to the memory of V. G. Belinsky. As if drawing a line under a long period of disappointment and collapse of hopes, the poem “Without hopes and expectations ...” (1881), which was a direct response to the state of affairs in the country.

Pleshcheev in St. Petersburg

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

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

Actively supported young writers. He played a crucial role in the life of Ivan Surikov, who was a beggar and was ready to commit suicide. Surikov's life changed after the first publication arranged by Pleshcheev. Having great influence in editorial offices and publishing houses, Pleshcheev helped V. M. Garshin, A. Serafimovich, S. Ya. Nadson, A. Apukhtin. Pleshcheev played the most important role in the literary fate of D. S. Merezhkovsky during the years of his literary start. The latter, as a relic, kept a brief note in his archive: “I propose to membership<Литературного>Society of Seeds Yakovlevich Nadson (Krondstadt, corner of Kozelskaya and Kronstadtskaya, the house of the Nikitin heirs, Grigoriev's apartment) Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (Znamenskaya, 33, apartment 9) A. Pleshcheev. A strong friendship connected Pleshcheev with the novice A.P. Chekhov, whom Pleshcheev considered the most promising of the young writers. The poet greeted Chekhov's first major story, The Steppe, with admiration.

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

Creativity of the 1880s

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

D. S. Merezhkovsky - A. N. Pleshcheev

For the new generation of Russian writers of the late 19th century, A. N. Pleshcheev was "a living symbol of the chivalrous Russian literary free-thinking of immemorial pre-reform times."

... You are dear to us, which is not just a word,
But with all your soul, with all your life you are a poet,
And in these sixty hard, long years -
In deaf exile, in battle, in harsh labor -
You were warmed everywhere by a pure flame.
But do you know, poet, to whom you are dearest of all,
Who will send you the warmest hello?
You are the best friend for us, for Russian youth,
For those whom you called: "Forward, forward!"
With his captivating, deep kindness,
As a patriarch, you united us into a family, -
And that's why we love you with all our hearts,
And that's what we now raise a glass to!

These poems by D. S. Merezhkovsky, read by him “on behalf of the youth” at the anniversary celebrations on November 22, 1885, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the poet, fully reflected the attitude of the new generation of the Russian intelligentsia towards the patriarch.

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

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

In 1887, the complete collection of poems by A. N. Pleshcheev was published. The second edition (1894), with some additions, was published after the death of A.N. Pleshcheev by his son. In subsequent years, Pleshcheev's Tales and Stories were also published.

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

A. N. Pleshcheev wrote 13 original plays. Basically, these were small in volume and "entertaining" in terms of plot, lyric-satirical comedies from provincial landowner life. Theatrical productions based on his dramatic works - “Service” and “There is no blessing without good” (both - 1860), “The Happy Couple”, “Commander” (both - 1862) “What Often Happens” and “Brothers” (both - 1864) , etc.) - went to the leading theaters of the country. In the same years, he reworked for the Russian stage about thirty comedies by foreign playwrights.

Children's literature

An important place in the work of Pleshcheev in the last decade of his life was occupied by children's poetry and literature. His collections Snowdrop (1878) and Grandfather's Songs (1891) were successful. Some poems have become textbooks ("The Old Man", "Grandmother and Granddaughters"). The poet took an active part in publishing, namely in the development of children's literature. In 1861, together with F. N. Berg, he published a collection-reader "Children's Book", in 1873 (with N. A. Aleksandrov) - a collection of works for children's reading "On a holiday." Thanks to the efforts of Pleshcheev, seven school manuals were published under the general title "Geographical Essays and Pictures".

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

Romances on poems by Pleshcheev

A. N. Pleshcheev was characterized by experts as "a poet with a smoothly flowing, romance" poetic speech and one of the most "singing lyric poets of the second half of the 19th century." About a hundred romances and songs were written to his poems - both by contemporaries and composers of the next generations, among which we should remember N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov (“The Night Flew Over the World”), M. P. Mussorgsky, Ts. Cui, A. T. Grechaninova, S. V. Rachmaninov.

Pleshcheev's poems and children's songs became a source of inspiration for P. I. Tchaikovsky, who appreciated their "heartfelt lyricism and spontaneity, excitement and clarity of thought." Tchaikovsky's interest in Pleshcheev's poetry was largely due to the fact of their personal acquaintance. They met at the end of the 1860s in Moscow in the Artistic Circle and maintained good friendly relations for the rest of their lives.

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

“This work is easy and very pleasant, for I took the text Snowdrop Pleshcheev, where there are a lot of lovely gizmos, ”the composer wrote to M. I. Tchaikovsky while working on this cycle. In the House-Museum of P. I. Tchaikovsky in Klin, in the composer’s library, a collection of Pleshcheev’s poems “Snowdrop” has been preserved with the poet’s dedication inscription: “To Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as a token of location and gratitude for his beautiful music to my bad words. A. N. Pleshcheev. February 18, 1881 St. Petersburg.

A. N. Pleshcheev and A. P. Chekhov

A. V. Pleshcheev

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

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

Photograph donated by A. N. Pleshcheev to A. P. Chekhov in 1888.
I really love getting letters from you. Do not be told as a compliment, there is always so much apt wit in them, all your characteristics of both people and things are so good that you read them like a talented literary work; and these qualities, combined with the idea that a good person remembers you and is disposed towards you, make your letters very valuable.
From a letter from A.N. Pleshcheev to A.P. Chekhov on July 15, 1888.

The story "Steppe" Chekhov wrote in January 1888 for the "Northern Messenger" and at the same time shared his thoughts and doubts in detail in his letters ("I'm shy and I'm afraid that my Steppe it will come out insignificant ... Frankly speaking, I squeeze myself out, strain and pout, but still, in general, it does not satisfy me, although in some places it contains verses in prose”). Pleshcheev became the first reader of the story (in manuscript) and repeatedly expressed his delight in letters (“You wrote or almost wrote a great thing. Praise and honor to you! .. It hurts me that you wrote so many lovely, truly artistic things - and are less famous than writers unworthy to untie the belt at your feet").

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

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

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

Memories of Pleshcheev's visit to the dacha on Luka were left by Mikhail Chekhov.

Pleshcheev criticized Chekhov's "Name Day", in particular, its middle part, with which Chekhov agreed ("... I wrote it lazily and carelessly. Having got used to short stories consisting only of a beginning and an end, I get bored and start chewing when I feel that I write the middle"), then spoke sharply about the story "Leshy" (which Merezhkovsky and Urusov had previously praised). On the contrary, the story "A Boring Story" was awarded the highest rating.

Correspondence began to come to naught after Chekhov, having gone to Tyumen, did not answer several letters from the poet. However, even after receiving the inheritance and subsequent relocation to Paris, Pleshcheev continued to describe in detail to Chekhov his life, illnesses and treatment. A total of 60 Chekhov's letters and 53 Pleshcheev's letters have been preserved. The first publication of the correspondence was prepared by the son of the poet, writer and journalist Alexander Alekseevich Pleshcheev and published in 1904 by the Petersburg Diary of a Theatergoer.

last years of life

For the last three years of his life, Pleshcheev was freed from worries about earnings. In 1890, he received a huge inheritance from a Penza relative Alexei Pavlovich Pleshcheev and settled with his daughters in luxurious apartments in the Mirabeau Hotel in Paris, where he called all his acquaintances writers and generously gave them large sums of money. According to the memoirs of Z. Gippius, the poet changed only outwardly (having lost weight from the onset of the disease). Huge wealth, suddenly fallen on him "from heaven", he accepted "with noble indifference, remaining the same simple and hospitable owner, as in a small cell on Preobrazhenskaya Square." “What is wealth to me. That's just the joy that I was able to provide for the children, well, I myself sighed a little ... before my death, ”the poetess conveyed his words. Pleshcheev himself took guests to the sights of Paris, ordered sumptuous dinners in restaurants and "respectfully asked" to accept from him an "advance" for travel - a thousand rubles.

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

On January 2, 1892, from Nice, Pleshcheev wrote to Chekhov that his son Nikolai bought himself an estate in the Smolensk province, that in July in Lucerne his left arm and leg were taken away from him, he described in detail consultations with famous doctors (including "... the famous Kusmaul, whom Botkin wrote to himself before his death "- the latter forbade him to return to Russia in the winter), and also mentioned the treatment with" electricity and massage ":

... But still far from a perfect correction. I can’t walk a lot or walk soon. I'm getting tired. Although I go all with a stick. Shortness of breath and palpitations, on the other hand, are very rare here. Stopped smoking completely. I drink a glass of wine at lunch and breakfast.

K. D. Balmont. In memory of Pleshcheev.

His soul was pure as snow;
Man was sacred to him;
He was always a singer of goodness and light;
He was full of love for the downtrodden.
Oh youth! Bow down, bless
The cooled ashes of a silent poet.

This poem sounded on the day of the funeral over the coffin of A. N. Pleshcheev.

Russkiye Vedomosti, October 8, 1893.

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

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

The authorities forbade the publication of any "panegyric word" on the death of the poet, but a huge number of people gathered at the farewell ceremony on October 6. At the funeral, as contemporaries testified, mostly young people were present, including many then-unknown writers, in particular, K. D. Balmont, who delivered a farewell speech over the coffin.

Reviews of critics and contemporaries

Researchers of the poet's work noted the huge resonance that one of his first poems, "Forward", laid the foundation for "the public, civic side of his poetry ...". It was noted, first of all, the strength of Pleshcheev's civic position, the full compliance of the personal qualities of the ideals proclaimed by them. Peter Weinberg, in particular, wrote:

Pleshcheev's poetry is in many ways an expression and reflection of his life. He belongs to the category of poets with a completely definite character, the essence of which is exhausted by some one motive, grouping around itself its modifications and ramifications, always preserving, however, the basic foundation inviolable. In Pleshcheev's poetry, this motif is humanity in the broadest and noblest sense of the word. Being applied mainly to the public phenomena surrounding the poet, this humanity naturally had to take on an elegiac character, but his sadness is always accompanied by an unshakable faith in the victory - sooner or later - of good over evil ...

P. Weinberg

Many critics at the same time reservedly evaluated the early works of A. Pleshcheev. It was noted that literary activity was “colored with the ideas of socialist utopianism”; the traditional romantic motifs of disappointment, loneliness, longing "were interpreted by him as a reaction to social disadvantage", in the context of the theme of "holy suffering" of the lyrical hero ("Dream", "Wanderer", "Call of Friends"). The humanistic pathos of Pleshcheev's lyrics was combined with a prophetic tone characteristic of the mood of utopians, nourished by the hope of "seeing the eternal ideal" ("To the Poet", 1846). Faith in the possibility of a harmonious world order, the expectation of imminent change, was also expressed in P.'s most famous poem, extremely popular among the Petrashevites (as well as among the revolutionary-minded youth of the next generations, "Forward! Without fear and doubt ..." (1846).

N. A. Dobrolyubov about the poetry of A. N. Pleshcheev
Speaking about Pleshcheev's early poems, Dobrolyubov noted that “there was a lot of indefinite, weak, immature in them; but among the same poems was this bold call, full of such faith in oneself, faith in people, faith in a better future ":

Friends! Let's give each other hands
And let's move forward together
And let, under the banner of science,
Our Union is growing stronger and growing ...
... Let us be a guiding star
Holy truth burns.
And believe me, noble voice
No wonder the world will sound.

“This pure confidence, so firmly expressed, this fraternal call for an alliance - not in the name of reckless feasts and remote exploits, but precisely under the banner of science ... denounced in the author, if not a remarkable poetic talent, then at least an energetic decision to devote his literary activity to honest service to the public good,” admitted the critic.

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

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

A. N. Pleshcheev was not an innovator of form: his poetic system, formed in line with the Pushkin and Lermontov traditions, was based on stable phrases, established rhythmic-syntactic schemes, and a well-developed system of images. To some critics, this seemed to be evidence of genuine taste and talent, to others it gave reason to call some of his poems "colorless", to accuse him of "lack of independence" and "monotonity". At the same time, contemporaries, for the most part, highly appreciated the "social significance" of Pleshcheev's poetry, its "noble and pure direction", deep sincerity, and the call for "honest service to society."

Pleshcheev was often reproached for his fascination with abstract concepts and high-flown metaphors (“To all enemies of black untruth, rebelling against evil”, “The sword of the peoples is stained”, “But high aspirations were sacrificed to human vulgarity ...”). At the same time, the poet's supporters noted that didacticism of this kind was a form of Aesopian speech, an attempt to circumvent censorship. M. Mikhailov, who at one time criticized Pleshcheev, already in 1861 wrote that "... Pleshcheev left one force - the force of the call to honest service to society and neighbors."

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

Of the literary historians of the 20th century, a negative assessment of Pleshcheev’s work belongs to D. P. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, who wrote in the preface to a poetic anthology that Pleshcheev “leads us into the true Sahara of poetic mediocrity and lack of culture”, and noted in his “History of Russian Literature”: “Civil poetry in the hands of its most significant representatives became truly realistic, but ordinary civic bards were often the same eclecticism as the poets of “pure art”, and even surpassed them in obedience to conventions. Such, for example, is the flat and boring poetry of the very sweet and respectable A. N. Pleshcheev.

Influences

Most often, critics attributed Pleshcheev's poetry to the Nekrasov school. Indeed, already in the 1850s, the poet began to appear poems, as if reproducing the satirical and social lines of Nekrasov's poetry (“The children of the century are all sick ...”, 1858, etc.). The first comprehensive satirical image of a liberal appeared in Pleshcheev's poem "My Friend" (1858. Critics immediately noted that many attributes of imagery were borrowed from Nekrasov (his father, who went bankrupt "on dancers", the hero's provincial career, etc.). the accusatory line continued in the poem "Lucky" ("Slander! A member of charitable different societies and I. Philanthropists take five rubles every year from me.") 1862).

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

Lermontov's motives

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

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

Like-minded people and followers

Critics noted that, in terms of the nature and nature of his poetic activity, Pleshcheev in the 1860s was closest to N.P. Ogaryov. He himself insisted on this creative "kinship". On January 20, 1883 the poet wrote to S. Ya. Pleshcheev's landscape and landscape-philosophical lyrics were considered by critics as "interesting", but rational and largely secondary, in particular, in relation to the work of A. A. Fet.

Researchers of the 20th century have already noted that the idea of ​​Pleshcheev as a “poet of the 40s”, who outlived his time, or a Nekrasov epigone, planted by the liberal press, was largely motivated by political intrigues, a desire to belittle the authority of a potentially dangerous opposition author. Biographer N. Bannikov noted that Pleshcheev's poetic work developed; in his later poems there was less romantic pathos, more - on the one hand, contemplation and philosophical reflections, on the other - satirical motives ("My friend", "Lucky"). Such protest works of the poet as “Honest people, dear thorny ...”, “I feel sorry for those whose strength is dying” had quite independent value; poems that ridiculed “superfluous people” degraded in their passive “opposition” (poetic short story “She and He”, poem “Children of the century are all sick ...”, 1858).

"Dedication"

Do sounds of familiar songs come to you,
Friends of my lost youth?
And will I hear your brotherly greetings?
Are you still the same as before the separation? ...
Maybe I can't count the others!
And those - in a strange, distant side -
Forgotten about me...
And there is no one to respond to the songs!

The poem, dated 1858 and addressed to fellow Petrashevites, found a warm response among the latter, as evidenced by N. S. Kashkin. The latter responded with his verse:

Go ahead, don't be discouraged!
Goodness and truth on the road
Call your friends out loud.
Forward without fear and doubt
And if someone's blood has cooled,
Your living songs
He will be awakened to life again.

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

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

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

Criticism from the Left

Pleshcheev was criticized not only by liberals, but also - especially in the 1860s - by radical writers, whose ideals the poet tried to live up to. Among the poems that, according to critics, gave out sympathy for liberal ideas, it was noted “You poor people worked, not knowing rest ...” (from which it followed that the peasants, “submissive to fate”, patiently carried “their cross, like a righteous person carries”, but it came “the time of the holy rebirth”, etc.). This liberal "prayer" evoked a sharp response from Dobrolyubov, who, on the whole, was always sympathetic to the poet. He also parodied (in the poem "From the motives of modern Russian poetry") Pleshcheev's "praise" of the "tsar-liberator" that seemed to him liberal. However, the parody was not printed for ethical reasons. Dobrolyubov criticized Pleshcheev for "abstract didacticism" and allegorical images (an entry in the critic's diary dated February 8, 1858).

Radical authors and publicists also criticized Pleshcheev for being too “broad-minded,” in their opinion. Often he supported conflicting ideas and currents, sympathizing only with their "opposition"; breadth of views "often turned into uncertainty of judgments."

N. A. Dobrolyubov about Pleshcheev's prose

A. N. Pleshcheev.
Portrait by N. A. Yaroshenko. 1888

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

N. A. Dobrolyubov, reviewing in 1860 a two-volume book, which included 8 stories by A. N. Pleshcheev, noted that they “... were published in all our best magazines and were read at one time. Then they forgot about them. Talks and disputes about his story were never aroused either in the public or in literary criticism: no one praised them especially, but no one scolded either. For the most part they read the story and were satisfied; that was the end of it…” Comparing the novels and stories of Pleshcheev with the works of contemporary writers of the second plan, the critic noted that "... the social element constantly penetrates them and this distinguishes them from the many colorless stories of the thirties and fifties."

The world of Pleshcheev's prose is the world of "petty officials, teachers, artists, small landowners, semi-secular ladies and young ladies." In the history of each hero of Pleshcheev's stories, however, there is a noticeable connection with the environment, which "burdens over him with its demands." This, according to Dobrolyubov, is the main advantage of Pleshcheev's stories, however, - the dignity is not unique, belonging to him "on a par with so many of the modern fiction writers."

The dominant motif of Pleshcheev's prose, according to the critic, can be reduced to the phrase: "the environment seizes a person." However -

When reading ... the stories of Mr. Pleshcheev, a fresh and sensible reader immediately has a question: what exactly do these well-meaning heroes want, why are they killed? .. Here we do not meet anything definite: everything is so vague, fragmentary, petty you will deduce a general thought, you will not form an idea about the purpose of the life of these gentlemen ... All that is good in them is the desire that someone come, pull them out of the swamp in which they are bogged down, put them on their shoulders and drag them to a place clean and bright.

N. A. Dobrolyubov. "Goodwill and Action".

Describing the protagonist of the story of the same name, Dobrolyubov notes: “This Pashintsev is neither this nor that, neither day nor night, neither darkness nor light,” like many other heroes of stories of this kind, “does not represent a phenomenon at all; the whole environment that seizes it consists of exactly the same people. The reason for the death of Gorodkov, the hero of the story "Blessing" (1859), according to the critic, is "... His own naivety." Ignorance of life, uncertainty in means and goals, and poverty of means also distinguish Kostin, the hero of the story “Two Careers” (1859), who dies in consumption (“Irreproachable heroes in Mr. Pleshcheev, like in Mr. Turgenev and others, die from debilitating diseases,” the author of the article ironically), “having done nothing anywhere; but we do not know what he could do in the world, even if he did not suffer from consumption and was not constantly choked by the environment. Dobrolyubov notes, however, the fact that the shortcomings of the poet’s prose also have a subjective side: “If Mr. Pleshcheev draws his Kostins and Gorodkovs for us with exaggerated sympathy, it is<следствие того, что>other, more sustained practically types, in the same direction, have not yet been represented by Russian society.

The meaning of creativity

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

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

"The Song of the Workers"
In the leaflet interpretation of the "South Russian Workers' Union", the Pleshcheev anthem looked like this:

Forward without fear and doubt
On a valiant feat, friends
For a long time longing for unity
Working friendly family!
We will shake hands with each other
Let's unite in a close circle, -
And let the torture and torment
A true friend will go for a friend!
We want brotherhood and freedom!
May the vile age of slavery perish!
Is it mother nature
Isn't everyone equal?
The eternal covenant given to us by Marx -
Obey this covenant:
“Come closer, workers of all countries,
Unite in one Union!“

N. A. Morozov testified that the poem was popular among the revolutionary intelligentsia. Song (in a slightly altered version: The time will come, the time will come, the young forces will grow up / The eagles will fly up and peck the chain of violence with an iron beak ...) loved in the Ulyanov family.

In January 1886, the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the activity of A. N. Pleshcheev took place. This celebration was treated with great sympathy not only by old Petrashevite comrades-in-arms (in particular, N. S. Kashkin, who wrote to the poet on April 12, 1886, that he followed the anniversary "with sincere joy and lively sympathy"). Participants in the revolutionary movement of the new generation reacted to this event even more vividly: some of them, in particular, the one who signed the "editor of Echoes", called the poet their teacher.

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

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

Pleshcheev's translations

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

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

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

Character and personal qualities

All those who left memories of Pleshcheev characterized him as a person of high moral qualities. Pyotr Weinberg wrote about him as a poet who “… in the midst of the harsh and frequent jolts of reality, even exhausted under them… still continued to be the purest idealist and called others to the same ideal service to humanity”, never betrayed himself, “ nowhere and never (as it was said in a poetic address on the occasion of his fortieth birthday) without sacrificing good feelings before the world.

From the posthumous dedication of K. D. Balmont:

He was one of those whom fate led
Silicon paths of testing.
Whom danger guarded everywhere,
Mockingly threatening with anguish of exile.
But the blizzard of life, poverty, cold, haze
They did not kill the burning desire in him -
Be proud, brave, fight against evil
To awaken holy hopes in others ...

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

Contemporaries and later researchers of creativity noted the extraordinary clarity of mind, integrity of nature, kindness and nobility of Pleshcheev; characterized him as a person who "was notable for the purity of his soul that was not overshadowed by anything"; retained "despite all the dashing hard labor and soldiers' decades ... a childish faith in the purity and nobility of human nature, and was always inclined to exaggerate the talent of the next debutant poet."

Z. Gippius, who at the first personal meeting was “completely fascinated” by Pleshcheev, wrote down her first impressions of him in this way:

He is a large, somewhat overweight old man, with smooth, rather thick hair, yellow-white (gray blonde), and a magnificent, completely white beard that gently spreads over his waistcoat. Correct, slightly blurred features, a thoroughbred nose and seemingly stern eyebrows ... but in bluish eyes - such Russian softness, special, Russian, to the point of scattering, kindness and childishness, that even the eyebrows seem stern - on purpose.

Zobnin Y. Merezhkovsky: Life and deeds.

Noting that, as if without effort, “wonderful poems for children” came out from under the pen of A. Pleshcheev, N. Bannikov remarked: “It can be seen that there was something in the poet’s heart that easily opened the world of a child to him.” As P. Bykov wrote, Pleshcheev "... all was reflected in his poetry, all with his conscience, clear as a crystal, fiery faith in goodness and people, with his whole personality, ... deeply sympathetic, gentle, soft."

Findings of researchers

• Numerous propaganda poems were created among the Petrashevites, but few of them have survived. Presumably, many of Pleshcheev's propaganda poems also disappeared. There is an assumption that some of the unsigned works that appeared in the emigrant collections of the Lute series may belong to Pleshcheev; among them is the poem "The Righteous", marked: "S. Petersburg. January 18, 1847."
• The poem “By feelings, we are brothers with you ...” (1846) was attributed to K. F. Ryleev for a long time. Its belonging to Pleshcheev was established in 1954 by E. Bushkants, who found out that the addressee was V. A. Milyutin, a member of the circle of V. N. Maikov, an economist, whose work Belinsky and Chernyshevsky paid attention to.
• The poem "Autumn has come, the flowers have dried up ...", attributed to Pleshcheev in all collections of children's poetry, but absent in all collections of his works, does not actually belong to Pleshcheev. As the literary critic M.N. Zolotonosov established, the author of this text is the inspector of the Moscow educational district Alexei Grigorievich Baranov (1844-1911), the compiler of the collection where this poem was first published.
• The poem “I feel sorry for her ...” (“Give me your hand. I understand your ominous sadness ...”) was published with a dedication to D. A. Tolstoy, with whom the poet was friends in his youth. Tolstoy, however, subsequently acquired a reputation as a "reactionary" and even became the chief of the gendarme corps. In this regard, as it turned out later, A. A. Pleshcheev, the son of the poet, urged P. V. Bykov not to include the poem in the collection or delete the dedication.
• For a long time there were disputes about who the poem “S ... y” (1885) could be addressed to, which began with the words: “Before you lies a wide new path ...”. The most convincing was the version of S. A. Makashin, according to which Saltykov-Shchedrin was the addressee. In a magazine publication, it had the subtitle: "On entry into the field." Pleshcheev valued Shchedrin as “a really huge talent”, and referred him to the “best people of his country”.

Addresses

• In Moscow: Nashchokinsky lane, 10 (the house has not been preserved); Trubnikovsky lane (on Prechistenka), 35; Arbat, 36; Malaya Dmitrovka, 22 (reconstructed); Gun lane, 3.
• In St. Petersburg: 1872-1890 - the house of M. B. Bulatova - Bolshaya Spasskaya street, 1.

Family

Was married twice:

• Elikonida Alexandrovna Rudneva (1841-1864)
• Ekaterina Mikhailovna Danilova (? - ?)

• Alexander Alekseevich Pleshcheev(1858-1944), journalist, playwright, theater critic, memoirist. He died in exile in Paris.
• Pleshcheeva (married de Stael von Holstein) Elena Alekseevna(1860-1948). She was in correspondence with A.P. Chekhov.
• Pleshcheev Nikolai Alekseevich(1863-1932), officer, later a landowner, figure in the field of public education.
• Pleshcheeva (married Khudekova) Lyubov Alekseevna(1871-?) daughter from his second marriage.

Artworks

Poems

During his lifetime, five collections of poems by A. N. Pleshcheev were published, the last of them in 1887. The most significant of the posthumous publications is considered to be the edition edited by P. V. Bykov: “Poems by A. N. Pleshcheev (1844-1891). Fourth, revised edition. St. Petersburg, 1905. During the Soviet era, Pleshcheev's poetic works were published in the Large and Small series of the Poet's Library.

1840s

• Desdemona
• "Meanwhile, as the noise of applause ..."
• Unaccountable sadness
• “I love to strive with a dream ...”
• grave
• For memory
• "After the thunder, after the storm..."
• farewell song
• Shuttle
• old man at the piano
• “Let's go ashore; there are waves...
• "Goodnight!" - you said…"
• "When I'm in a crowded hall..."
• Singer love
• At the call of friends
• “Me again, full of thoughts…”
• Neighbor
• Wanderer
• "I hear familiar sounds..."
• "Forward! without fear or doubt...
• Meeting
• Sounds
• “Why dream about what will happen after ...”
• To the motive of a French poet
• chant
• “We feel like brothers, you and I…”
• Poet
• sorry
• “Accidentally we met with you…”
• “He suffered a lot in his life, a lot ...”
• “Like a Spanish fly, melancholy…”
• New Year
• "Another great voice is silent..."

1850s

• Spring
• Before leaving
• When sending the Raphael Madonna
• After reading newspapers
• "Before you lies a wide new path..."
• in the steppe
• A leaf from a diary
• "Don't say it's wrong..."
• “Oh, if you knew, friends of my spring…”
• Meditation
• "There are days: neither malice nor love..."
• Winter skiing
• “When your meek, clear gaze…”
• Prayer
• S. F. Durov
• “You only clear my days…”
• “You are sweet to me, it’s time for sunset!…”
• “There was a time: their sons…”
• Past
• “Children of the century are all sick…”
• “Familiar sounds, wonderful sounds!…”
• “When I returned to my native city…”
• “When I meet the one torn by the struggle…”
• “A lot of evil and stupid jokes…”
• My acquaintance
• My garden
• “Oh no, not everyone is given…”
• “He walked resignedly on a thorny path ...”
• Song
• dedication
• birdie
• heart
• Wanderer
• lucky man
• “You poor people worked, not knowing rest ...”
• “Do you remember: drooping willows…”
• “You want songs, I don’t sing ...”
• Flower
• "What a baby head..."

1860s

• moonlit night
• empty house
• ghosts
• “I drink for a glorious artist…”
• Decembrist
• “If at the hour when the stars light up…”
• On the street
• “There is no rest, my friend, on the path of life…”
• "A boring picture!..."
• “I grew up with my mother in the hall ...”
• "Blessed is he who has not worked..."
• Sick
• Spring
• "Friends of Free Art..."
• “It is envious of me to look at the sages…”
• plea
• "Not! Better death without return ... "
• beggars
• New Year
• "Oh, don't forget that you're in debt..."
• “Oh, youth, youth, where are you ...” (“Contemporary”, 1862, April)
• Clouds
• In memory of K. S. Aksakov
• "In front of the dilapidated hut ..."
• Poet
• "A pale ray of the moon has broken through..."
• In the woods. From Heine ("Contemporary", 1863, January-February)
• “All, all my path ...” (“Contemporary”, 1863, January-February)
• two roads
• "The scent of roses and jasmine..."
• “And here is your blue tent…”
• To youth
• false teachers
• “I love the forest path in the evening ...”
• "Anger boiled in my heart..."
• "The night flew over the world..."
• At night
• She and he
• “I’ll have a rest, I’ll sit at the edge of the forest ...”
• Fatherland
• “Mother nature! I'm coming to you..."
• native
• Wise men's advice ("Contemporary", 1863, January-February)
• "The sun of the mountain gilded ..."
• “In court, he heard the verdict…”
• Spring
• “Why, with the sounds of these songs…”
• Hypochondria
• Autumn
• Dying
• "Honest people, dear thorny ..."
• “What a year, then a new loss…”
• “What are you drooping, green willow?…”
• Guests
• "If you want it to be peaceful..."
• “I look at her and admire…”
• Apostaten Marsch
• In memory of E. A. Pleshcheeva
• “Snow melts quickly, streams run…”
• “When I suddenly see a burial…”
• Slavic guests
• "Where are you, it's time for fun meetings ..."
• “I feel sorry for those whose strength is dying…”
• "When you harsh silence ..."
• Clouds
• Words for music
• Old men
• "Heavy, painful thought..."

1870s

• “Or those days are still far away…”
• Expectation
• "Blessed are you to whom it is given..."
• spring night
• “He is in his white coffin…”
• toasts
• Into the storm
• Spring
• Childhood
• Winter evening
• From life
• Toiler's grave
• “There is no peace for me from the fierce grief ...”
• "Warm spring day..."
• On the shore
• At night
• Memory
• Tomorrow
• In the country
• Bad weather
• Old man
• “I was walking quietly down the deserted street…”
• Grandmother and granddaughter
• "I parted with deceptive dreams ..."
• "I owe you my salvation..."

1880s

• "The lights went out in the house..."
• In memory of Pushkin
• Song of the Exile
• “Without hopes and expectations…”
• "The muddy river was seething..."
• From old songs
• "You yearned for the truth, you yearned for the light..."
• Past
• In memory of N. A. Nekrasov
• September 27, 1883 (In memory of I. S. Turgenev) (“Notes of the Fatherland”, 1883, October)
• Last Wednesday
• January 1st, 1884
• To the portrait of the singer
• “How often an image is dear…”
• On the Sunset
• Words for music
• To Anton Rubinstein's album
• Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

› Alexey Pleshcheev

Biography

Alexei Nikolaevich Pleshcheev - Russian writer, poet, translator; literary and theater critic. In 1846, the very first collection of poems made Pleshcheev famous among the revolutionary youth; as a member of the circle Petrashevsky he was arrested in 1849 and some time later sent into exile, where he spent almost ten years in military service. Upon his return from exile, Pleshcheev continued his literary activity; having gone through years of poverty and deprivation, he became an authoritative writer, critic, publisher, and, at the end of his life, a philanthropist. Many of the poet's works (especially poems for children) have become textbooks and are considered classics. On verses Pleshcheeva the most famous Russian composers wrote more than a hundred romances.

Alexei Nikolaevich Pleshcheev was born in Kostroma on November 22 (December 4), 1825, into an impoverished noble family that belonged to the ancient Pleshcheev family (Saint Alexy of Moscow was among the poet's ancestors):101. The family honored literary traditions: there were several writers in the Pleshcheev family, including the famous writer S. I. Pleshcheev at the end of the 18th century.

The poet's father, Nikolai Sergeevich, served under the Olonets, Vologda and Arkhangelsk governors. A. N. Pleshcheev’s childhood passed in Nizhny Novgorod:9, where since 1827 his father served as a provincial forester. After the death of Nikolai Sergeevich Pleshcheev in 1832, his mother, Elena Alexandrovna (née Gorskina), was engaged in raising her son. Until the age of thirteen, the boy studied at home and received a good education, having mastered three languages; then, at the request of his mother, he entered the St. Petersburg school of guards ensigns, moving to St. Petersburg. Here, the future poet had to face the "stupefying and corrupting" atmosphere of the "Nikolaev militarism", which forever settled in his soul "the most sincere antipathy." Having lost interest in military service, Pleshcheev left the school of guards ensigns in 1843 (formally, having resigned "due to illness") and entered St. Petersburg University in the category of oriental languages. Pleshcheev's circle of acquaintances began to take shape here: the rector of the university P. A. Pletnev , A. A. Kraevsky , Maikovs, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Gradually, Pleshcheev made acquaintances in literary circles (established mainly at soirees in the house of A. Kraevsky). Pleshcheev sent his very first collection of poems to Pletnev, rector of St. Petersburg University and publisher of the Sovremennik magazine. In a letter to J.K. Grot, the latter wrote:

Have you seen poems in Sovremennik signed by A. P-v? I found out that this is our 1st year student, Pleshcheev. He shows talent. I called him to me and caressed him. He goes to the eastern branch, lives with his mother, whose only son he is ...: 9 In 1845, A. N. Pleshcheev, carried away by socialist ideas, met through the Beketov brothers with members of the circle of M. V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky.

At the beginning of 1846, Pleshcheev began to attend the literary and philosophical circle of the Beketov brothers (Alexey, Andrey and Nikolai), which included the poet A. N. Maikov, critic V. N. Maikov, doctor S. D. Yanovsky, D. V. Grigorovich and others. In the circle of the Beketov brothers, Pleshcheev met F. M. Dostoevsky, with whom he had a long-term friendship.

Pleshcheev, to whom Dostoevsky dedicated his story "White Nights", served as the prototype of the Dreamer in this work.

The circle of Petrashevsky included writers - F. M. Dostoevsky, N. A. Speshnev, S. F. Durov, A. V. Khanykov. These days N. Speshnev had a great influence on Pleshcheev, whom the poet later spoke of as a man of “strong will and an extremely honest character”:10.

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

In the summer of 1845, Pleshcheev left the university due to a cramped financial situation and dissatisfaction with the very process of education. After leaving the university, he devoted himself exclusively to literary activity, but he did not give up hope of completing his education, intending to prepare the entire university course and pass it as an external student: 9. At the same time, he did not interrupt contacts with the members of the circle; Petrashevites often met at his house; Pleshcheev was perceived by them as a "poet-fighter, his own André Chenier ».

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

V. N. Maikov, in a review of the first collection of Pleshcheev’s poems, wrote with special sympathy about the poet’s faith in “the triumph on earth of truth, love and brotherhood”, calling the author “our first poet at the present time”:

Poems to the maiden and the moon are over forever. Another era is coming: doubt and endless torments of doubt are in progress, suffering from universal human questions, bitter lamentation at the shortcomings and disasters of mankind, at the disorder of society, complaints about the trifles of modern characters and the solemn recognition of their insignificance and impotence, imbued with lyrical pathos to the truth ... In that miserable the position in which our poetry has been since the death of Lermontov, Mr. Pleshcheev is undoubtedly our first poet at the present time ... He, as can be seen from his poems, took up the work of a poet by vocation, he strongly sympathizes with the issues of his time, suffers from all the ailments of the century, painfully tormented by the imperfections of society ... The poems and stories of A. Pleshcheev, who in these years was charged with faith in the coming kingdom of "human cosmopolitanism" (in the words of Maikov), were also published in Fatherland Notes (1847-1849).

Pleshcheev's poetry turned out to be in fact the first literary reaction in Russia to the events in France. In many ways, this is precisely why his work was so valued by the Petrashevites, who set as their immediate goal the transfer of revolutionary ideas to domestic soil. Subsequently, Pleshcheev himself wrote in a letter to A.P. Chekhov:

“And for our brother - a man of the second half of the 40s - France is very close to my heart. Then it was not allowed to poke your nose into domestic politics - and we were brought up and developed on French culture, on the ideas of 48 years. You won’t exterminate us ... In many ways, of course, we had to be disappointed later - but we remained faithful to A. Pleshcheev - A. Chekhov, 1888.

The poem “New Year” (“Clicks are heard - congratulations ...”), published with a “secret” subtitle “Cantata from Italian”, was a direct response to the French Revolution. Written at the end of 1848, it could not deceive the vigilance of the censorship and was published only in 1861:240.

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

Link

In the winter of 1848-1849, Pleshcheev arranged meetings of the Petrashevites at his home. F. M. Dostoevsky, M. M. Dostoevsky, S. F. Durov, A. I. Palm, N. A. Speshnev, A. P. Milyukov, N. A. Mombelli, N. Ya. Danilevsky(future conservative author of the work "Russia and Europe"), P. I. Lamansky. Pleshcheev belonged to the more moderate part of the Petrashevites. He was left indifferent by the speeches of other radical speakers who replaced the idea of ​​a personal God with "truth in nature", who rejected the institution of family and marriage and professed republicanism. He was a stranger to extremes and sought to harmonize his thoughts and feelings. An ardent passion for new socialist beliefs was not accompanied by a decisive rejection of one's former faith and only merged the religion of socialism and the Christian doctrine of truth and love of one's neighbor into a single whole. No wonder he took the words of Lamenne as his epigraph to the poem “Dream”: “The earth is sad and dry, but it will turn green again. The breath of evil will not forever sweep over her like a scorching breath.

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

On December 22, together with the rest of the condemned Petrashevites, A. Pleshcheev was brought to the Semenovsky parade ground to a special civil execution scaffold. A staging followed, which was later described in detail by F. Dostoevsky in the novel The Idiot, after which the decree of Emperor Nicholas I was read out, according to which the death penalty was replaced by various terms of exile to hard labor or to prison companies:11. A. Pleshcheev was first sentenced to four years of hard labor, then transferred as a private to Uralsk in the Separate Orenburg Corps.

On January 6, 1850, Pleshcheev arrived in Uralsk and was enlisted as an ordinary soldier in the 1st Orenburg linear battalion. March 25, 1852 he was transferred to Orenburg in the 3rd line battalion. The poet's stay in the region lasted eight years, of which seven he remained in military service. Pleshcheev recalled that the first years of service were given to him with difficulty, largely due to the hostile attitude of the officers towards him. “At first, his life in a new place of exile was downright terrible,” testified M. Dandeville. Vacations were not granted to him, there was no question of creative activity. The steppes themselves made a painful impression on the poet. “This boundless steppe expanse, expanse, callous vegetation, dead silence and loneliness are terrible,” Pleshcheev wrote: 12.

The situation changed for the better after the poet began to be patronized by the Governor-General Count V. A. Perovsky an old friend of his mother. Pleshcheev got access to books, became friends with the family of a lieutenant colonel (later a general) who was fond of art and literature. V. D. Dandeville(to whom he dedicated several poems of those years), with Polish exiles, who was exiled in the same regions by Taras Shevchenko, one of the creators of the literary mask of Kozma Prutkov A. M. Zhemchuzhnikov and revolutionary poet M. L. Mikhailov.

In the winter of 1850 in Uralsk, Pleshcheev met Sigismund Serakovsky and his circle; they met later, in the Ak-Mechet, where both served. In Serakovsky's circle, Pleshcheev again found himself in an atmosphere of intense discussion of the same socio-political issues that worried him in St. Petersburg. “One exile supported another. The highest happiness was being in the circle of his comrades. After the drill, friendly interviews were often held. Letters from home, news brought by newspapers, were the subject of endless discussion. Not one of them lost courage and hope for a return…”, - its member Br. Zalessky. Serakovsky's biographer specified that the circle discussed "issues related to the liberation of the peasants and the allocation of land to them, as well as the abolition of corporal punishment in the army."

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

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

Resumption of literary activity

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

In 1857, several more of his poems were published in Russkiy Vestnik. For researchers of the poet's work, it remained unclear which of them were really new, and which belonged to the years of exile. It was assumed that G. Heine's translation of "The Way of Life" (according to Pleshcheev - "And laughter, and songs, and the sun shine! .."), published in 1858, is one of the latter. The same line of “fidelity to ideals” was continued by the poem “In the Steppe” (“But let my days pass without joy ...”). The expression of the general sentiments of the Orenburg exiled revolutionaries was the poem "After reading the newspapers", the main idea of ​​which - the condemnation of the Crimean War - was in tune with the moods of the Polish and Ukrainian exiles.

In 1858, after an almost ten-year break, Pleshcheev's second collection of poems was published. The epigraph to it, the words of Heine: "I was not able to sing ...", indirectly indicated that in exile the poet was almost not engaged in creative activity. Poems dated 1849-1851 did not survive at all, and Pleshcheev himself admitted in 1853 that he had long "lost the habit of writing." The main theme of the 1858 collection was "pain for the enslaved homeland and faith in the rightness of one's cause", the spiritual insight of a person who refuses a thoughtless and contemplative attitude to life. The collection opened with the poem "Dedication", which in many respects echoed the poem "And laughter, and songs, and the sun shine! ..". Among those who sympathetically appreciated Pleshcheev's second collection was N. A. Dobrolyubov. He pointed to the socio-historical conditionality of dreary intonations by the circumstances of life, which "ugly break the most noble and strong personalities ...". “In this regard, Mr. Pleshcheev’s talent was also stamped with the same bitter consciousness of his powerlessness before fate, the same color of“ painful longing and desolate thoughts ”that followed the ardent, proud dreams of youth,” wrote the critic.

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

In the late 1850s, A. Pleshcheev turned to prose, first to the short story genre, then published several stories, in particular, "Inheritance" and "Father and Daughter" (both - 1857), partly autobiographical "Budnev" (1858) , "Pashintsev" and "Two Careers" (both - 1859). The main target of Pleshcheev's satire as a prose writer was pseudo-liberal accusation and romantic epigonism, as well as the principles of "pure art" in literature (the story "Literary Evening"). Dobrolyubov wrote about the story “Pashintsev” (published in the “Russian Bulletin” 1859, Nos. 11 and 12): “The public element constantly penetrates them and this distinguishes them from the many colorless stories of the thirties and fifties ... In the history of each hero of Pleshcheev’s stories, you see how he is bound by his environment, as this little world weighs on him with its demands and relations - in a word, you see in the hero a social being, and not a solitary one.

"Moscow Bulletin"

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

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

1860s

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

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

In 1861, Pleshcheev decided to create a new journal, Foreign Review, and invited M. L. Mikhailov to participate in it. A year later, with Saltykov, A. M. Unkovsky, A. F. Golovachev, A. I. Evropeyus and B. I. Utin, he developed a project for the journal Russkaya Pravda, but in May 1862 he was denied permission to the journal. At the same time, an unfulfilled plan arose for the purchase of the already outgoing newspaper Vek.

Pleshcheev's position on the reforms of 1861 changed over time. At first, he received the news of them with hope (evidence of this is the poem “You poor people worked, not knowing rest ...”). Already in 1860, the poet rethought his attitude towards the liberation of the peasants - largely under the influence of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. In letters to E. I. Baranovsky, Pleshcheev noted: the "bureaucratic and plantation" parties are ready to give "the poor peasant as a victim of bureaucratic robbery", renouncing the old hopes that the peasant "will be freed from the heavy paw of the landowner."

Period of political activity

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

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

The poems “To youth” and “False teachers” published in Sovremennik in 1862, connected with the events of the autumn of 1861, when the arrests of students were met with complete indifference of the broad masses, also had the character of a political speech. From Pleshcheev’s letter to A.N. Supenev, to whom the poem “To Youth” was sent for transfer to Nekrasov, it appears that on February 25, 1862, Pleshcheev read “To Youth” at a literary evening in favor of twenty expelled students. The poet also took part in raising money in favor of the affected students. In the poem "To Youth", Pleshcheev urged students "not to retreat before the crowd, to throw stones ready." The poem "To False Teachers" was a response to a lecture by B. N. Chicherin, read on October 28, 1861 and directed against the "anarchy of minds" and "violent revelry of thought" of students. In November 1861, Pleshcheev wrote to A.P. Milyukov:

“Have you read Chicherin's lecture in Moskovskie Vedomosti? No matter how little you sympathize with the students, whose antics are indeed often childish, you must admit that one cannot but feel sorry for the poor youth, condemned to listen to such flabby nonsense, such shabby as soldier's trousers, commonplaces and empty doctrinaire phrases! Is this a living word of science and truth? And this lecture was applauded by associates of the venerable doctrinaire Babst, Ketcher, Shchepkin and Co. » In the reports of the secret police during these years, A. N. Pleshcheev still appeared as a “conspirator”; it was written that although Pleshcheev “behaves very secretively,” he is still “suspected of spreading ideas that disagree with the types of government”: 14. There were some grounds for such suspicion.

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

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

Literary activity in the 1860s

In 1860, two volumes of Pleshcheev's Tales and Stories were published; in 1861 and 1863 - two more collections of Pleshcheev's poems. The researchers noted that as a poet, Pleshcheev joined the Nekrasov school; Against the background of the public upsurge of the 1860s, he created socially critical, protest-conscription poems (“Oh youth, youth, where are you?”, “Oh, don’t forget that you are in debt”, “A boring picture!”). At the same time, in the 1860s, he was close to N. P. Ogaryov in the nature of poetic creativity; the work of both poets developed on the basis of common literary traditions, although it was noted that Pleshcheev's poetry is more lyrical. Among contemporaries, however, the opinion prevailed that Pleshcheev remained a “man of the forties”, somewhat romantic and abstract. “Such a spiritual warehouse did not quite coincide with the character of the new people, the sober sixties, who demanded deeds and, above all, deeds”:13, noted N. Bannikov, the poet's biographer.

N. D. Khvoshchinskaya (under the pseudonym "V. Krestovsky" in a review of Pleshcheev's collection of 1861, highly appreciating in retrospect the work of the poet, who wrote "living, warm modern things that made us sympathize with him", sharply criticized the "uncertainty" of feelings and ideas, in some verses capturing decadence, in some - sympathy for liberalism. Pleshcheev himself indirectly agreed with this assessment, in the poem "Meditation" he admitted about "miserable disbelief" and "belief in the futility of the struggle ...".

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

Literary earnings brought the poet a meager income, he led the existence of a "literary proletarian", as F. M. Dostoevsky called such people (including himself). But, as contemporaries noted, Pleshcheev behaved independently, remaining faithful to "the high humanistic Schillerian idealism learned in his youth":101. As Y. Zobnin wrote, “Pleshcheev, with the courageous simplicity of an exiled prince, endured the constant need of these years, huddled with his large family in tiny apartments, but did not compromise either his civic or literary conscience one iota”:101.

Years of disappointment

In 1864, A. Pleshcheev was forced to enter the service and received the position of auditor of the control chamber of the Moscow post office. “Life has completely torn me apart. In my years, to fight like a fish on ice and wear a uniform for which I never prepared, how hard it is ”:14, he complained two years later in a letter to Nekrasov.

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

In the 1870s, the revolutionary mood in the work of Pleshcheev acquired the character of reminiscences; Characteristic in this sense is the poem “I quietly walked along a deserted street ...” (1877), which is considered one of the most significant in his work, dedicated to the memory of V. G. Belinsky. As if drawing a line under a long period of disappointment and collapse of hopes, the poem “Without hopes and expectations ...” (1881), which was a direct response to the state of affairs in the country.

Pleshcheev in St. Petersburg

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

At the same time, together with V. S. Kurochkin, A. M. Skabichevsky, N. A. Demert, he became an employee of Birzhevye Vedomosti, a newspaper in which Nekrasov dreamed of secretly “holding the views” of his main publication. After the closure of Otechestvennye Zapiski, Pleshcheev contributed to the creation of a new journal, Severny Vestnik, in which he worked until 1890:15.

Pleshcheev actively supported young writers. He played a crucial role in the life of Ivan Surikov, who was a beggar and was ready to commit suicide; his life changed after the first publication arranged by Pleshcheev. Having great influence in editorial offices and publishing houses, Pleshcheev helped V. M. Garshin, A. Serafimovich, S. Ya. Nadson, A. Apukhtin. The most important role Pleshcheev played in the literary fate of D. S. Merezhkovsky during his literary debut. The latter, as a relic, he kept a short note in his archive: “I propose to the members of the society Semyon Yakovlevich Nadson (Krondstadt, the corner of Kozelskaya and Kronstadtskaya, the house of the Nikitin heirs, Grigoriev’s apartment) Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (Znamenskaya, 33, apartment 9) A. Pleshcheev”: 99. A deep friendship connected Pleshcheev with the novice A.P. Chekhov, whom Pleshcheev considered the most promising of young writers. The poet greeted Chekhov's first major story, The Steppe, with admiration:17.

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

Creativity of the 1880s

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

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

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

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

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

A. N. Pleshcheev wrote 13 original plays. Basically, these were small in volume and "entertaining" in terms of plot, lyric-satirical comedies from provincial landowner life. Theatrical performances based on his dramaturgical works "Service" and "There is no blessing without good" (both - 1860), "The Happy Couple", "Commander" (both - 1862) "What Often Happens" and "Brothers" (both - 1864), etc.) were shown in the leading theaters of the country. In the same years, he reworked for the Russian stage about thirty comedies by foreign playwrights.

Children's literature

An important place in the work of Pleshcheev in the last decade of his life was occupied by children's poetry and literature. His collections Snowdrop (1878) and Grandfather's Songs (1891) were successful. Some poems have become textbooks ("The Old Man", "Grandmother and Granddaughters"). The poet took an active part in publishing, in line with the development of children's literature. In 1861, together with F. N. Berg, he published a collection-reader "Children's Book", in 1873 (with N. A. Aleksandrov) - a collection of works for children's reading "On a holiday." Also, thanks to the efforts of Pleshcheev, seven school manuals were published under the general heading "Geographical essays and paintings."

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

Romances on poems by Pleshcheev

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

Pleshcheev's poems and children's songs became a source of inspiration for P. I. Tchaikovsky, who appreciated their "heartfelt lyricism and spontaneity, excitement and clarity of thought." Tchaikovsky's interest in Pleshcheev's poetry was largely due to the fact of their personal acquaintance. They met at the end of the 1860s in Moscow in the Artistic Circle and maintained good friendly relations for the rest of their lives.

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

“This work is light and very pleasant, because I took the text of Pleshcheev’s Snowdrop, where there are a lot of lovely gizmos,” the composer wrote to M. I. Tchaikovsky while working on this cycle. In the House-Museum of P. I. Tchaikovsky in Klin, in the composer’s library, a collection of Pleshcheev’s poems “Snowdrop” has been preserved with the poet’s dedication inscription: “To Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as a token of location and gratitude for his beautiful music to my bad words. A. N. Pleshcheev. February 18, 1881 St. Petersburg.

Findings of researchers

Numerous propaganda poems were created among the Petrashevites, but few of them have survived. Presumably, many of Pleshcheev's propaganda poems also disappeared. There is an assumption that some of the unsigned works that appeared in the emigrant collections of the Lute series may belong to Pleshcheev; among them is the poem "The Righteous", marked: "S. Petersburg. January 18, 1847."
The poem “By feelings, we are brothers with you ...” (1846) was attributed to K. F. Ryleev for a long time. Its belonging to Pleshcheev was established in 1954 by E. Bushkants, who found out that the addressee was V. A. Milyutin (1826-1855), a member of the Petrashevsky circle, an economist, whose work Belinsky and Chernyshevsky paid attention to.
The poem "Autumn has come, the flowers have dried up ...", attributed to Pleshcheev in all collections of children's poetry, but absent in all collections of his works, does not actually belong to Pleshcheev. As the literary critic M.N. Zolotonosov established, the author of this text is the inspector of the Moscow educational district Alexei Grigorievich Baranov (1844-1911), the compiler of the collection where this poem was first published.
The poem “I feel sorry for her ...” (“Give me your hand. I understand your ominous sadness ...”) was published with a dedication to D. A. Tolstoy, with whom the poet was friends in his youth. Tolstoy, however, subsequently acquired a reputation as a "reactionary" and even became the chief of the gendarme corps. In this regard, as it turned out later, A. A. Pleshcheev, the son of the poet, urged P. V. Bykov not to include the poem in the collection or delete the dedication.: 238
For a long time there were disputes about who the poem “S ... y” (1885) could be addressed to, which began with the words: “Before you lies a wide new path ...”. The most convincing was the version of S. A. Makashin, according to which Saltykov-Shchedrin was the addressee. In a magazine publication, it had the subtitle: "On entry into the field." Shchedrin was valued by Pleshcheev as “a really huge talent”, he was classified as one of the “best people in his country”:241.

Addresses

In Moscow: Nashchokinsky lane, 10 (the house has not been preserved); Trubnikovsky lane (on Prechistenka), 35; Arbat, 36; Malaya Dmitrovka, 22 (reconstructed); Gun lane, 3.
In St. Petersburg: 1872-1890 - the house of M. B. Bulatova - Bolshaya Spasskaya street, 1.