Fedor Dostoevsky. Engraving by Vladimir Favorsky. 1929 year State Tretyakov Gallery / DIOMEDIA
"Beauty will save the world"
“True, Prince [Myshkin], what did you say once that the world will be saved by 'beauty'? Gentlemen, - he shouted [Hippolytus] loudly to everyone, - the prince asserts that beauty will save the world! And I claim that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love. Lord, the prince is in love; just now, he just entered, I was convinced of this. Don't blush, prince, I will feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world? Kolya re-told me this ... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says you call yourself a Christian.
The prince examined him carefully and did not answer him. "The Idiot (1868)
The phrase about beauty that will save the world is pronounced by a minor character - the consumptive youth Hippolytus. He asks if Prince Myshkin really said so, and, having received no answer, begins to develop this thesis. But the main character of the novel in such formulations does not argue about beauty and only once clarifies about Nastasya Filippovna, whether she is kind: “Oh, if only she were kind! Everything would be saved! "
In the context of The Idiot, it is customary to speak primarily of the power of inner beauty - this is how the writer himself suggested interpreting this phrase. While working on the novel, he wrote to the poet and censor Apollo Maikov that he set himself the goal of creating an ideal image of "a completely beautiful person", referring to Prince Myshkin. At the same time, the drafts of the novel contain the following record: “The world will be saved by beauty. Two examples of beauty ”, - after which the author discusses the beauty of Nastasya Filippovna. For Dostoevsky, therefore, it is important to appreciate the saving power of both the inner, spiritual beauty of a person and his appearance. In the plot of The Idiot, however, we find a negative answer: the beauty of Nastasya Filippovna, like the purity of Prince Myshkin, does not make the life of other characters better and does not prevent tragedy.
Later, in the novel The Brothers Karamazov, the heroes will again talk about the power of beauty. Brother Mitya no longer doubts her saving power: he knows and feels that beauty can make the world a better place. But in his own understanding, it also has destructive power. And the hero will suffer because he does not understand exactly where the border between good and evil lies.
"Am I a trembling creature or have the right"
“And not money, the main thing, I needed, Sonya, when I killed; not so much money was needed as something else ... I now know all this ... Understand me: maybe, going the same way, I would never repeat the murder again. I needed to know something else, something else pushed me under the arms: I needed to learn then, and quickly find out whether I was a louse, like everyone else, or a human? Will I be able to overstep or not! Do I dare to bend over and take it or not? Am I a trembling creature or right I have ... "
"Crime and Punishment" (1866)
For the first time, Raskolnikov speaks of the "trembling creature" after meeting with a bourgeoisie who calls him a "killer." The hero is frightened and plunges into reasoning about how some “Napoleon” would react in his place - a representative of the highest human “class” who can calmly commit a crime for the sake of his goal or whim: “Right, right” pro-rock “when he puts somewhere across the street a good-sized battery and blows at the right and the guilty, not even deigning to explain himself! Obey, trembling creature, and - do not desire, therefore - this is not your business! .. "This image of the Raskolnikov, most likely, borrowed from Pushkin's poem" Imitation of the Koran ", where the 93rd sura is freely stated:
Take heart, despise deception,
Cheerfully follow the path of truth
Love the orphans and my Quran
Preach to the trembling creature.
In the original text of the surah, the addressees of the sermon should not be "creatures", but people who should be told about the benefits that Allah can bestow “Therefore, do not oppress the orphan! And don't chase the one asking! And proclaim the mercy of your Lord ”(Quran 93: 9-11).... Raskolnikov deliberately mixes the image from "Imitations of the Koran" and episodes from the biography of Napoleon. Of course, it was not the prophet Mohammed, but the French regiment leader who set up "a good battery across the street." So he put down the royalist uprising in 1795. For Raskolnikov, they are both great people, and each of them, in his opinion, had the right to achieve their goals by any means. Everything that Napoleon did could be realized by Mohammed and any other representative of the highest "category".
The last mention of the "trembling creature" in "Crime and Punishment" is the same damned question of Raskolnikov "Am I a trembling creature or have the right ...". He utters this phrase at the end of a long explanation with Sonya Marme-Lada, finally not justifying himself by noble impulses and difficult circumstances, but directly declaring that he killed for himself in order to understand what "category" he belongs to. This is how his last mono-log ends; through hundreds and thousands of words, he finally got to the bottom of it. Significance to this phrase is given not only by the biting wording, but also by what further happens to the hero. After that, Raskolnikov no longer makes long speeches: Dostoevsky leaves him only short remarks. Readers will learn about Raskolnikov's inner experiences, which will eventually lead him with recognition to Saint Square and to the police station, from the author's explanations. The hero himself will not tell about anything else - after all, he has already asked the main question.
"Should the light fail, or should I not drink tea"
“... In fact, I need, you know what: for you to fail, that's what! I need peace of mind. Yes, I’m for not being disturbed, I’ll sell the whole world for a penny right now. Should the light fail, or should I not drink tea? I will say that the light will fail, but that I always drink tea. Did you know that or not? Well, but I know that I am a scoundrel, a scoundrel, a self-lover, lazy. "
"Notes from the Underground" (1864)
This is part of the monologue of the unnamed hero of "Notes from the Underground", which he pronounces in front of a prostitute who unexpectedly came to his house. The phrase about tea sounds-chit as proof of the insignificance and selfishness of the underground person. These words have an interesting historical context. Tea as a measure of prosperity first appears in Dostoevsky's Poor People. Here is how the hero of the novel Makar Devushkin talks about his financial situation:
“And my apartment costs me seven rubles in banknotes, and the table is five rubles: here's twenty-four and a half rubles, and before that I paid exactly thirty, but I denied myself a lot; I didn’t always drink tea, but now I’ve made a profit for tea and sugar. It is, you know, my dear, it’s a shame not to drink tea; here all the people are sufficient, so it's a shame. "
Dostoevsky himself experienced similar experiences in his youth. In 1839 he wrote from Petersburg to his father in the village:
"What; do not drink tea, you will not die of hunger! I will live somehow!<…> The camp life of each student of military educational institutions requires at least 40 rubles. money.<…> In this amount, I do not include such requirements as, for example: to have tea, sugar, etc. This is already necessary, and it is necessary not out of decency, but out of need. When you get wet in wet weather in the rain in a canvas tent, or in such weather, when you come home from school tired, cold, you can get sick without tea; what happened to me last year on the hike. But all the same, respecting your need, I will not drink tea. "
Tea in tsarist Russia was a really expensive product. It was transported directly from China via the only land route, and this route is short for about a year. Due to transportation costs, as well as huge duties, tea in Central Russia was several times more expensive than in Europe. According to the "Vedomosti of the St. Petersburg City Police", in 1845 in the Chinese tea shop of the merchant Piskarev, prices per pound (0.45 kilograms) of the product ranged from 5 to 6.5 rubles in banknotes, and the cost of green tea reached 50 rubles. At the same time, you could buy a pound of prime beef for 6-7 rubles. In 1850, Otechestvennye Zapiski wrote that the total consumption of tea in Russia is 8 million pounds - however, it is impossible to calculate how much per person, since this product was popular mainly in cities and among people of the upper class.
"If there is no God, then everything is allowed"
“... He ended with the assertion that for every private person, for example, how we now, who do not believe in either God or our immortality, the moral law of nature must immediately change into the complete opposite of the previous, religious, and that egoism is even evil --- action should not only be allowed to a person, but even if it is considered necessary, the most reasonable and almost noblest outcome in his position. "
The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
The most important words in Dostoevsky are usually not spoken by the main characters. So, Porfiry Petrovich speaks first about the theory of dividing humanity into two categories in Crime and Punishment, and only then Ras-Kol-nikov; Ippolit asks the question of the saving power of beauty in The Idiot, and a relative of the Karamazovs, Petr Alexandrovich Miusov, notes that God and the salvation promised by him is the only guarantor of people's observance of moral laws. Miusov refers to his brother Ivan, and only then other characters discuss this provocative theory, arguing about whether Karamazov could have invented it. Brother Mitya considers it interesting, the seminarian Raki-tin - vile, meek Alyosha - false. But the phrase “If there is no God, then everything is ringing” in the novel, no one says. This "quote" will later be constructed from different remarks by literary critics and readers.
Five years before the publication of The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky had already tried to fantasize about what mankind would do without God. The hero of the novel "Teenager" (1875) Andrei Petrovich Versilov argued that the clear proof of the absence of a higher power and the impossibility of immortality, on the contrary, will force people to love and appreciate each other more, because there is nobody else to love. This imperceptibly slipped remark in the next novel grows into theory, and that, in turn, into a test in practice. Exhausted by the ideas of God and wrestling, brother Ivan compromises the moral laws and allows the murder of his father. Unable to withstand the consequences, he practically goes insane. Having allowed himself everything, Ivan does not stop believing in God - his theory does not work, because he could not even prove it to himself.
“Masha is lying on the table. Will I see Masha? "
I love to beat a man as myself according to the commandment of Christ, it is impossible. The law of personality on earth connects. I hinders. Christ alone could, but Christ was an eternal ideal from time immemorial, to which man aspires and according to the law of nature should strive ”.
From a notebook (1864)
Masha, or Maria Dmitrievna, nee Constant, and by Isaev's first husband, Dostoevsky's first wife. They got married in 1857 in the Siberian city of Kuznetsk, and then moved to Central Russia. On April 15, 1864, Maria Dmitrievna died of consumption. In recent years, the couple lived separately and did not communicate much. Maria Dmitrievna is in Vladimir, and Fyodor Mi-khai-lovich is in St. Petersburg. He was absorbed in publishing magazines, where, among other things, he published the texts of his mistress, the novice writer Apollinaria Suslova. The illness and death of his wife greatly affected him. A few hours after her death, Dostoevsky recorded in his notebook his thoughts about love, marriage and the goals of human development. In short, their essence is as follows. The ideal to strive for is Christ, the only one who could sacrifice himself for others. Man is selfish and unable to love his neighbor as himself. And yet, heaven on earth is possible: with proper spiritual work, each new generation will be better than the previous one. Having reached the highest stage of development, people will abandon marriages, because they contradict the ideal of Christ. A family union is an egoistic separation of a couple, and in a world where people are ready to give up their personal interests for the sake of others, this is unnecessary and impossible. And besides, since the ideal state of humanity will be achieved only at the last stage of development, it will be possible to stop multiplying.
"Masha is lying on the table ..." is an intimate diary entry, not a well-thought-out writer's manifesto. But it is in this text that ideas are outlined that Dostoevsky will later develop in his novels. The selfish attachment of a person to his “I” will be reflected in the individualistic theory of Raskolnikov, and the unattainability of the ideal - in Prince Myshkin, who was called “Prince Christ” in drafts, as an example of self-sacrifice and humility.
"Constantinople - sooner or later, should be ours"
“Pre-Petrine Russia was active and strong, although it slowly formed politically; she developed unity for herself and was getting ready to secure her outskirts; for myself, I understood that it bears within itself a precious value that is nowhere else - Orthodoxy, that it is the guardian of Christ's truth, but already the true truth, the real Christ's image, which was obscured in all other faiths and in all the others on the road.<…> And this unity is not for capture, not for violence, not for the destruction of Slavic personalities in front of the Russian colossus, but in order to recreate them and put them in a proper relation to Europe and to humanity, to give them, finally, the opportunity to calm down and rest after their countless centuries of suffering ...<…> By itself and for the same purpose, Constantinople - sooner or later, there should be ours ... "
"Diary of a Writer" (June 1876)
In 1875-1876, the Russian and foreign press was flooded with ideas about the capture of Constantinople. At this time on the territory of the Port Ottoman Porta, or Porta, - Another name for the Ottoman Empire. one after another, uprisings of the Slavic peoples broke out, which the Turkish authorities brutally suppressed. It was heading towards war. Everyone expected that Russia would come out in defense of the Balkan states: they predicted victory for it, and the Ottoman Empire - collapse. And, of course, everyone was worried about who would get the ancient Byzantine capital in this case. Different options were discussed: that Constantinople would become an international city, that it would be occupied by the Greeks, or that it would be part of the Russian Empire. The latter option did not suit Europe at all, but Russian conservators liked it very much, who saw this primarily as a political benefit.
Worry about these questions and Dostoevsky. Having entered into a polemic, he immediately accused all the participants in the dispute of being wrong. In the "Diary of a Writer" from the summer of 1876 to the spring of 1877, he continually returns to the Eastern question. Unlike the con-servators, he believed that Russia sincerely wants to protect the co-religionists, free them from the oppression of Muslims and therefore, as an Orthodox state, has the exclusive right to Constantinople. “We, Russia, are really necessary and inevitable for the whole of Eastern Christianity, and for the whole fate of the future Orthodoxy on earth, for its unification,” Dostoevsky writes in his “Diary” for March 1877. The writer was convinced of the special Christian mission of Russia. Earlier, he developed this idea in "Demons". One of the heroes of this novel, Shatov, was convinced that the Russian people were a God-bearing people. The famous one, published in the "Diary of a Writer" in 1880, will be devoted to the same idea.
THE WORLD WILL SAVE BEAUTY *
11.11.2014 - 193 years
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich appears to me
and orders everything to be written beautifully:
- Otherwise, my dear, otherwise
beauty will not save this world.
Is it really beautiful to write to me
is it possible now?
- Beauty is the main strength,
that works wonders on Earth.
What miracles are you talking about
if people are mired in evil?
- But when you create beauty -
you will captivate everyone on Earth with it.
The beauty of kindness is not corny
it is not salty, not bitter ...
Beauty is far and not glory -
it is beautiful where conscience screams!
If the suffering spirit in the heart soared,
and will capture the height of Love!
It means that God appeared with Beauty -
and then Beauty will save the World!
And there won't be enough honor -
you will have to go through the garden ...
Dostoevsky told me so in a dream,
to tell people about that.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Vladis Kulakov.
On the theme of Dostoevsky - the poem "Dostoevsky, as a vaccine ..."
UKRAINA on Razlom. What to do? (Kulakov Vladis) and Dostoevsky's Prophecies about the Slavs.
The world will be saved by beauty.
(From the novel "The Idiot" F. M. Dostoevsky)
In the novel (part 3, chapter V), these words are pronounced by the young man Ippolit Terentyev, referring to the words of Prince Myshkin transmitted to him by Nikolai Ivolgin: “True, prince, what did you say that the world will be saved by“ beauty ”? Gentlemen, - he shouted loudly to everyone, - the prince claims that the world will be saved by beauty! And I claim that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love.
Lord, the prince is in love; just now, he just entered, I was convinced of this. Don't blush, prince, I will feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world? Kolya told me this ... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says that you call yourself a Christian.
The prince examined him carefully and did not answer him. "
FM Dostoevsky was far from his own aesthetic judgments - he wrote about spiritual beauty, about the beauty of the soul. This meets the main purpose of the novel - to create an image "A positively wonderful person." Therefore, in his drafts, the author calls Myshkin "Prince Christ", thereby reminding himself that Prince Myshkin should be as similar as possible to Christ - kindness, philanthropy, meekness, a complete absence of selfishness, the ability to sympathize with human troubles and misfortunes. Therefore, the "beauty" of which the prince (and FM Dostoevsky himself) speaks is the sum of the moral qualities of a "positively beautiful person."
Such a purely personal interpretation of beauty is characteristic of the writer. He believed that "people can be beautiful and happy" not only in the afterlife. They can be like that and "without losing the ability to live on earth." To do this, they must agree with the idea that Evil “cannot be the normal state of people,” that everyone can get rid of it. And then, when people are guided by the best that is in their soul, memory and intentions (Good), then they will be truly beautiful. And the world will be saved, and it is precisely this “beauty” (that is, the best that is in people) that will save it.
Of course, this will not happen overnight - you need spiritual work, trials and even suffering, after which a person renounces Evil and turns to Good, begins to appreciate it. The writer talks about this in many of his works, including in the novel "The Idiot".
The writer in his interpretation of beauty acts as a like-minded German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who spoke about "the moral law within us," that "the beautiful is a symbol of moral goodness." FM Dostoevsky develops the same idea in his other works. So, if in the novel "The Idiot" he writes that beauty will save the world, then in the novel "Demons" he logically concludes that "ugliness (anger, indifference, selfishness .)
will kill ... "
Beauty will save the world / Encyclopedia of winged words ...
The phrase "Dostoevsky said: beauty will save the world" has long become a newspaper stamp. God knows what is meant by this. Some believe that this was said for the glory of art or female beauty, others claim that Dostoevsky had in mind the divine beauty, the beauty of faith and Christ.
In truth, there is no answer to this question. First of all, because Dostoevsky did not say anything of the kind. These words are uttered by the half-mad young man Ippolit Terentyev, referring to the words of Prince Myshkin transmitted to him by Nikolai Ivolgin, and ironically: they say, the prince fell in love. The prince, we note, is silent. Dostoevsky is also silent.
I won't even guess what meaning was put into these words of the hero, transmitted by another hero to the third, the author of The Idiot. However, it is worthwhile to talk in detail about the influence of beauty on our life. I don't know if this has anything to do with philosophy, but it has to do with everyday life. A person is infinitely dependent on what surrounds him; this is connected, in particular, with how he perceives himself.
My friend once got an apartment in new block buildings. The landscape is depressing, rare buses illuminate the street with smoldering lanterns, rain seas and mud underfoot. In just a few months, an unventilated longing settled in his eyes. Once he drank a good deal while visiting neighbors. After the feast, at the persuasion of his wife to lace up his shoes, he categorically refused: “Why? I'm going home. " Chekhov notes through the lips of his hero that "the dilapidation of university buildings, the gloom of the corridors, the soot of the walls, the lack of light, the dull look of steps, hangers and benches in the history of Russian pessimism occupies one of the first places." For all his cunning, this statement should not be discounted either.
Sociologists noted that cases of vandalism in St. Petersburg belong mostly to young people who grew up in so-called dormitory areas. They perceive the beauty of historical Petersburg aggressively. In all these pilasters and columns, caryatids, porticoes and openwork gratings, they see a sign of privilege and, with an almost class hatred, rush to destroy and destroy them.
Even such a wild jealousy of beauty is extremely significant. A person depends on her, he is not indifferent to her.
With the filing of our literature, we are used to treating beauty ironically. "Make me beautiful" is the motto of bourgeois vulgarity. Gorky, following Chekhov, disdained the geranium on the windowsill. The bourgeois way of life. But the reader did not seem to hear them. He grew geraniums on the windowsill and bought porcelain figurines at the bazaar for a penny. Why did the peasant decorate his house with carved shutters and skates in his difficult life? No, this aspiration is indestructible.
Can beauty make a person more tolerant, kinder? Can she resist evil? Unlikely. The cinematic stamp was the story of a fascist general who loved Beethoven. Nevertheless, beauty can mix at least some aggressive manifestations.
Recently I gave lectures at the Polytechnic University in St. Petersburg. Classical music is heard two hundred steps before the entrance to the main building. Where is she from? The speakers are hidden. The students are probably used to it. What's the point?
It was easier for me to enter the audience after Schumann or Liszt. It's clear. But the students, smoking, hugging, trying to find out something, are used to this background. Swearing against the background of Chopin was not only impossible, but somehow awkward. The scuffle was simply ruled out.
My friend, a famous sculptor, during his student days, wrote an essay on an unnamed service. His appearance almost brought him into a natural depression. One idea was repeated in the service. The cup was the bottom of the kettle, the sugar bowl was the middle. On a white background, black squares were symmetrically located, from bottom to top it was all traced in parallel lines. The viewer seemed to be in a cage. The bottom was heavy, the top was puffy. He described it all. It turned out that the service belonged to a ceramist from Hitler's circle. This means that beauty can have ethical consequences.
We select things in the store. The main thing is convenient, useful, not too expensive. But (this is the secret) we are ready to pay extra, if it is also beautiful. Because we are human. The ability of speech, of course, distinguishes us from other animals, but also the desire for beauty. For a peacock, for example, it is only a red herring and a sexual snare, but for us, perhaps, and meaning. In any case, as one friend of mine said, beauty may not save the world, but it certainly will not harm.
Hamlet, once played by Vladimir Receptor, saved the world from lies, betrayal, and hatred. Photo: RIA Novosti
This phrase - "Beauty will save the world" - which has lost all content from endless use to place and out of place, is attributed to Dostoevsky. In fact, in the novel "The Idiot" it is uttered by a 17-year-old consumptive youth Ippolit Terentyev: "Is it true, prince, what have you said that the world will be saved by" beauty "? Gentlemen, - he shouted loudly to everyone, - the prince claims that the world will be saved by beauty! And I affirm that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love. "
There is one more episode in the novel that refers us to this phrase. During Myshkin's meeting with Aglaya, she warns him: "Listen, once and for all ... if you talk about something like the death penalty, or the economic state of Russia, or that" beauty will save the world, "then. .. I, of course, will rejoice and laugh very much, but ... I warn you in advance: do not seem to me later on! " That is, the characters of the novel, and not its author, are talking about the beauty that supposedly will save the world. To what extent did Dostoevsky himself share the conviction of Prince Myshkin that beauty will save the world? And most importantly - will it save?
We will discuss the topic with the artistic director of the State Pushkin Theater Center and the Pushkin School Theater, actor, director, writer Vladimir Receptor.
"I rehearsed the role of Myshkin"
After some reflection, I decided that I probably shouldn't look for another interlocutor for a conversation on this topic. You have a long-standing personal relationship with Dostoevsky's characters.
Vladimir Receptor: Rodion Raskolnikov from "Crime and Punishment" was my debut role in the Tashkent Gorky Theater. Later, already in Leningrad, on the assignment of Georgy Aleksandrovich Tovstonogov, I rehearsed the role of Myshkin. It was played in 1958 by Innokenty Mikhailovich Smoktunovsky. But he left the BDT, and in the early sixties, when the performance for foreign tours had to be resumed, Tovstonogov called me into his office and said: "Volodya, we are being invited to England with" The Idiot. "We need to make a lot of entries. the British condition: that both Smoktunovsky and the young actor play Myshkin. I want it to be you! " So I became a sparring partner for the actors who were reintroduced into the play: Strzhelchik, Olkhina, Doronina, Yursky ... Before the appearance of Georgy Alexandrovich and Innokentiy Mikhailovich, the famous Roza Abramovna Sirota worked with us ... I was internally ready, and the role of Myshkin lives in me to this day. But Smoktunovsky came back from the shooting, Tovstonogov entered the hall, and all the actors were on the stage, and I remained on this side of the curtain. In 1970, on the Small Stage of the BDT, I released the play "Faces" based on Dostoevsky's stories "Bobok" and "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man", where, as in "The Idiot", it is said about beauty ... Time shifts everything, changes the old style to new, but here's a "rapprochement": we are meeting on June 8, 2016. And on the same date, June 8, 1880, Fyodor Mikhailovich made his famous lecture on Pushkin. And yesterday I was again interested in leafing through the volume of Dostoevsky, where under the same cover gathered both "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man," and "Bobok," and the speech about Pushkin.
"Man is a field in which the devil fights with God for his soul."
Dostoevsky himself, in your opinion, shared the conviction of Prince Myshkin that beauty will save the world?
Vladimir Receptor: Of course. Researchers talk about a direct connection between Prince Myshkin and Jesus Christ. This is not entirely true. But Fyodor Mikhailovich understands that Myshkin is a sick person, Russian and, of course, tenderly, nervously, strongly and sublimely connected with Christ. I would say that this is a messenger who fulfills some kind of mission and acutely feels it. A man thrown into this upside-down world. Foolish. And thus a saint.
And remember, Prince Myshkin examines the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, expresses admiration for her beauty and says: "There is a lot of suffering in this face." Does beauty, according to Dostoevsky, manifest itself in suffering?
Vladimir Receptor: Orthodox holiness, and it is impossible without suffering, is the highest degree of human spiritual development. The saint lives righteously, that is, correctly, without violating the Divine commandments and, as a result, moral norms. The Saint himself almost always considers himself a terrible sinner, whom only God can save. As for beauty, this quality is perishable. Dostoevsky says to a beautiful woman this: then wrinkles will go, and your beauty will lose its harmony.
There is also reasoning about beauty in the novel The Brothers Karamazov. "Beauty is a terrible and awful thing," says Dmitry Karamazov. "Scary, because it is indefinable, but it is impossible to define, because God has set only riddles. Here the banks converge, here all the contradictions live together." Dmitry adds that in search of beauty, a person "begins with the ideal of the Madonna, and ends with the ideal of Sodom." And he comes to the following conclusion: "The terrible thing is that beauty is not only a terrible, but also a mysterious thing. Here the devil fights with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people." But maybe both are right - Prince Myshkin and Dmitry Karamazov? In the sense that beauty has a dual character: it is not only saving, but also capable of plunging into deep temptation.
Vladimir Receptor: Quite right. And you always have to ask yourself: what kind of beauty are we talking about. Remember, in Pasternak: "I am your battlefield ... All night I read your testament, and, as if from a swoon, I came to life ..." Reading the Testament revives, that is, returns life. This is the salvation! And in Fyodor Mikhailovich: a man is a "battlefield" on which the devil fights with God for his soul. The Devil seduces, throws such beauty into the pool, but the Lord tries to save and saves someone. The higher a person is spiritually, the more he realizes his own sinfulness. That's the problem. Dark and light forces are fighting for us. It's like a fairytale. In his "Pushkin speech" Dostoevsky said about Alexander Sergeevich: "He was the first (precisely the first, and no one before him) gave us artistic types of Russian beauty ... The types of Tatyana testify to this ... historical types, such as the Monk and others in "Boris Godunov", types of everyday life, as in "The Captain's Daughter" and in many other images that flash in his poems, in stories, in notes, even in "History of the Pugachev revolt" ... ". Publishing his speech about Pushkin in the "Diary of a Writer", Dostoevsky, in the preface to it, singled out one more "special, characteristic, and not found, except for him, anywhere and in no one else's trait of the artistic genius of" Pushkin: "the ability to universal responsiveness and complete reincarnation in the genius of foreign nations, the reincarnation of almost perfect ... in Europe there were the greatest artistic world geniuses - Shakespeare, Cervantes, Schillers, but that none of them can see this ability, but we see only Pushkin. " Dostoevsky, speaking about Pushkin, teaches us his "universal responsiveness". To understand and love another is a Christian covenant. And it is not for nothing that Myshkin doubts Nastasya Filippovna: he is not sure whether her beauty is good ...
If we bear in mind only the physical beauty of a person, then from Dostoevsky's novels it is obvious: it can completely destroy, save - only when it is combined with truth and good, and apart from this, physical beauty is even hostile to the world. "Ah, if she were kind! Everything would be saved ..." - Prince Myshkin dreams at the beginning of the work, looking at the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, who, as we know, has destroyed everything around her. For Myshkin, beauty is inseparable from good. Is that how it should be? Or are beauty and evil also quite compatible? They say - "devilishly beautiful", "devilish beauty".
Vladimir Receptor: The trouble is that they are combined. The devil himself takes the image of a beautiful woman and begins, like Father Sergius, to embarrass someone else. Comes and confuses. Or he sends this kind of woman to meet the poor fellow. Who is, for example, Mary Magdalene? Let's remember her past. What did she do? She long and systematically ruined men with her beauty, then one, then another, then a third ... And then, believing in Christ, becoming a witness to His death, the first ran to where the stone had already been removed and from where the resurrected Jesus Christ came out. And for her correction, for her new and great faith, as a result, she was saved and recognized as a Saint. You understand what is the power of forgiveness and what is the degree of goodness that Fyodor Mikhailovich is trying to teach us! And through their heroes, and talking about Pushkin, and through Orthodoxy itself, and through Jesus Christ himself! Look at what Russian prayers consist of. From sincere repentance and a request to forgive yourself. They consist of a person's honest intention to overcome his sinful nature and, having departed to the Lord, stand on his right, not on his left. Beauty is the way. Man's path to God.
"After what happened to him, Dostoevsky could not help but believe in the saving power of beauty."
Does beauty unite people?
Vladimir Receptor: I would like to believe that yes. Called to unite. But people, on their part, must be ready for this unification. And here is the "universal responsiveness" that Dostoevsky discovered in Pushkin, and makes me study Pushkin for half my life, trying to understand him every time for myself and for the audience, for my young actors, for my students. When we join together in this kind of process, we come out of it somewhat differently. And in this lies the greatest role of all Russian culture; and Fyodor Mikhailovich, and Alexander Sergeevich especially.
This idea of \u200b\u200bDostoevsky - "beauty will save the world" - was it not an aesthetic and moral utopia? Do you think he understood the powerlessness of beauty in transforming the world?
Vladimir Receptor: I think he believed in the saving power of beauty. After what happened to himself, he could not help but believe it. He counted the last seconds of his life - and was saved a few moments before the seemingly imminent execution, death. The hero of Dostoevsky's story "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" is known to have decided to shoot himself. And the pistol, ready, loaded, lay in front of him. And he fell asleep, and he had a dream that he shot himself, but did not die, but ended up on some other planet that had reached perfection, where exceptionally kind and beautiful people lived. He is also a "Ridiculous Man" because he believed in this dream. And this is the beauty: sitting in his chair, the sleeping person realizes that this is a utopia, a dream and that it is funny. But by some strange coincidence, he believes in this dream and talks about it as a reality. The gentle emerald sea quietly splashed against the shores and kissed them with love, obvious, visible, almost conscious. Tall, beautiful trees stood in all the luxury of their color ... "He paints a paradise picture, absolutely utopian. But utopian from the point of view of realists. And from the point of view of believers, this is not a utopia at all, but truth itself and faith itself. I, alas , late began to think about these, the most important, things. Late - because neither at school, nor at the university, nor at the theater institute in Soviet times they did not teach this. But this is part of the culture that was expelled from Russia as something unnecessary Russian religious philosophy was put on a steamer and sent into exile, that is, into exile ... And just like "Ridiculous Man", Myshkin knows that he is ridiculous, but still goes to preach and believes that beauty will save the world.
"Beauty is not a disposable syringe"
What should the world be saved from today?
Vladimir Receptor: From the war. From irresponsible science. From quackery. From lack of spirituality. From impudent narcissism. From rudeness, anger, aggression, envy, meanness, vulgarity ... Here to save and save ...
Can you recall a case when beauty saved, if not the world, then at least something in this world?
Vladimir Receptor: Beauty cannot be compared to a disposable syringe. It saves not by an injection, but by the constancy of its influence. Wherever the "Sistine Madonna" appears, wherever war and misfortune take it, it heals, saves and will save the world. She has become a symbol of beauty. And the Symbol of Faith convinces the Creator that the one praying believes in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the century to come. I have a friend, a famous actor Vladimir Zamansky. He is ninety, he fought, won, got into trouble, worked in the Sovremennik theater, starred a lot, endured a lot, but did not squander his faith in beauty, goodness, harmony of the world. And we can say that his wife Natalya Klimova, also an actress, with her rare and spiritual beauty saved and is saving my friend ...
They are both, I know, deeply religious people.
Vladimir Receptor: Yes. I'll tell you a big secret: I have an amazingly beautiful wife. She left the Dnieper. I say this because we met in Kiev and in the Dnieper. And both did not attach any importance to this. I invited her to dine at a restaurant. She said: I'm not dressed enough to go to a restaurant, I'm in a T-shirt. I'm in a T-shirt too, I told her. She said: well, yes, but you are the Receptor, and I am not yet ... And we both began to laugh wildly. And it ended ... no, it continued with the fact that from that day in 1975 she saves me ...
Beauty is meant to unite people. But people, on their part, must be ready for this unification. Beauty is the way. Man's path to God
The destruction of Palmyra by ISIS militants is not an evil mockery of the utopian belief in the saving power of beauty? The world is permeated with antagonisms and contradictions, full of threats, violence, bloody clashes - and no beauty saves anyone, anywhere and from anything. So, maybe it's enough to say that beauty will save the world? Isn't it time to honestly admit to ourselves that this motto itself is empty and hypocritical?
Vladimir Receptor: No, I don't think so. You should not, like Aglaya, fence yourself off from the approval of Prince Myshkin. For him, this is not a question or a motto, but knowledge and faith. You are putting the question about Palmyra correctly. It hurts excruciatingly. It is excruciatingly painful when a barbarian tries to destroy the canvas of a brilliant artist. He does not sleep, the enemy of man. No wonder this is what the devil is called. But it was not in vain that our engineers cleared the remnants of Palmyra. They saved beauty itself. At the beginning of our conversation, we agreed that this statement should not be taken out of its context, that is, from the circumstances in which it sounded, by whom it was said, when, to whom ... But there is also a subtext and overtext. There is all the work of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, his fate, which led the writer to precisely such seemingly ridiculous heroes. Let us not forget that for a very long time Dostoevsky was simply not allowed on the stage ... The future is not accidentally called in the prayer "the life of the century to come." Here we mean not a literal century, but a century as a space of time - a powerful, endless space. If we look back at all the catastrophes that humanity has endured, at the misfortunes and troubles that Russia went through, then we will become eyewitnesses of an endlessly lasting salvation. Therefore, beauty saved, saves and will save both the world and man.
Vladimir Receptor. Photo: Alexey Filippov / TASS
Business card
Vladimir Receptor - People's Artist of Russia, laureate of the State Prize of Russia, professor at the St. Petersburg State Institute of Performing Arts, poet, prose writer, Pushkin scholar. Graduated from the philological faculty of the Central Asian University in Tashkent (1957) and the acting faculty of the Tashkent Theater and Art Institute (1960). Since 1959 he performed on the stage of the Tashkent Russian Drama Theater, gained fame and received an invitation to the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater thanks to the role of Hamlet. Already in Leningrad, he created a solo performance "Hamlet", with which he traveled almost the entire Soviet Union and the countries of near and far abroad. For many years in Moscow he performed at the Tchaikovsky Hall. Since 1964 he has acted in films and on television, staged solo performances based on Pushkin, Griboyedov, Dostoevsky. Since 1992 - founder and permanent artistic director of the State Pushkin Theater Center in St. Petersburg and the Pushkin School Theater, where he has staged more than 20 performances. Author of the books: "Actors' Workshop", "Letters from Hamlet", "The Return of Pushkin's" Mermaid "," Goodbye, BDT! "," Nostalgia for Japan "," Drank Vodka on the Fontanka "," Prince Pushkin, or the Poet's Dramatic Economy " , "The Day Extending Days" and many others.
Valery Vyzhutovich
And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.
/ Gen. 1.31 /
It is human nature to appreciate beauty. The human soul needs and wants beauty. The whole human culture is permeated with the search for beauty. The Bible also testifies that beauty was at the heart of the world and man was originally involved in it. Expulsion from paradise is an image of lost beauty, a person's rupture with beauty and truth. Once having lost his heritage, a person longs to find it. Human history can be presented as a path from lost beauty to beauty sought after, on this path a person realizes himself as a participant in Divine creation. Coming out of the beautiful Garden of Eden, which symbolizes its pure natural state before the Fall, a person returns to the garden city - Heavenly Jerusalem, “ new, coming down from God, from heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”(Rev. 21.2). And this last image is the image of future beauty, about which it is said: “ did not see that eye, did not hear the ear, and that did not come into the heart of man that God had prepared for those who love Him"(1 Cor. 2.9).
All of God's creation is originally beautiful. God admired His creation at different stages of its creation. " And God saw that it was good”- these words are repeated in the 1st chapter of the book of Genesis 7 times and in them the aesthetic character is clearly felt. This is the beginning of the Bible and it ends with the revelation of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21.1). The Apostle John says that “ the world lies in evil”(1 John 5.19), thus emphasizing that the world is not evil in itself, but that the evil that entered the world distorted its beauty. And at the end of time, the true beauty of the Divine creation will shine - purified, saved, transformed.
The concept of beauty always includes the concepts of harmony, perfection, purity, and for the Christian worldview, good is certainly included in this series. The separation of ethics and aesthetics took place already in modern times, when culture underwent secularization, and the integrity of the Christian view of the world was lost. Pushkin's question of the compatibility of genius and villainy was born in a split world for which Christian values \u200b\u200bare not obvious. A century later, this question sounds like a statement: "aesthetics of the ugly," "theater of the absurd," "harmony of destruction," "the cult of violence," etc. - these are the aesthetic coordinates that define the culture of the 20th century. Breaking aesthetic ideals from ethical roots leads to anti-aesthetics. But even in the midst of decay, the human soul never ceases to strive for beauty. The famous Chekhovian maxim "in a person everything should be beautiful ..." is nothing but nostalgia for the integrity of the Christian understanding of beauty and the unity of the image. Dead ends and tragedies of the modern search for beauty lie in the complete loss of value orientations, in the oblivion of the sources of beauty.
Beauty is an ontological category in the Christian understanding, it is inextricably linked with the meaning of being. Beauty is rooted in God. From this it follows that there is only one beauty - the True Beauty, God Himself. And all earthly beauty is only an image that, to a greater or lesser extent, reflects the Primary Source.
« In the beginning was the Word ... everything through Him began to be, and without it nothing began to be that began to be"(John 1.1-3). Word, Inexpressible Logos, Reason, Meaning, etc. - this concept has a huge synonymous range. Somewhere in this series the amazing word “image” finds its place, without which it is impossible to comprehend the true meaning of Beauty. The Word and the Image have one source, in their ontological depth they are identical.
The Greek image is εικων (eikon). This is where the Russian word "icon" comes from. But as we distinguish between the Word and the words, we should also distinguish between Image and images, in a narrower sense - icons (in Russian vernacular it is not by chance that the name of icons - "image" was preserved). Without understanding the meaning of the Image, we cannot understand the meaning of the icon, its place, its role, its meaning.
God creates the world through the Word; He Himself is the Word that came into the world. Also, God creates the world, giving everything an Image. He Himself, having no image, is the Type of everything in the world. Everything that exists in the world exists due to the fact that it bears the Image of God. The Russian word "ugly" is a synonym for the word "ugly", which means nothing more than "imageless", that is, not having the Image of God in itself, non-essential, non-existent, dead. The whole world is permeated with the Word and the whole world is filled with the Image of God, our world is iconological.
God's creation can be imagined as a ladder of images that, like mirrors, reflect each other and, ultimately, God as a prototype. The symbol of the ladder (in the Old Russian version - "ladder") is traditional for the Christian picture of the world, from the ladder of Jacob (Gen. 28.12) to the "Ladder" of the Sinai hegumen John, nicknamed the "Ladder". The symbol of the mirror is also well known - we find it, for example, in the Apostle Paul, who says this about knowledge: “ now we see through the dim glass, fortuitously"(1 Cor. 13.12), which in the Greek text is expressed as follows:" like a mirror in divination". Thus, our cognition resembles a mirror, vaguely reflecting the true values \u200b\u200bof which we can only guess. So, God's world is a whole system of images of mirrors, built in the form of a staircase, each step of which reflects God to a certain extent. At the heart of everything is God Himself - One, Beginningless, Incomprehensible, without an image, giving life to everything. He is everything and everything in Him, and there is no one who can look at God from outside. The incomprehensibility of God became the basis for the commandment against depicting God (Ex. 20.4). The transcendence of God, revealed to man in the Old Testament, surpasses human capabilities, so the Bible says: “ man cannot see God and stay alive"(Ex. 33.20). Even Moses, the greatest of the prophets who communicated with Jehovah directly, who heard His voice more than once, when asked to show him the Face of God, received the following answer: “ you will see me from behind, but my face will not be seen"(Ex. 33.23).
The Evangelist John also testifies: “ No one has ever seen God"(John 1.18a), but further adds:" The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed"(John 1.18b). Here is the center of the New Testament revelation: through Jesus Christ we have direct access to God, we can see His face. " The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and we saw His glory"(John 1.14). Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, the incarnate Word is the only and true Image of the Invisible God. In a sense, He is the first and only icon. The Apostle Paul writes in this way: “ He is the image of the Invisible God, born before all creation"(Col. 1.15), and" being in the image of God, He took the form of a slave"(Phil. 2.6-7). The manifestation of God into the world occurs through His belittling, kenosis (Greek κενωσις). And at each subsequent stage, the image reflects to a certain extent the Primordial image, thanks to this the inner structure of the world is exposed.
The next step of the ladder we have drawn is a man. God created man in His image and likeness (Gen. 1.26) (κατ εικονα ημετεραν καθ ομοιωσιν), thereby separating him from all creation. And in this sense, man is also an icon of God. Rather, he is called to become such. The Savior called upon the disciples: “ be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect"(Matthew 5.48). This is where the true human dignity revealed to people by Christ is revealed. But as a result of his fall, having fallen away from the source of Being, man in his natural state of nature does not reflect, like a pure mirror, God's image. To achieve the required perfection, a person needs to make efforts (Matt. 11.12). The Word of God reminds man of his original calling. The Image of God, shown in the icon, also testifies to this. In everyday life, it is often difficult to find confirmation of this; looking around and looking at himself impartially, a person may not immediately see the image of God. Nevertheless, it is in every person. The image of God may not be manifested, hidden, clouded, even distorted, but it exists in our very depths as a guarantee of our being. The process of spiritual formation consists in discovering the image of God in oneself, revealing, purifying, restoring it. In many ways, this resembles the restoration of an icon, when a blackened, smoked board is washed, cleaned, removing layer by layer of old drying oil, numerous later layers and recordings, until finally the Face appears, the Light shines, the Image of God appears. The Apostle Paul writes to his disciples in this way: “ My children! for which I am again in the throes of birth, until Christ is portrayed in you!”(Gal. 4.19). The Gospel teaches that the goal of a person is not just self-improvement, as the development of his natural abilities and natural qualities, but the disclosure of the true Image of God in himself, the achievement of God's likeness, what the holy fathers called “deification” (Greek Θεοσις). This process is difficult, according to Paul, it is the pangs of birth, because the image and likeness in us are separated by sin - we get the image at birth, and we achieve the similarity during life. That is why in the Russian tradition the saints are called "reverend", that is, those who have attained the likeness of God. This title is awarded to the greatest holy ascetics, such as Sergius of Radonezh or Seraphim of Sarov. And at the same time, this is the goal that faces every Christian. It is no coincidence that St. Basil the Great said that “ christianity is likening to God to the extent that it is possible for human nature«.
The process of "deification", the spiritual transformation of a person is Christocentric, since it is based on assimilation to Christ. Even following the example of any saint is not limited to him, but leads first of all to Christ. " Imitate me as I am Christ“, - wrote the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 4.16). So any icon is initially Christocentric, no matter who is depicted on it - whether the Savior Himself, the Mother of God or any of the saints. Festive icons are also Christ-centered. Precisely because we have been given the only true Image and role model - Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Incarnate Word. This image in us should be glorified and shine: “ yet we, with our open face, as in a mirror, beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord's Spirit"(2 Cor. 3.18).
A person is located on the verge of two worlds: above a person - the divine world, below - the natural world, because where his mirror is turned - up or down - it will depend on whose image he will perceive. From a certain historical stage, man's attention was focused on the creature and the worship of the Creator faded into the background. The trouble of the pagan world and the fault of the culture of the New Age is that people, “ having come to know God, they did not glorify Him as God, and did not give thanks, but vanished in their thoughts ... and the glory of the incorruptible God was changed into an image like a perishable man, and birds, and four-legged, and reptiles ... replaced the truth with a lie and worshiped and served the creature instead of Creator"(1 Cor. 1.21-25).
Indeed, a step below the human world lies the created world, which also reflects in its measure the image of God, like any creation that bears the seal of the One who created it. However, this can only be seen when the correct hierarchy of values \u200b\u200bis observed. It is no accident that the holy fathers said that God gave man two books for knowledge - the Book of Scripture and the Book of Creation. And through the second book, we can also comprehend the greatness of the Creator - through “ examining creations"(Rom. 1.20). This so-called level of natural revelation was available to the world before Christ. But in creation the image of God is even more diminished than in man, since sin entered the world and the world lies in evil. Each lower level reflects not only the Prototype, but also the previous one, against this background the role of a person is very clearly visible, since “ the creature did not submit voluntarily"And" awaiting the salvation of the sons of God"(Rom. 8.19-20). A person who has trampled the image of God in himself distorts this image in all creation. All environmental problems of the modern world stem from this. Their solution is closely related to the inner transformation of the person himself. The revelation of the new heaven and new earth reveals the secret of the future creation, for “ the image of this world passes"(1 Cor. 7.31). One day, through the Creation, the Image of the Creator will shine in all its beauty and light. The Russian poet F.I. Tyutchev saw this prospect as follows:
When the last hour of nature strikes
The composition of the parts will collapse earthly,
Water will cover everything visible around
And God's Face will be displayed in them.
And, finally, the last fifth step of the ladder we have drawn is the icon itself, and more broadly - the creation of human hands, all human creativity. Only when included in the system of images-mirrors that we have described, reflecting the prototype, the icon ceases to be just a board with scenes written on it. Outside this ladder, the icon does not exist, even if it is painted in compliance with the canons. Outside of this context, all the distortions in the veneration of icons arise: some deviate into magic, crude idolatry, others fall into the veneration of art, sophisticated aestheticism, and others completely deny the use of icons. The purpose of the icon is to direct our attention to the Prototype - through the only Image of the Incarnate Son of God - to the Invisible God. And this path lies through the identification of the Image of God in ourselves. The veneration of the icon is the worship of the Prototype, the prayer in front of the icon is the anticipation of the Incomprehensible and Living God. The icon is only a sign of His presence. The aesthetics of the icon is only a small approximation to the beauty of the imperishable century to come, like a barely visible outline, not entirely clear shadows; the one contemplating the icon is like a person gradually seeing the light, who is healed by Christ (Mark 8.24). That is why Fr. Pavel Florensky argued that an icon is always either larger or smaller than a work of art. Everything is decided by the inner spiritual experience of the future.
Ideally, all human activity is iconological. A person writes an icon, seeing the true Image of God, but the icon also creates a person, reminding him of the image of God hidden in him. A person through an icon tries to peer into God's Face, but God also looks at us through an Image. " We partly know and partly we prophesy, when the perfect comes, then what is partly will cease. Now we see, as through a dim glass, fortuitously, but then face to face; now I know in part, and then I will know, like I am known"(1 Cor. 13.9,12). The conventional language of the icon is a reflection of the incompleteness of our knowledge of divine reality. And at the same time, it is a sign indicating the existence of the beauty of the Absolute, which is hidden in God. Fyodor Dostoevsky's famous dictum “Beauty will save the world” is not an easy winning metaphor, but an accurate and deep intuition of a Christian brought up on the millennial Orthodox tradition of searching for this beauty. God is true Beauty, and therefore salvation cannot be ugly, imageless. The biblical image of the suffering Messiah, in which there is “neither appearance nor greatness” (Isa. 53.2), only emphasizes what was said above, revealing the point at which the belittling (Greek κενωσις) of God, and at the same time of the Beauty of His Image, reaches limit, but from the same point the ascent begins. Just as the descent of Christ into hell is the destruction of hell and the exodus of all the faithful into the Resurrection and Eternal Life. " God is Light and there is no darkness in Him”(1 John 1.5) - this is the image of the True Divine and saving beauty.
The Eastern Christian tradition perceives Beauty as one of the proofs of the existence of God. According to a well-known legend, the last argument for Prince Vladimir in choosing his faith was the testimony of the ambassadors about the heavenly beauty of the Cathedral of St. Sophia of Constantinople. Cognition, as Aristotle argued, begins with surprise. So often the knowledge of God begins with wonder at the beauty of Divine creation.
« I will praise You, because I am wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul is fully aware of this”(Ps. 139.14). Contemplation of beauty reveals to man the secret of the relationship between the external and the internal in this world.
… So what is beauty?
And why do people deify her?
Is she a vessel in which there is emptiness?
Or a fire flickering in a vessel?
(N. Zabolotsky)
For the Christian consciousness, beauty is not an end in itself. She is only an image, a sign, a reason, one of the paths leading to God. Christian aesthetics in the proper sense does not exist, just as there is no "Christian mathematics" or "Christian biology." However, for a Christian it is clear that the abstract category of "beautiful" (beauty) loses its meaning outside the concepts of "good", "truth", "salvation". Everything is united by God in God and in the name of God, the rest is imageless. The rest - and there is a pitch of hell (by the way, the Russian word "pitch" and means everything that remains except, that is, outside, in this case outside of God). Therefore, it is so important to distinguish between external beauty, false, and true, internal beauty. True Beauty is a spiritual category, imperishable, independent of external changing criteria, it is imperishable and belongs to another world, although it can manifest itself in this world. External beauty is transient, changeable, it is just an external beauty, attractiveness, charm (the Russian word "charm" comes from the root "flattery", which is akin to a lie). The Apostle Paul, guided by the biblical understanding of beauty, gives this advice to Christian women: “ let it be your adornment not with the external braiding of hair, not with golden hairstyles or fancy dress, but the innermost man in the imperishable beauty of a meek and silent spirit, which is precious before God"(1 Peter 3.3-4).
So, “the imperishable beauty of a meek spirit, valuable before God” is, perhaps, the cornerstone of Christian aesthetics and ethics, which constitute an indissoluble unity, for beauty and goodness, the beautiful and the spiritual, form and meaning, creativity and salvation are essentially indissoluble. how the Image and the Word are fundamentally one. It is no coincidence that the collection of patristic instructions, known in Russia under the name "Philosophy", is called in Greek "Φιλοκαλια." (Philokalia), which can be translated as "love of beauty", for true beauty is the spiritual transformation of man, in which the Image of God is glorified.
S. Averintsev "Poetics of Early Christian Literature". M., 1977, p. 32.
Explanation of the common phrase "Beauty will save the world" in the encyclopedic dictionary of winged words and expressions by Vadim Serov:
"Beauty will save the world" - from the novel "The Idiot" (1868) by F. M. Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881).
As a rule, it is understood literally: contrary to the author's interpretation of the concept of "beauty".
In the novel (part 3, ch. V) these words are uttered by the 18-year-old youth Ippolit Terentyev, referring to the words of Prince Myshkin transmitted to him by Nikolai Ivolgin and ironically over the latter: “True, prince, that you once said that the world will be saved by“ beauty "? Gentlemen, - he cried out loud to everyone, - the prince claims that the world will be saved by beauty! And I claim that he has such playful thoughts because he is now in love.
Lord, the prince is in love; just now, as soon as he entered, I was convinced of this. Don't blush, prince, I will feel sorry for you. What beauty will save the world. Kolya told me this ... Are you a zealous Christian? Kolya says that you call yourself a Christian.
The prince examined him carefully and did not answer him. " FM Dostoevsky was far from his own aesthetic judgments - he wrote about spiritual beauty, about the beauty of the soul. This corresponds to the main idea of \u200b\u200bthe novel - to create the image of a "positively beautiful person." Therefore, in his drafts, the author calls Myshkin "Prince Christ", thereby reminding himself that Prince Myshkin should be as similar as possible to Christ - kindness, philanthropy, meekness, a complete absence of selfishness, the ability to sympathize with human troubles and misfortunes. Therefore, the "beauty" of which the prince (and FM Dostoevsky himself) speaks is the sum of the moral qualities of a "positively beautiful person."
Such a purely personal interpretation of beauty is characteristic of the writer. He believed that "people can be beautiful and happy" not only in the afterlife. They can be so and "without losing the ability to live on earth." To do this, they must agree with the idea that Evil “cannot be the normal state of people,” that everyone can get rid of it. And then, when people are guided by the best that is in their soul, memory and intentions (Good), then they will be truly beautiful. And the world will be saved, and it is precisely this “beauty” (that is, the best that is in people) that will save it.
Of course, this will not happen overnight - one needs spiritual work, trials and even suffering, after which a person renounces Evil and turns to Good, begins to appreciate it. The writer talks about this in many of his works, including the novel "The Idiot". For example (part 1, ch. VII):
“The general's wife for some time, silently and with a certain tinge of disdain, looked at the portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, which she held in front of her in her outstretched hand, extremely and effectively moving away from her eyes.
Yes, it is good, - she said at last, - very even. I saw her twice, only from afar. So you appreciate such and such beauty? - she suddenly turned to the prince.
- Yes ... such ... - answered the prince with some effort.
- That is exactly this?
- Exactly this
- For what?
- In this face ... there is a lot of suffering ... - said the prince, as if involuntarily, as if speaking to himself, and not answering a question.
“You, however, may be delusional,” the general decided, and with a haughty gesture threw the portrait over herself on the table.The writer in his interpretation of beauty acts as a like-minded German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who spoke about "the moral law within us," that "the beautiful is a symbol of moral goodness." FM Dostoevsky develops the same idea in his other works. So, if in the novel "The Idiot" he writes that beauty will save the world, then in the novel "Demons" (1872) he logically concludes that "ugliness (anger, indifference, selfishness. - Comp.) Will kill ..."
