Annenkov Pavel

Born in a family of rich landowners Simbirsk July 19, 1812; education in mining case, . which reached the highest, . special classes, . then attended lectures at St. Petersburg University, . on philosophical (historical-philological) Faculty,
. In 1833 he entered the service in the financial department, which soon left. Strongly influenced by him Belinsky, the circle of which he joined in 1839 and on participants who later wrote a very valuable memoirs ( "A remarkable decade," etc.). In 1840 A. went abroad, where he spent several years, from time to time naezzhaya, however, in Russia. In the West, he was very interested in social movements and, incidentally, made the acquaintance with K. Marx. His letters from abroad, addressed first to Belinsky, printed in "Notes of the Fatherland", and they were part of European and public life, and literary and artistic. They more closely sealed connection A. with a circle of Belinsky, who was a. In 1847 he took into his care and drove over the border for treatment. When in the hands of friends Belinski moved "Contemporary", A. it began to publish "Letters from Paris" (1847 - 48); to the Parisian revolution "crazy years" he said later in the article: "Paris 1848". At the end of this year, A. returned to Russia, and in the first book "The Contemporary in 1849 published" Notes on Russian literature in 1848, which opened his activity as a criticism. Settled in his village of Kazan, A. published in "Contemporary" in 1849, "Provincial Letters". This is the best of fictional things A.; previously appeared in "Contemporary" story "Kirill" (1847) and the story "She will die" (1848). Regarding the latter he wrote to him: "Your kind of talent is not such a need therefore, in the narrator as you have much more talent than as necessary". Criticism is met with sympathy "Provincial letters", with pictures of their landscape of the Volga and the intelligentsia and the vernacular of everyday life, but in fiction, in spite of the mind and observation, A. prominent position not occupied. In half of 1850 A. engaged in work, not lost yet its significance, - the publication of Pushkin's works and the compilation of the first major experience of his biography, under the name "Materials for a biography". Ad critic found and still continues to find many flaws in his commentator, . editorial and biographical work, . denouncing and mistakes in reporting on the subject, . and instability of the method, . and general negligence, but can not accept, . And what,
. initiated science-like Pushkin studies. Started A. its work even during Nicholas's censorship, which he had to endure a long struggle, and finished already with the new monarch, when he received the opportunity to publish a supplementary volume works of Pushkin. On the then censor conditions in which the then reflect the general situation of literature, A. described in the article "A curious controversy" (Journal of Europe ", 1881). At sounded afterwards reproaches deliberate exclusion from the collection of Pushkin's many plays by A., . referring to the same censorship, . rightly replied: "It is authentically, . what, . providing future work and more free periods, . not met would be a pity to sacrifice poetry, . stanzas, . periods of Pushkin's text, saving the rest of the piece of his fractured thoughts, . how it happened and was going to happen with many fragments and one piece of his works in their untimely publication of the,
. Monument former censorship will always be this article, in which A. tells how he had to fight the monstrously absurd, cantankerous and suspicious censors and even "to eliminate opponents to use weapons, they have also selected one, or borrow". His "Materials for biography" in some respects are even the primary source, the study of Pushkin without them is inconceivable (2 nd edition published in 1873). In Pushkin's work was followed by a biography NV. Stankevich ( "NV. Article. Correspondence and his biography ", Moscow, 1857). Stankevich A. personally do not know, but rotates in a circle, stored the legend about him and has made it an object of worship, was able to understand it. And if the image Stankevich, who himself did nothing to preserve his name lives in history, largely due to a labor. In the same year a. published his memoirs of Gogol, with whom he lived together and were close to Rome, in 1841. In general, the memoirs are the most durable and valuable part of the literary heritage of Alexander, also belong to them memories of "idealists thirties - Ogarevo, Belinsky, Koltsov, VP. Botkin, Granovsky, Herzen, Bakunin, Turgenev (collected in the book "Literary Reminiscences", St. Petersburg., 1909). In mid-1850 A. addressed the field of literary criticism and wrote about many contemporary phenomena of literature, among other things - on the works of Turgenev, Count Leo Tolstoy, Count Alexei Tolstoy, swt. Aksakov, Ostrovsky, Pisemsky, Saltykov, Kochanowski and other. "From the first critical studies, - says Pypin - A. criticized in some darkness of his style; recollection of his conversations, . that this darkness was almost deliberate - on the one hand, . She sometimes gave him the opportunity to avoid the inconvenience of external, . on the other - was to keep the reader at a height of abstract considerations, . demand and to bring to his attention ",
. But A. was such times and under all conditions, . not only because of the size of his talent, . but the main disadvantage of his literary outlook - a vague eclecticism, . which did not allow him to join a particular direction and something to stay,
. It is sometimes the aesthetics and argued, . that "the development of the psychological aspect of a person or many persons is the basic idea of any narrative, . which found its life and strength in the observation of mental shades, . subtle characteristic differences, . Games countless riots human moral being in contact with other people ", . and that "hardly allowed to do a story guide ethical or other considerations and the importance of the past to judge him",
. In another time And. praised Turgenev, because "he always can expect exactly the word that appears in the queue, or which employs the majority of minds, this is an advantage, but talent Understands and the vastness of the horizon, which takes his mind". Pisemskiy A. reproached for, . he has no virtuous heroes, . "these chosen creatures, . which arose in the imagination of authors from the need to provide the reader a sense of sacrificial victims of injustice and encourage him in triumph unreasonable, . dark or perverse started ..,
. The task of the novel is to show the reader where to seek his sympathies ... Such opposing views at every turn are interspersed in critical articles A. Not clear about the definition of literary and social critic contemplation confuses the reader. However, the literary taste of A. was very developed; him willingly relied so exacting artist, like Turgenev. In 1870 A. returned to the study of Pushkin, and in 1873 placed in the Journal of Europe "study:" A.S. The Alexander Pushkin in the era of "(a separate edition, St. Petersburg., 1874). From the literary techniques and historical value, this book is far superior to "materials for his biography, which can only enjoy, but which are difficult to read, though, in his second paper devoted to Pushkin, A. had the opportunity to talk about many things so, as twenty years ago, he had to keep silent. More deeply immersed in the study of the great poet, A. written two interesting articles: "The social ideals A.S. Pushkin "(Journal Europe", 1880) and "Literary projects A.S. Pushkin "(Journal Europe", 1881). For works of Pushkin Moscow University in 1880, during the centennial of the monument to Pushkin, chose a. an honorary member. A part of them and not fully utilized securities Pushkin is stored in the library of the Academy of Sciences. In private life of a. characterized by kindness and benevolence, in his literary career he was a model of an honest writer, above the most precious literature. A large part he took in the Literary Fund in the first years after its foundation. He died on March 8, 1887 abroad (in Dresden), where he spent the last twenty years of his life. Edition of his (not all) were included in three collections: "Memoirs and Critical Essays" (three volumes, St. Petersburg., 1877 - 1881), "PV. Annenkov and his friends, literary memoirs and correspondence 1835 - 1885 years "(St. Petersburg, 1892) and" Literary Reminiscences "(St. Petersburg, 1909). The biographical and bibliographical information about him cm. y SA. Vengerov in "critical-biographical dictionary", t. I, 596 - 611, 954, and the sources of the dictionary of Russian writers ", I, 79 - 81; obituary article AN. Pypin - in the "News of Europe" 1887, N 4; preface to "Literary Reminiscences". N. Lerner.