The false historian Karamzin. Part 2

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The main source is " Letters from a Russian traveler". Before us appears a sentimental traveler, who often recalls in touching expressions his Moscow friends and writes letters to them at every opportunity. But the real traveler, N. M. Karamzin, wrote them rarely and not such large letters, to which he was so generous a literary hero, but dry notes. September 20, that is, more than four months have passed since his departure, his closest friend, A. A. Petrov, wrote to Karamzin that he had received a letter from him from Dresden. The letter was very short. friend, poet II Dmitriev, received one letter from London for all the time, written a few days before leaving for his homeland. The whole description of the trip fit here in a few lines: to give you a message about myself, being sure that you, my friends, take part in my destiny. I drove through Germany; wandered and lived in Switzerland, saw the noble part of France, saw Paris, saw free (in italics Karamzin) French, and finally arrived in London. I will soon think about returning to Russia. "The Pleshcheevs were close to Karamzin, but they also complain about the rarity and brevity of Karamzin's letters. On July 7, 1790, Nastasya Ivanovna Pleshcheeva wrote to Karamzin (the letter was sent to Berlin through their mutual friend A. The Pleshcheevs did not even know where Karamzin was): "… I am sure and absolutely sure that the accursed foreign lands did something completely different from you: not only our friendship is a burden for you, but you also throw letters without reading! I am so sure of that, because since you were in foreign lands, I have not had the pleasure of receiving a single answer to any of my letters; then I myself make you a judge, that I must conclude from it: either you do not read the letters, or you already despise them so much that you do not see anything worthy of an answer in them. "As you can see, Karamzin and his literary hero began to differ from the very beginning …

The image of a careless young man is imposed on us, who is blinded by a kaleidoscope of events, meetings and sights that catch his eye from all sides. And from this he is carried away by one or the other thought, and each new impression completely displaces the previous one, he easily passes from enthusiasm to despondency. We see the hero's superficial glance at things and events, this is a sensitive dandy, not a thoughtful person. His speech is mixed with foreign words, he pays attention to trifles and avoids important reflections. We don't see him working anywhere - he flutters along the roads of Europe, drawing rooms and academic offices. This is exactly how Karamzin wanted to appear before his contemporaries.

This bifurcation was established more than a hundred years ago by V. V. Sipovsky. One of the travelers is a carefree young man, sensitive and kind, who sets off to travel without any clearly thought out purpose. The mood of the other is more serious and more complex. His decision to go on a "voyage" was accelerated by some unknown to us, but very unpleasant circumstances. His "tender friend" Nastasya Pleshcheev wrote about this to Alexei Mikhailovich Kutuzov in Berlin: "Not all … you know the reasons that prompted him to go. Believe me, I was one of the first, crying in front of him, asked him to go; your friend Alexey Alexandrovich (Pleshcheev) - the second; it was necessary and necessary to know this. I, who was always against this voyage, and this separation cost me dearly. Yes, such were the circumstances of our friend that this must have been done. After that, tell me, was it possible for me to love the villain, who is almost the main reason for everything? What is it like to part with my son and friend even when I didn’t think to see each other in this world. At that time my throat was bleeding so much that I considered myself very close to consumption. After that, say that he went out of stubbornness. "And she added:" And I cannot imagine without horror the one who is the reason for this voyage, how much I wish him evil! Oh, Tartuffe! ". Directly dramatic and tragic scenes, some. It is not known who Pleshcheeva called" villain "and" Tartuffe " Be that as it may, but having gone abroad, Nikolai Mikhailovich personally met there with almost all the most famous European Masons: Herder, Wieland, Lavater, Goethe, L. C. Saint-Martin. In London with letters of recommendation Karamzin was received by the influential Freemason - Russian Ambassador to Great Britain S. R. Vorontsov …

In Switzerland, Karamzin met three Danes. In "Letters" he describes them in a very friendly way. "The count loves gigantic thoughts!"; "The Danes Moltke, Bagzen, Becker and I were in Ferney this morning - we examined everything, talked about Voltaire." In these meager lines, there is a certain consensus between the companions. They visit Lavater and Bonnet, take part in Baggesen's matchmaking and the joys and troubles of the young Danes on the road. And the friendship with Becker continued in Paris! Baggesen later in his essay described the mood that dominated him at that time: "In Friedberg they brought the news of the capture of the Bastille. Good! Fair! Fine! Let's clink glasses, postman! Down with all the Bastilles! To the health of the destroyers!"

Karamzin reports that his Danish friends from Geneva "went to Paris for several days" and that "the Count speaks with admiration about his journey, about Paris, about Lyon …" This information is interesting: the trip from Geneva to Paris and back, apparently, was business as usual and uncomplicated. This must be remembered when, in bewilderment, we stop at some of the oddities of the period defined in the Letters as Geneva. According to the Letters, Karamzin stayed in Geneva for five (!) Months: the first literary "letter" from Geneva was marked on October 2, 1789, and he left it, as we remember from the same letters, on March 4 (actually even later, in mid-March 1790). According to the Letters, the traveler was in the vicinity of Paris on March 27, and arrived in Paris on April 2, 1790. On June 4 of the same year, Karamzin wrote a letter to Dmitriev from London. If we assume that the journey from the French capital to the English one took at least about four days, then the traveler stayed in Paris for about two months. Before Paris, in the text of the Letters, we see the exact dates, and then the numbers become somehow indefinite: often the hour is indicated, but the number is missing. In many "letters" numbers are absent altogether - only the place of "writing" is indicated: "Paris, April …", "Paris, May …", "Paris, May … 1790".

In the text of the Letters, a lot of effort was made to present the stay in Paris as a fun walk: “Since my arrival in Paris, I have spent all evenings without exception in performances and therefore have not seen twilight for about a month., unbecoming Paris! A whole month to be in performances every day! " But Karamzin was not a theater-goer. He rarely appeared in the theater. Even after moving to St. Petersburg, where visiting the theater was part of an almost obligatory ritual of social interaction, Karamzin was a rare guest of the temple of arts. All the more striking is his, in the literal sense of the word, rapture with Parisian theaters. To be at the performances every day for a whole month! Some kind of discrepancy. But at the same time he says almost nothing about the revolution: "Should we talk about the French revolution? You read the newspapers: therefore, you know the incidents."

But what really happened in Paris? We know from school that the people revolted and overthrew the King of France. The beginning of the revolution was the capture of the Bastille. And the purpose of the assault is the release of hundreds of political prisoners who were held there. But when the crowd reached the Bastille, in the so-called "torture" prison of the "despotic" King Louis XIV, there were only seven prisoners: four counterfeiters, two madmen, and the Comte de Sade (who went down in history as the Marquis de Sade), imprisoned for " monstrous crimes against humanity "at the insistence of his family. "The damp, gloomy underground chambers were empty." So what was this whole show for? And he was needed only in order to seize the weapons necessary for the revolution! Webster wrote: "The plan for the attack on the Bastille had already been drawn up, all that remained was to set the people in motion." We are presented that the revolution was the action of the popular masses of France, but "out of 800,000 Parisians, only about 1000 took any part in the siege of the Bastille …" And those who were involved in the storming of the prison were hired by "revolutionary leaders", since in the opinion of the conspirators, the Parisians could not be relied upon to bring about the revolution. In her book The French Revolution, Webster commented on Rigby's correspondence: "The siege of the Bastille caused so little confusion in Paris that Rigby, having no idea that something unusual was happening, went for a walk in the park in the afternoon." Lord Acton, a witness to the revolution, asserted: “The most terrible thing in the French Revolution is not rebellion, but design. Through smoke and flames, we discern the signs of a calculating organization. Leaders remain carefully hidden and disguised; but there is no doubt about their presence from the very beginning."

To create "popular" discontent, food problems were created, huge debts, to cover which the government was forced to impose taxes on the people, huge inflation that ruined the workers, created the false impression that the French people were dragging out a half-starved existence, and the myth of the "cruel" rule of King Louis was instilled XIV. And this was done in order to create the impression that the King himself was responsible for this, and to force the people to join the people already hired so that the impression of a revolution with genuine popular support was created. Painfully familiar situation … All revolutions follow the same plan … On the face - a classic example of a conspiracy.

Ralph Epperson: “The truth is that before the Revolution, France was the most prosperous of all European states. France owned half of the money in circulation throughout Europe; between 1720 and 1780, foreign trade quadrupled. wealth of France was in the hands of the middle class, and the "serfs" owned more land than anyone else. The king abolished the use of forced labor in public works in France and outlawed the use of torture in the interrogation. In addition, the king founded hospitals, established schools, reformed laws, built canals, drained marshes to increase arable land, and built numerous bridges to facilitate the movement of goods within the country."

The French Revolution was a hoax. But it was this lesson that he studied, and this experience was adopted by Karamzin. There simply cannot be another explanation. It is obvious. It is symbolic that Karamzin died as a result of a cold he received in the streets and squares of the capital on December 14, 1825 - on the day of the Decembrist riot on Senate Square.

Karamzin's departure from Paris and arrival in England were also vague. The last Parisian entry is marked: "June … 1790", the first London one - "July … 1790" (travel letters are marked only with hours: no days or months are indicated on them). Karamzin wants to give the impression that he left France at the end of June and arrived in London early the next month. However, there is reason to doubt this. The fact is that there is a real letter from Karamzin to Dmitriev, sent from London on June 4, 1790. In this letter, Karamzin writes: "Soon I will think about returning to Russia." According to the "Letters of a Russian Traveler", he left London in September. But according to indisputable documents, Karamzin returned to Petersburg on July 15 (26), 1790. "The voyage lasted about two weeks," Pogodin reports. This means that the writer left London around 10 July. It follows that, compared to Paris, the stay in London was very short. Although at the beginning of the journey England was the goal of Karamzin's trip, and his soul yearned for London.

Arriving from abroad, Karamzin behaved defiantly, his behavior is called extravagant. This was especially striking for those who remembered what Karamzin was like in the Masonic-Novikov circle. Bantysh-Kamensky described the appearance of Karamzin, who had returned from abroad: “Returning to Petersburg in the fall of 1790 in a fashionable tailcoat, with a chignon and a comb on his head, with ribbons on his shoes, Karamzin was introduced by I. I. Dmitriev to the house of the glorious Derzhavin and with intelligent, curious stories he attracted attention. Derzhavin approved his intention to publish a magazine and promised to inform him of his works. Outsiders who visited Derzhavin, proud of their florid, pompous style, showed disdain for the young dandy with their silence and a caustic smile, without expecting anything from him good. Karamzin by any means wanted to show the public his renunciation of Freemasonry and the adoption, allegedly, of a different worldview. And all this was part of some deliberate program …

And this program began to be implemented. The "battle" for human souls has begun … The philosophy of despair and fatalism permeates Karamzin's new works. He tries to prove to the reader that reality is poor and only playing with dreams in your soul can you improve your existence. That is, do nothing, do not try to make the world a better place, but just dream to the point of madness, because "it is pleasant to invent." Everything is permeated with an interest in the mysterious and unspoken, in a tense inner life, in a world dominated by evil and suffering and the doom to suffering. Karamzin preach Christian humility in the face of this fatal inevitability. Consoling in love and friendship, a person finds the "pleasantness of sadness." Karamzin sings melancholy - "the most gentle overflow from sorrow and longing to the joys of pleasure." In contrast to the old heroic classics, where military exploits were sung, glory. Karamzin puts forward "the pleasantness of free passion," "love for beauties," which knows no barriers: "love is strongest, holiest of all, most ineffable." Even in his fairy tale "Ilya Muromets" he describes not the heroic deeds of the hero, but a love episode in a sentimental taste, and in the story "Bornholm Island" the "lawless I" love of a brother to a sister is poeticized. Karamzin is a melancholic "twilight is lovelier than clear days"; "The most pleasant thing" to him "is not the noisy spring, amiable gaiety, not the sumptuous summer, luxurious shine and maturity, but the autumn is pale, when, exhausted and with a languid hand, breaking off her wreath, she awaits death." Karamzin introduces forbidden themes such as incest or love suicide into literature in a supposedly autobiographical manner. The grain of society's decay was sown …

The writer who created the cult of friendship was extremely stingy with spiritual outpourings, therefore, to imagine Karamzin as a "sentimentalist of life" is to be deeply mistaken. Karamzin kept no diaries. His letters are marked with the stamp of dryness and restraint. The writer Germaine de Stael, expelled by Napoleon from France, visited Russia in 1812 and met with Karamzin. In her notebook, she left the words: "Dry French - that's all."It is surprising that the French writer reproaches the Russian writer with the word "French", and all because of what she saw in the northern peoples of the bearers of the spirit of romanticism. Therefore, she could not forgive the dryness of good manners, restrained speech, everything that gave off the Parisian salon that was too familiar to her. The Muscovite seemed French to her, and the sensitive writer was dry.

So, the first part of the plan was fulfilled, the seed gave roots, it was necessary to move on. The time has come to rewrite history, as society has been prepared by swallowing the bait of "melancholy" and "sentimentality." Which means detachment, indifference and inaction … slavish obedience.