“American-Style Man of Real Action”: the Image of Vasily Solomin in I. S. Turgenev’ Novel “Virgin Soil”.

Tyunyaeva Ol'ga Dmitrievna Postgraduate student of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Chair of History of Russian literature 119991, Russia, Moscow, Leninskie Gory str., 1 tyunuaeva@list.ru Other publications by this author

By the 19th century, two large states had formed on both sides of Europe, the center of world culture and civilization, completely different in their political and social structure. Nevertheless, these countries also had many points of intersection. We are talking about Russia and the United States. The Empire and the federation acted for each other as an image of the "Other", the presence of which is characteristic of any culture ^{[1, p. 11]}. With respect to the "Other", culture determines its position in the world. Culture can identify itself with a certain "Other", or contrast. But in both cases, one culture feels the strongest interest in the other. Russia and the USA were a similar reference point for each other. Researchers have long noted that the states were united by a number of common factors: the commonality of social problems (serfdom in Russia and slavery in America); the vast territory of the two countries; the peripheral position of these large states in relation to Europe, the center of world culture in the XIX century. If in the XVIII century . Russia perceives Europe as a mentor in terms of culture, then by the end of the nineteenth century, Russian literature itself has a direct impact on the development of European literature. The literatures of Russia and the USA almost simultaneously, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, enter the world art space. This is largely due to the obvious interest of Russian and American writers in each other ^{[2, p. 225]}.

It is known that throughout his career, I. S. Turgenev showed a keen interest in the literature and culture of America. This interest, apparently, was due not only to the writer's personal tastes, but also to the general fascination with the New World in Russian society in the mid-nineteenth century. A.M. Etkind convincingly showed how important the New World was for Russia in the mid-nineteenth century in various aspects of life ^[1]. In particular, the researcher draws analogies between numerous religious sects that existed both in the Russian Empire and in the overseas Republic.

There were very utopian political projects in Russia, focused directly on America. Thus, in the early 1860s, M. A. Bakunin discussed with P. A. Kropotkin "the creation of the United States of Siberia, which would enter into a federation with the United States of America" ^{[1, p. 250]}.

A. M. Etkind notes the special iconic role of America in two of the most important texts of the second half of the nineteenth century — "What to do?" by N. G. Chernyshevsky and "Demons" by F. M. Dostoevsky. "In both novels, America plays the most important voice-over role: another place from where they came, which they dream about, where the main characters disappear and return from" ^{[1, p. 265]}. No wonder the researcher calls Chernyshevsky an "Americanist". The new attitudes to bodily love that are cultivated in Chernyshevsky's novel resemble the sectarian religious communities of America in their own way. Vera Pavlovna's fourth dream about earthly paradise acquires a special connection with America. Dreams of a New World generate direct associations even with the natural landscapes of the North American continent. It was America with its political structure that, according to Chernyshevsky, should have embodied all the socialist aspirations of the Russian thinker ^{[1, p. 197]}.

Thus, the concept of "America" in Russian culture gradually acquires philosophical content. America is often described as a Promised Land, a paradise on earth ^{[3, p. 118]}. In this paradigm, the New World is perceived as a place that brings personal and public freedom to a person. In this vein, A. I. Herzen's arguments about the differences between Europe and America in connection with emigration issues are interesting. Reflecting on the essence of European civilization, Herzen concludes that the Russian's move to Europe is not emigration in the full sense of the word due to the common culture. But moving to America seems to the writer to be a real emigration. "<...> this is the country (America. — O. T.) of the "oblivion of the motherland", — Herzen notes, — "this is a new fatherland, there are other interests, everything is different; people who remain in America fall out of the ranks" ^{[4, p. 74]}.

At the same time, the New World is perceived as a different, otherworldly space located outside the known world. The mention of America as the equivalent of the afterlife is found, for example, in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky ^{[5, p. 155]}.

 In parallel, the idea of the peculiarities of the national character of Americans was formed in Russia. The key features were considered individualism, hard work, social activity, entrepreneurship, rationalism, commitment to material goods. Throughout the XIX century, the ideas about the American national character in Russia continued to deepen.

Similar different ideas about America, about the New World, to a certain extent were reflected in the works of I. S. Turgenev. The topic "Turgenev and America" is quite extensive and has attracted the attention of both domestic and foreign researchers in different years ^[5-10]. It is known that the author of "Fathers and Children" was open to world culture ^[11]. Throughout his life, Turgenev was keenly interested in the events of the New World and wanted to personally visit the Overseas Republic. In a letter to the American writer J. Boyesen, the writer confessed: "One of my strongest desires is to visit your country myself — the New World, which for the Old World is what the Future is for the Present or the Past — and I hope that I will fulfill this desire before I leave this land" ^{[12, p. 260]}. Turgenev failed to realize this dream. But until the end of his days, the Russian writer maintained friendly relations with G. James, corresponded with J. Boyesen, W. D. Howells and some other representatives of American literature.

In turn , in America , interest in Turgenev 's work arose already in the middle of the XIX century . The first mentions of Turgenev in American criticism appear in articles telling about serfdom in Russia ^[13]. At that time, readers of the United States were attracted by the anti-serf pathos of the Hunter's Notes. The first individual stories from the cycle began to appear in the New World in the mid-1850s ^{[5, p. 74]} And ten years later, in 1867, Yu. Skyler published his own translation of "Fathers and Children" in New York. Soon enough, other translations of Turgenev's novels began to be published in America. During the writer's lifetime, "Fathers and Children" (1867), "Smoke" (1872), "Noble Nest" (Liza, 1872), "Rudin" (1873), "Nov" (1877), the story "Spring Waters" (1874) were published in the USA ^{[14, p. 17]}. Such American writers as G. James, W. D. Howells, T. Peri, and J. Boyesen showed great interest in Turgenev, the novelist in the XIX century.

Turgenev himself did not attach much importance to the topic of America in his work. The writer was primarily interested in events in Russia, in some cases, in the life of Russians in Europe. But the image of America somehow appears in Turgenev's work, and often it fits into the general paradigm of ideas about the New World in Russia in the middle of the XIX century. This also applies to ideas about the American national character, which are reflected in the image of Vasily Fedotych Solomin from Turgenev's last novel Nov (in the Bulletin of Europe 1877, No. 1, 2). Work on Nov was carried out for a long time: the first sketches appeared already in the early 1870s, and the draft manuscript was completed in 1876 .

In the preparatory materials for the novel, Turgenev wrote: "The idea of a new novel flashed. Here it is: there are romantics of realism (Onegin is not Pushkin, but Ralston's friend). They yearn for the real and strive for it, like former romantics for the ideal. <...> In contrast Onegin — need to put this practice on the American way (emphasis added — O. T.), who just quietly doing his job like a man plows and sows, — you may think that it strives only about his stomach, his bien ?tre (welfare), and count it for the good of the egoist; only the observant eye can see in this stream of social, human, human: it affects the choice of its activity, the sense of duty to others, honestly restrained grey <?>, in all the plebeian temper. Nature is rough, heavy on the word, without any aesthetic beginning — but strong and courageous, not boring, with endurance. He has his own religion — a celebration of the lower class, in which he wants to participate. The Russian Revolutionary" ^{[15, p. 399]}.

However, Turgenev later abandoned his desire to present Solomin as an "American". In the novel about Solomin, it is said that he once spent two years in England, in Manchester, where he managed to learn a lot, i.e. America is being replaced by a more understandable, or familiar England. Now he was in charge of the merchant Faleev's large paper-spinning factory. "Solomin was the only son of a sexton: he had five sisters — all married to priests and deacons; but with the consent of his father, a sedate and sober man, he left the seminary, began to study mathematics and became especially addicted to mechanics; he got into the factory of an Englishman, who loved him as a son and gave him the means to go to Manchester, where he stayed for two years and I learned English. He had recently come to the factory of a Moscow merchant, and although he exacted from his subordinates — because he had seen enough of these orders in England — he enjoyed their favor: his own man, they say! His father was very pleased with him, called him "thorough" and only regretted that his son did not want to get married" ^{[15, pp. 225-226]}.

Nevertheless, there is still something of an American in Solomin's character traits. It is no coincidence that Turgenev wrote about his hero as a "practice in the American way." In Novi, the writer offers, in fact, a new concept for the development of Russia, which has no analogues in Europe.

It is known that this novel reflects the concept of "gradualism from below" ^{[16, pp. 8-17]}. Turgenev believed that the "going to the people" of the revolutionaries of the 1870s had obviously reached a dead end. Instead, the writer proposed the concept of a modest activity conducted by "useful" people ^[17]. Their activities did not involve isolated senseless steps, but should eventually be built into a single system that contributes to the development of progress in Russia. "Times have changed," Turgenev wrote, "now Bazarovs are not needed. For the upcoming social activity, you do not need any special talents, or even a special mind — nothing big, outstanding, too individual; you need hard work, patience ... you need to be able to accept and not shun petty and dark and even base work" ^{[12, p. 181] [18]}. This position was shared, as V. M. Golovko rightly writes, by some public figures of that time, for example, the publicist of the journal "Bulletin of Europe" L.A. Polonsky, or one of the prominent figures of the "cultural current" in populism, the publicist and writer Ya. V. Abramov ^{[16, p. 9]}. Such a "modest", "inconspicuous" and at the same time "useful" person turns out to be a "gradualist from below" Solomin. He is shown as a necessary force for internal reforms of Russian society. Moreover, it is important that this type of people, who are still decidedly lacking in Russia, should not be bright leaders, a kind of heroes. On the contrary, they, first of all, should be deprived of selfishness, self-esteem, be "gray" and focused on specific cases. "What could be more unchangeable, for example," Turgenev wrote, "teaching a peasant to read and write, helping him, starting hospitals, etc. What are talents and even scholarship for? We need one heart capable of sacrificing its egoism <...>" ^{[12, p. 181]}.

We believe that, genetically, Solomin's "gradualism" can partly be elevated to ideas about the national American character. First of all, it is worth talking about the entrepreneurial streak of the hero, his understanding of the true order of things, practicality and ability to act in the current circumstances.    Solomin, the only one among all the characters in the novel, turns out to be able not only to talk about big changes, to wait for a revolution, but also to bring this future closer by real practical and at the same time not radical actions ^[19]. G. A. Tim wrote about Solomin's "grayness" as one of the fundamental qualities of the hero ^{[20, pp. 152-153]}. Solomin, completely devoid of selfishness, turns out to be literally "merged" with the same as him, the gray mass of the people. But this is the special power of the hero. If Alexey Nejdanov shows complete inconsistency in his chosen field (he is disappointed in populism, does not find a common language with the peasants), then Solomin, on the contrary, quite consistently does what he considers necessary. He has no illusions about the people and the Russian reality. But this does not prevent him, as far as possible, from helping the people in getting an education and introducing them to progress, teaching them to work and involving them in work. "Nejdanov began to ask him about what social ideas he was trying to carry out in the factory entrusted to him and whether he intended to arrange things so that the workers participated in the profit?

— My soul! - answered Solomin, — we started a school and a small hospital — and even then the cartridge rested like a bear!" ^{[15, pp. 226-227]}

Thus, although Turgenev abandoned the idea of making Solomin an "American", the author retains in the hero a certain initial grain of a business man, not in the Western European, but in the American manner. Solomin's similar temperament sets him apart from other characters. It is Solomin who turns out to be, in fact, the only hero capable of acting in the prevailing historical conditions. And "gradualism from below" is the only possible driving force of progress in Russia. In the final chapter of the novel, the reader learns from Paklin's speech that Solomin organized his small factory on an artel basis. In this detail, we again see some references to "Americanism", which is understood in a certain way in Russian culture. The factory on an artel basis, created by Solomin, echoes the fourth dream of Vera Pavlovna from Chernyshevsky's novel "What to do?". We have already said that it was in the political structure of the United States that Chernyshevsky saw the possibility of bringing his social utopia to life. But if the heroes of Chernyshevsky in many respects remain flat embodiments of some one author's idea, then Turgenev, on the contrary, tries in every possible way to reveal his hero from different sides. Endowing Solomin with practicality, common sense, depriving him of special pride and egoism inherent, for example, in Bazarov, Turgenev still seeks to make his hero a Russian person. It is not for nothing that Solomin turns out to come from a spiritual environment. Thus, Solomin combines the features of the native Russian character with "Americanism", understood very specifically in the XIX century. Interestingly, in one of his essays, M. N. Epstein talked about the possibility of the appearance of "ameross" — a person who combines the features of two national cultures: "the Russian culture of thoughtful melancholy, heartfelt longing, bright sadness — and the American culture of courageous optimism, active participation and compassion, faith in oneself and in others..." ^{[21, p. 25]} Something similar to such an "ameross" can be traced in the image of Solomin, who is not alien to the understanding of Russian peasants, workers at his factory.

For reasons that are unclear to us, Turgenev refuses to make his hero a "practitioner in the American way." The writer replaces the "American" model of the hero's behavior with the "English" one. We can assume that the "English" model of behavior and management of the economy could be more understandable to the Russian reader. After all, Europe, unlike the United States, did not seem so remote both culturally and geographically. However, this issue remains unclear for us so far.

America can hardly be considered the central topos in Turgenev's work, but the writer's undoubted interest in the New World contributed to the formation of an image significant in the poetics of his prose, which partly reflected the contradictory ideas about America in the Russian society of the XIX century. We focused on the "gradual" Solomin, in whose image the writer conveyed the purposefulness and inner harmony of the new national type of American. Solomin's "Americanism" simultaneously becomes the basis for the creation of a new concept of "gradualism from below", which, according to Turgenev, acts as the only possible driving force of progress in Russia. However, in Turgenev's work, the topos of America also acquires a more abstract, philosophical meaning ^[22]. In the novella "Spring Waters" (1872) and the short story "Dream" (1877), an ambivalent image of America arises, which simultaneously becomes both a metaphor for a new life (a New Light) and a chthonic space of the "afterlife", "other" world.