- Fortress "wonder child"
Nikolai Kostomarov was born a serf, but received a good education. At the university, he began to be interested in history, writing literary texts and scientific works, translating poetry and studying Ukrainian culture. Later, Kostomarov founded a secret political society, survived exile and a ban on teaching, and at the end of his life became a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.
Fortress "wonder child"
Nikolai Kostomarov was born in the village of Yurasovka, Voronezh province, in 1817. His father was the landowner Ivan Kostomarov, and his mother was the serf Tatyana Melnikova. Parents later got married, but the child appeared before marriage and therefore was a serf of his father.
The father tried to give the boy a good education, sent his son to study at a Moscow boarding school. The young pupil demonstrated abilities in various sciences, and he was called a "miracle child." When Kostomarov was 11 years old, the landowner was killed by the servants. The serf boy was inherited by the Rovnev family - relatives of his father.
After some time, Tatyana Melnikova begged her son for "free" - in exchange for a widow's share of the inheritance. His mother wanted him to continue studying, but in Moscow it was too expensive. Tatyana Melnikova transferred her son to the Voronezh boarding school, and then to the Voronezh provincial gymnasium.
Nikolay Kostomarov, captain of the 2nd rank. 1840s. Photo: krymology.info
Nikolay Kostomarov. Photo: e-reading.club
Nikolay Kostomarov. Photo: history.org
In 1833, Nikolai Kostomarov entered Kharkov University. He participated in the university literary circle, studied Latin, French, Italian, philosophy, was interested in ancient and French literature. In 1838, Mikhail Lunin, a historian and specialist in the Middle Ages, began teaching at the university. After meeting him, Kostomarov began to study history.
After graduating from the university, Nikolai Kostomarov entered the Kinburn Dragoon Regiment in Ostrogozhsk, but soon left military service and returned to Kharkov. Here he continued to study. “I soon came to the conclusion that history should be studied not only from dead chronicles and notes, but also from living people”, - wrote Kostomarov. He learned the Ukrainian language, read Ukrainian literature and collected local folklore while visiting the surrounding villages.
Under the pseudonym Jeremiah Halka, the young researcher began to write his own works in Ukrainian. Until 1841, he published two dramas - "Sawa Chaly" about a Cossack colonel in the Polish service and "Pereyaslav Night" about the struggle of Ukrainians against the Polish invasion - and collections of poems and translations.
In 1842, Nikolai Kostomarov wrote his master's thesis "On the causes and nature of the union in Western Russia." It was dedicated to the events of the 16th century, when the union of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches was concluded. Many saw in it the subordination of the Russian Church to the Catholic Church, and uprisings broke out in the country, about which Nikolai Kostomarov wrote in a separate chapter. The dissertation was not allowed to be defended. She was condemned by both the Ministry of Education and the clergy - allegedly because Kostomarov shared the views of the rebels. The scientist destroyed the work and its copies, and a year later presented a new work "On historical significance Russian folk poetry.
Founder of the "Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood"
Nicholas Ge. Portrait of Nikolai Kostomarov. 1870. State Tretyakov Gallery
Nikolai Kostomarov successfully defended his scientific work and set to work on the biography of the leader of the Cossacks, Bogdan Khmelnitsky. He traveled a lot on the territory of modern Ukraine: he worked as a gymnasium teacher in Rivne, then at the First Kyiv Gymnasium. In 1846, the scientist got a job as a teacher of Russian history at Kyiv University - here he lectured on Slavic mythology.
“I cannot say that there was anything particularly fascinating in his lectures.<...>But I can say one thing: Kostomarov managed to make Russian chronicles extremely popular among students.
Konstantin Golovin, novelist and public figure
Even in the years of study, Nikolai Kostomarov became interested in pan-Slavism - the idea of \u200b\u200bunifying the Slavic peoples. And in Kyiv, people who shared his views rallied around the scientist. Among them were journalist Vasily Belozursky, poet Taras Shevchenko, teacher Nikolai Gulak and many others. Nikolai Kostomarov recalled: “The reciprocity of the Slavic peoples in our imagination was no longer limited to the sphere of science and poetry, but began to be presented in images in which, as it seemed to us, it should have been embodied for future history”.
The circle of like-minded people grew into a secret political society called the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. Its participants advocated freedom of conscience and equality of fraternal peoples, liberation from serfdom and the abolition of customs duties, the introduction of a single currency and the availability of education for all segments of the population. Mykola Kostomarov wrote a regulation on society - "The Book of the Ukrainian People's Life".
In 1847, one of the students of Kyiv University learned about the existence of the brotherhood. He reported to the authorities, all participants were arrested. Nikolai Kostomarov was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and then exiled to Saratov without the right to engage in teaching activities and publish literary works.
In exile, Kostomarov studied the life of local peasants and collected folklore, communicated with sectarians and schismatics, worked on Bogdan Khmelnitsky and began a new work on the internal structure of the Russian state of the 16th-17th centuries.
"Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences"
Nikolay Kostomarov. Photo: litmir.ne
Nikolay Kostomarov. Photo: ivelib.ru
Nikolay Kostomarov. Photo: chrono.ru
In 1855, Nikolai was allowed to travel to St. Petersburg, the next year the ban on publication and teaching was lifted. After a short trip abroad, the scientist returned to Saratov, where he wrote the work "The Rebellion of Stenka Razin" and participated in the preparation of the peasant reform. In 1859, St. Petersburg University invited Kostomarov to head the department of Russian history.
“Entering the department, I set out to put forward in my lectures the life of the people in all its particular manifestations. The Russian state was made up of parts that had previously lived their own independent lives, and for a long time after that the life of the parts was expressed by excellent aspirations in common state nnom order. Finding and capturing these features of the folk life of parts of the Russian state was for me the task of my studies in history.
Nikolai Kostomarov
Soon Kostomarov became a member of the Archaeographic Commission - an institution that described and published historical documents. The scientist has released a selection of documents on the history of Little Russia in the 17th century. In the magazines Russian word” and “Sovremennik” published fragments of Kostomarov’s lectures, and on the pages of the Osnova magazine, established by former Cyril and Methodius, his scientific articles.
Petersburg University was closed in 1861 after student riots. Nikolay Kostomarov and his colleagues continued to give lectures - in the city duma. Later, lectures were also banned, and the scientist retired from teaching. He focused on working with archival materials. During these years, Kostomarov wrote the scientific work "Northern Russian People's Rules in the Times of the Appanage Veche Way". The work collected facts from the history of the northern principalities, fairy tales of these lands and biographies of local princes. At the same time, there appeared Time of Troubles Moscow state", "The last years of the Commonwealth".
In 1870, Kostomarov was awarded the rank of real state councilor with the right to inherit the title of nobility. In 1872, Kostomarov moved on to compiling the work Russian History in the Biographies of Its Most Important Figures, where he described the biographies of princes, tsars and emperors from the 10th to the 18th centuries. In 1876 he was elected a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.
Nikolai Kostomarov was engaged in scientific work until the end of his life. The scientist died in 1885. He was buried at the Literary bridges of the Volkovsky cemetery in St. Petersburg.
Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov - Russian historian, ethnographer, publicist, literary critic, poet, playwright, public figure, corresponding member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, author of the multi-volume publication "Russian History in the Biographies of Its Figures", researcher of the socio-political and economic history of Russia and the modern territory of Ukraine, called by Kostomarov "southern Russia" or "southern edge". Pan-Slavist.
Biography of N.I. Kostomarov
Family and ancestors
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N.I. Kostomarov |
Kostomarov Nikolai Ivanovich was born on May 4 (16), 1817 in the Yurasovka estate (Ostrogozhsky district, Voronezh province), died on April 7 (19), 1885 in St. Petersburg.
The Kostomarov family is noble, Great Russian. The son of the boyar Samson Martynovich Kostomarov, who served in the oprichnina of John IV, fled to Volyn, where he received the estate, which passed to his son, and then to his grandson Peter Kostomarov. Peter in the second half of the seventeenth century participated in Cossack uprisings, fled to the Moscow state and settled in the so-called Ostrogozhchin. One of the descendants of this Kostomarov in the 18th century married the daughter of an official Yuri Blum and received as a dowry the suburb of Yurasovka (Ostrogozhsky district of the Voronezh province), which was inherited by the father of the historian, Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov, a wealthy landowner.
Ivan Kostomarov was born in 1769, served in military service and, after retiring, settled in Yurasovka. Having received a poor education, he tried to develop himself by reading, reading "with a dictionary" exclusively French books of the eighteenth century. I read to the point that I became a convinced "Voltairian", i.e. supporter of education and social equality. Later, N.I. Kostomarov in his "Autobiography" wrote about the passions of the parent:
Everything that we know today about the childhood, family and early years of N.I. Kostomarov is gleaned exclusively from his “Autobiographies”, written by the historian in different versions already in his declining years. These wonderful, in many ways works of art, sometimes reminiscent of an adventure novel of the 19th century: very original types of characters, an almost detective story with a murder, the subsequent, absolutely fantastic repentance of criminals, etc. Due to the lack of reliable sources, it is practically impossible to separate the truth from childhood impressions, as well as from the author's later fantasies. Therefore, we will follow what N.I. Kostomarov himself considered necessary to inform his descendants about himself.
According to the autobiographical notes of the historian, his father was a tough, wayward, extremely quick-tempered man. Under the influence of French books, he did not put noble dignity in anything and, in principle, did not want to be related to noble families. So, already in his old age, Kostomarov Sr. decided to marry and chose a girl from his serfs - Tatyana Petrovna Mylnikova (in some publications - Melnikova), whom he sent to study in Moscow, in a private boarding school. It was in 1812, and the Napoleonic invasion prevented Tatyana Petrovna from getting an education. Among the Yurasovo peasants for a long time lived a romantic legend about how the "old Kostomar" drove the best three horses, rescuing his former maid Tanyusha from burning Moscow. Tatyana Petrovna was clearly not indifferent to him. However, soon the courtyard people turned Kostomarov against his serf. The landowner was in no hurry to marry her, and son Nikolai, being born even before the official marriage between his parents, automatically became his father's serf.
Until the age of ten, the boy was brought up at home, according to the principles developed by Rousseau in his Emile, in the bosom of nature, and from childhood fell in love with nature. His father wanted to make him a freethinker, but his mother's influence kept him religious. He read a lot and, thanks to his outstanding abilities, easily assimilated what he read, and his ardent fantasy made him experience what he got acquainted with from books.
In 1827, Kostomarov was sent to Moscow, to the boarding school of Mr. Ge, a lecturer in French at the University, but was soon taken home due to illness. In the summer of 1828, young Kostomarov was supposed to return to the boarding school, but on July 14, 1828, his father was killed and robbed by the servants. For some reason, his father did not have time to adopt Nikolai in 11 years of his life, therefore, born out of wedlock, as a serf of his father, the boy was now inherited by his closest relatives - the Rovnevs. When the Rovnevs offered Tatyana Petrovna a widow's share for 14 thousand acres of fertile land - 50 thousand rubles in banknotes, as well as freedom for her son, she agreed without delay.
Killers I.P. Kostomarov presented the whole case as if an accident had happened: the horses were carried away, the landowner allegedly fell out of the cab and died. The loss of a large amount of money from his box became known later, so there was no police inquiry. The true circumstances of the death of Kostomarov Sr. were revealed only in 1833, when one of the murderers - the master's coachman - suddenly repented and pointed out to the police his accomplices-lackeys. N.I. Kostomarov wrote in his Autobiography that when the perpetrators were interrogated in court, the coachman said: “The master himself is to blame for tempting us; it used to start telling everyone that there is no god, that there will be nothing in the next world, that only fools are afraid of the afterlife punishment - we took it into our heads that if there is nothing in the next world, then everything can be done ... "
Later, the courtyards stuffed with "Voltairian sermons" led the robbers to the house of N.I. Kostomarov's mother, which was also completely robbed.
Left with little money, T.P. Kostomarova sent her son to a rather poor boarding school in Voronezh, where he learned little in two and a half years. In 1831, his mother transferred Nikolai to the Voronezh gymnasium, but even here, according to Kostomarov's memoirs, the teachers were bad and unscrupulous, they gave him little knowledge.
After graduating in 1833 from a course at a gymnasium, Kostomarov first entered Moscow and then Kharkiv University at the Faculty of History and Philology. The professors at that time in Kharkov were unimportant. For example, Russian history was read by Gulak-Artemovsky, although a well-known author of Little Russian poems, but distinguished, according to Kostomarov, in his lectures by empty rhetoric and bombast. However, Kostomarov worked diligently even with such teachers, but, as is often the case with young people, he succumbed by nature to one or another hobby. So, having settled with the professor of the Latin language P.I. Sokalsky, he began to study classical languages and was especially carried away by the Iliad. The writings of V. Hugo turned him to French; then he began to study Italian, music, began to write poetry, and led an extremely chaotic life. He constantly spent his holidays in his village, taking a great interest in horse riding, boating, hunting, although natural myopia and compassion for animals interfered with the last lesson. In 1835, young and talented professors appeared in Kharkov: in Greek literature A. O. Valitsky and in world history M. M. Lunin, who lectured very excitingly. Under the influence of Lunin, Kostomarov began to study history, spent days and nights reading various historical books. He settled at Artemovsky-Gulak and now led a very secluded life. Among his few friends was then A. L. Meshlinsky, a well-known collector of Little Russian songs.
The beginning of the way
In 1836, Kostomarov graduated from the course at the university as a real student, lived with Artemovsky for some time, teaching history to his children, then passed the exam for a candidate and at the same time entered the Kinburn Dragoon Regiment as a cadet.
Service in the regiment Kostomarov did not like; with his comrades, due to a different way of life, he did not get close. Fascinated by the analysis of the affairs of the rich archive located in Ostrogozhsk, where the regiment was stationed, Kostomarov often skimped on the service and, on the advice of the regimental commander, left it. Having worked in the archives throughout the summer of 1837, he compiled a historical description of the Ostrogozhsk Sloboda regiment, attached many copies of interesting documents to it, and prepared it for publication. Kostomarov hoped to compile the history of the entire Sloboda Ukraine in the same way, but did not have time. His work disappeared during the arrest of Kostomarov and it is not known where he is and even if he survived at all. In the autumn of the same year, Kostomarov returned to Kharkov, again began to listen to Lunin's lectures and study history. Already at that time, he began to think about the question: why is so little said in history about the masses of the people? Wanting to understand folk psychology, Kostomarov began to study the monuments of folk literature in the publications of Maksimovich and Sakharov, and was especially carried away by Little Russian folk poetry.
Interestingly, until the age of 16, Kostomarov had no idea about Ukraine and, in fact, about the Ukrainian language. The fact that there is a Ukrainian (Little Russian) language, he learned only at Kharkov University. When in the 1820-30s in Little Russia they began to be interested in the history and life of the Cossacks, this interest was most clearly manifested among representatives of the educated society of Kharkov, and especially in the university environment. Here, at the same time, the influence on the young Kostomarov of Artemovsky and Meshlinsky, and partly of Gogol's Russian-language stories, in which the Ukrainian color is lovingly presented, affected. “Love for the Little Russian word more and more captivated me,” Kostomarov wrote, “I was annoyed that such a beautiful language was left without any literary processing and, moreover, was subjected to completely undeserved contempt.”
An important role in the “Ukrainization” of Kostomarov belongs to I. I. Sreznevsky, then a young teacher at Kharkov University. Sreznevsky, although a native of Ryazan, also spent his youth in Kharkov. He was a connoisseur and lover of Ukrainian history and literature, especially after he had visited the places of the former Zaporozhye and had heard enough of its legends. This gave him the opportunity to compose the "Zaporozhian Antiquity".
Rapprochement with Sreznevsky had a strong effect on the novice historian Kostomarov, strengthening his desire to study the peoples of Ukraine, both in the monuments of the past and in the present life. To this end, he constantly made ethnographic excursions in the vicinity of Kharkov, and then further. Then Kostomarov began to write in the Little Russian language - first Ukrainian ballads, then the drama "Sava Chaly". The drama was published in 1838, and the ballads a year later (both under the pseudonym "Jeremiah Galka"). The drama evoked a flattering response from Belinsky. In 1838, Kostomarov was in Moscow and listened to Shevyrev's lectures there, thinking of taking the exam for a master of Russian literature, but fell ill and returned to Kharkov again, having managed to study German, Polish and Czech during this time and print his Ukrainian-language works.
Thesis by N.I. Kostomarov
In 1840 N.I. Kostomarov passed the exam for a master's degree in Russian history, and the following year presented his dissertation "On the Significance of the Union in the History of Western Russia." In anticipation of a dispute, he left for the summer in the Crimea, which he examined in detail. Upon returning to Kharkov, Kostomarov became close with Kvitka and also with a circle of Little Russian poets, among whom was Korsun, who published the collection Snin. In the collection, Kostomarov, under his former pseudonym, published poems and a new tragedy, "Pereyaslavskaya Nich".
Meanwhile, the Kharkiv Archbishop Innokenty drew the attention of the higher authorities to the dissertation already published by Kostomarov in 1842. On behalf of the Ministry of Public Education, Ustryalov assessed it and recognized it as unreliable: Kostomarov's conclusions regarding the emergence of the union and its significance did not correspond to the generally accepted one, which was considered mandatory for Russian historiography of this issue. The matter took such a turn that the dissertation was burned and its copies now constitute a great bibliographic rarity. However, in a revised form, this dissertation was later published twice, although under different names.
The history of the dissertation could forever end Kostomarov's career as a historian. But there were generally good reviews about Kostomarov, including from Archbishop Innokenty himself, who considered him a deeply religious person and knowledgeable in spiritual matters. Kostomarov was allowed to write a second dissertation. The historian chose the topic "On the historical significance of Russian folk poetry" and wrote this essay in 1842-1843, being an assistant inspector of students at Kharkov University. He often visited the theater, especially the Little Russian one, placed Little Russian poems and his first articles on the history of Little Russia in the collection “Molodik” by Betsky: “The First Wars of the Little Russian Cossacks with the Poles”, etc.
Leaving his position at the university in 1843, Kostomarov became a teacher of history at the Zimnitsky men's boarding school. Then he began to work on the history of Bogdan Khmelnitsky. On January 13, 1844, Kostomarov, not without incident, defended his dissertation at Kharkov University (it was also later published in a heavily revised form). He became a master of Russian history and first lived in Kharkov, working on the history of Khmelnitsky, and then, not having received a department here, he asked to serve in the Kyiv educational district in order to be closer to the place of activity of his hero.
N.I. Kostomarov as a teacher
In the autumn of 1844, Kostomarov was appointed as a history teacher at a gymnasium in the city of Rovno, Volyn province. On the way, he visited Kyiv, where he met the reformer of the Ukrainian language and publicist P. Kulish, with the assistant trustee of the educational district M. V. Yuzefovich and other progressive-minded people. In Rovno, Kostomarov taught only until the summer of 1845, but he gained the general love of both students and comrades for his humanity and excellent presentation of the subject. As always, he took advantage of every free time to make excursions to the numerous historical places of Volyn, to make historical and ethnographic observations and to collect monuments of folk art; such were brought to him by his disciples; all these materials collected by him were printed much later - in 1859.
Acquaintance with historical areas gave the historian the opportunity to later vividly depict many episodes from the history of the first Pretender and Bogdan Khmelnitsky. In the summer of 1845, Kostomarov visited the Holy Mountains, in the fall he was transferred to Kyiv as a history teacher at the 1st gymnasium, and at the same time he taught in various boarding schools, including women's boarding schools - de Melyana (Robespierre's brother) and Zalesskaya (the famous poet's widow), and later at the Institute of Noble Maidens. His pupils and pupils recalled his teaching with delight.
Here is what the famous painter Ge says about him as a teacher:
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"N. I. Kostomarov was everyone's favorite teacher; there was not a single student who did not listen to his stories from Russian history; he made almost the whole city fall in love with Russian history. When he ran into the classroom, everything froze, as in a church, and the lively old life of Kyiv, rich in pictures, flowed, everything turned into a rumor; but - a call, and everyone was sorry, both the teacher and the students, that the time had passed so quickly. The most passionate listener was our comrade Pole... Nikolai Ivanovich never asked too much, never put points; sometimes our teacher throws us some paper and says quickly: “Here, we need to put points. So you already do it yourself,” he says; and what - no one was given more than 3 points. It’s impossible, ashamed, but there were up to 60 people here. Kostomarov's lessons were spiritual holidays; everyone was waiting for his lesson. The impression was that the teacher who took his place in our last class did not read history for a whole year, but read Russian authors, saying that after Kostomarov he would not read history to us. He made the same impression at the women's boarding school, and then at the University. |
Kostomarov and the Cyril and Methodius Society
In Kyiv, Kostomarov became close friends with several young Little Russians, who formed a circle part of the pan-Slavic, part of the national trend. Imbued with the ideas of pan-Slavism, which then emerged under the influence of the works of Shafarik and other famous Western Slavists, Kostomarov and his comrades dreamed of uniting all the Slavs in the form of a federation, with independent autonomy of the Slavic lands, into which the peoples inhabiting the empire were to be distributed. Moreover, in the projected federation, a liberal state system, as it was understood in the 1840s, was to be established, with the mandatory abolition of serfdom. A very peaceful circle of thinking intellectuals, who intended to act only by correct means, and, moreover, deeply religious in the person of Kostomarov, had an appropriate name - the Brotherhood of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. He, as it were, indicated by this that the activity of the holy Brothers, religious and educational, dear to all Slavic tribes, can be considered the only possible banner for Slavic unification. The very existence of such a circle at that time was already an illegal phenomenon. In addition, its members, wanting to “play” either conspirators or Masons, deliberately gave their meetings and peaceful conversations the character of a secret society with special attributes: a special icon and iron rings with the inscription: “Cyril and Methodius”. The brotherhood also had a seal on which was carved: "Understand the truth, and the truth will set you free." Af. V. Markovich, later a well-known South Russian ethnographer, writer N. I. Gulak, poet A. A. Navrotsky, teachers V. M. Belozersky and D. P. Pilchikov, several students, and later - T. G. Shevchenko, whose work was so reflected in the ideas of the pan-Slavic brotherhood. Random “brothers” also attended meetings of the society, for example, the landowner N.I. Savin, who was familiar to Kostomarov from Kharkov. The infamous publicist P. A. Kulish also knew about the brotherhood. With his peculiar humor, he signed some of his messages to members of the Hetman Panka Kulish brotherhood. Subsequently, in the III branch, this joke was assessed as three years of exile, although the "hetman" Kulish himself was not officially a member of the brotherhood. Just not to be intrusive...
June 4, 1846 N.I. Kostomarov was elected an associate professor of Russian history at Kiev University; classes in the gymnasium and other boarding schools, he now left. His mother also settled in Kyiv with him, selling the part of Yurasovka that she inherited.
Kostomarov was a professor at Kyiv University for less than a year, but the students, with whom he kept himself simple, loved him very much and were fond of his lectures. Kostomarov taught several courses, including Slavic mythology, which he printed in Church Slavonic type, which was partly the reason for its ban. Only in the 1870s were its copies printed 30 years ago put on sale. Kostomarov also worked on Khmelnitsky, using materials available in Kyiv and from the famous archaeologist Gr. Svidzinsky, and was also elected a member of the Kyiv Commission for the analysis of ancient acts and prepared the chronicle of S. Velichka for publication.
At the beginning of 1847, Kostomarov became engaged to Anna Leontievna Kragelskaya, his student from the boarding house de Melyan. The wedding was scheduled for March 30th. Kostomarov actively prepared for family life: I looked after a house for myself and the bride on Bolshaya Vladimirskaya, closer to the university, ordered a piano for Alina from Vienna itself. After all, the historian's bride was an excellent performer - Franz Liszt himself admired her game. But ... the wedding did not take place.
On the denunciation of student A. Petrov, who overheard Kostomarov's conversation with several members of the Cyril and Methodius Society, Kostomarov was arrested, interrogated and sent under guard of gendarmes to the Podolsk part. Then, two days later, he was brought for farewell to his mother's apartment, where the bride, Alina Kragelskaya, was waiting all in tears.
“The scene was tearing,” Kostomarov wrote in his Autobiography. “Then they put me on the crossbar and took me to St. Petersburg ... The state of my spirit was so deadly that I had an idea during the journey to starve myself to death. I refused all food and drink and had the firmness to drive in this way for 5 days ... My quarterly escort understood what was on my mind and began to advise me to leave the intention. “You,” he said, “do not inflict death on yourself, I will have time to take you, but you will hurt yourself: they will begin to interrogate you, and from exhaustion you will become delirium and you will say too much both about yourself and others.” Kostomarov heeded the advice.
In St. Petersburg, the chief of the gendarmes, Count Alexei Orlov, and his assistant, Lieutenant General Dubelt, spoke with the arrested person. When the scientist asked permission to read books and newspapers, Dubelt said: "You can't, my good friend, you read too much."
Soon both generals found out that they were dealing not with a dangerous conspirator, but with a romantic dreamer. But the investigation dragged on all spring, as Taras Shevchenko (he received the most severe punishment) and Nikolai Gulak hindered the case with their "intractability". There was no court. Kostomarov learned the decision of the tsar on May 30 from Dubelt: a year of imprisonment in a fortress and an indefinite exile "to one of the remote provinces." Kostomarov spent a year in the 7th cell of the Alekseevsky ravelin, where his already not very good health suffered greatly. However, the mother was allowed to see the prisoner, they were given books and, by the way, he learned ancient Greek and Spanish there.
The wedding of the historian with Alina Leontyevna was completely upset. The bride herself, being a romantic nature, was ready, like the wives of the Decembrists, to follow Kostomarov anywhere. But marriage to a "political criminal" seemed unthinkable to her parents. At the insistence of her mother, Alina Kragelskaya married an old friend of their family, the landowner M. Kisel.
Kostomarov in exile
“For compiling a secret society in which the union of the Slavs into one state was discussed,” Kostomarov was sent to serve in Saratov, with a ban on printing his works. Here he was assigned as the translator of the Provincial government, but he had nothing to translate, and the governor (Kozhevnikov) entrusted him with the charge, first of the criminal, and then of the secret table, where mainly schismatic cases were carried out. This gave the historian the opportunity to get to know the schism thoroughly and, although not without difficulty, to get closer to its followers. Kostomarov published the results of his studies of local ethnography in the Saratov Provincial Gazette, which he temporarily edited. He also studied physics and astronomy, tried to make a balloon, even engaged in spiritualism, but did not stop studying the history of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, receiving books from Gr. Svidzinsky. In exile, Kostomarov began to collect materials for the study of the internal life of pre-Petrine Russia.
In Saratov, a circle of educated people gathered near Kostomarov, partly from exiled Poles, partly from Russians. In addition, Archimandrite Nikanor, later Archbishop of Kherson, I. I. Palimpsestov, later a professor at Novorossiysk University, E. A. Belov, Varentsov, and others were close to him in Saratov; later N. G. Chernyshevsky, A. N. Pypin, and especially D. L. Mordovtsev.
In general, Kostomarov's life in Saratov was not bad at all. Soon his mother came here, the historian himself gave private lessons, made excursions, for example, to the Crimea, where he participated in the excavation of one of the Kerch burial mounds. Later, the exile quite calmly went to Dubovka to get acquainted with the split; to Tsaritsyn and Sarepta - to collect materials about the Pugachev region, etc.
In 1855, Kostomarov was appointed clerk of the Saratov Statistical Committee, and published many articles on Saratov statistics in local publications. The historian collected a lot of materials on the history of Razin and Pugachev, but did not process them himself, but handed them over to D.L. Mordovtsev, who later, with his permission, used them. Mordovtsev at that time became Kostomarov's assistant on the Statistical Committee.
At the end of 1855, Kostomarov was allowed to go on business to St. Petersburg, where he worked for four months in the Public Library on the era of Khmelnitsky, and on the inner life ancient Russia. At the beginning of 1856, when the ban on publishing his works was lifted, the historian published in Otechestvennye Zapiski an article about the struggle of the Ukrainian Cossacks with Poland in the first half of the 17th century, which was a preface to his Khmelnytsky. In 1857, "Bogdan Khmelnitsky" finally appeared, although in an incomplete version. The book made a strong impression on contemporaries, especially with its artistic presentation. Indeed, before Kostomarov, none of the Russian historians seriously addressed the history of Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Despite the unprecedented success of the research and positive reviews about it in the capital, the author still had to return to Saratov, where he continued to work on studying the internal life of ancient Russia, especially on the history of trade in the 16th-17th centuries.
The coronation manifesto freed Kostomarov from supervision, but the order forbidding him to serve in the scientific field remained in force. In the spring of 1857, he arrived in St. Petersburg, submitted his research on the history of trade for publication, and went abroad, where he visited Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland and Italy. In the summer of 1858, Kostomarov again worked at the St. Petersburg Public Library on the history of the rebellion of Stenka Razin and at the same time wrote, on the advice of N.V. Kalachov, with whom he then became close, the story “Son” (published in 1859); He also saw Shevchenko, who returned from exile. In the fall, Kostomarov took the place of a clerk in the Saratov Provincial Committee for Peasant Affairs and thus connected his name with the liberation of the peasants.
Scientific, teaching, publishing activities of N.I. Kostomarov
At the end of 1858, N.I. Kostomarov’s monograph “The Rebellion of Stenka Razin” was published, which finally made his name famous. Kostomarov's works had, in a certain sense, the same meaning as, for example, Shchedrin's Provincial Essays. They were the first scientific works on Russian history in which many issues were considered not according to the until then mandatory template of an official scientific direction; at the same time, they were written and presented in a remarkably artistic way. In the spring of 1859, St. Petersburg University elected Kostomarov as an extraordinary professor of Russian history. After waiting for the closing of the Committee on Peasant Affairs, Kostomarov, after a very cordial farewell in Saratov, appeared in St. Petersburg. But then it turned out that the case about his professorship did not work out, it was not approved, because the Sovereign was informed that Kostomarov had written an unreliable essay about Stenka Razin. However, the Emperor himself read this monograph and spoke very favorably of it. At the request of the brothers D.A. and N.A. Milyutin, Alexander II allowed N.I. Kostomarov as a professor, but not at Kiev University, as previously planned, but at St. Petersburg University.
Kostomarov's introductory lecture took place on November 22, 1859, and received a standing ovation from the students and the audience. Kostomarov did not stay long as a professor at St. Petersburg University (until May 1862). But even in this short time, he established himself as a talented teacher and an outstanding lecturer. From the students of Kostomarov came out several very respectable figures in the field of science of Russian history, for example, Professor A. I. Nikitsky. The fact that Kostomarov was a great artist-lecturer, many memories of his students have been preserved. One of Kostomarov's listeners said this about his reading:
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“Despite his rather motionless appearance, his quiet voice and not entirely clear, lisping pronunciation with a very noticeable pronunciation of words in the Little Russian way, he read remarkably. Whether he portrayed the Novgorod Veche or the turmoil of the Battle of Lipetsk, it was enough to close your eyes - and in a few seconds you yourself seem to be transported to the center of the depicted events, you see and hear everything that Kostomarov is talking about, who, meanwhile, is standing motionless on the pulpit; his eyes look not at the listeners, but somewhere in the distance, as if seeing something at that moment in the distant past; the lecturer even seems to be a man not of this world, but a native of the next world, who appeared on purpose in order to report on the past, mysterious to others, but so well known to him. |
In general, Kostomarov's lectures had a great effect on the imagination of the public, and their enthusiasm can be partly explained by the strong emotionality of the lecturer, which constantly broke through, despite his outward calmness. She literally “infected” listeners. After each lecture, the professor was given an ovation, he was carried out in his arms, etc. At St. Petersburg University, N.I. Kostomarov taught the following courses: History of ancient Russia (from which an article was printed on the origin of Russia with the Zhmud theory of this origin); ethnography of foreigners who lived in ancient Russia, starting with the Lithuanians; the history of the ancient Russian regions (part of it is published under the title "Northern Russian People's Rights"), and historiography, from which only the beginning, devoted to the analysis of the chronicles, has been printed.
In addition to university lectures, Kostomarov also read public lectures, which also enjoyed tremendous success. In parallel with his professorship, Kostomarov was working with sources, for which he constantly visited both St. Petersburg and Moscow, and provincial libraries and archives, examined the ancient Russian cities of Novgorod and Pskov, and traveled abroad more than once. The public dispute between N.I. Kostomarov and M.P. Pogodin also dates back to this time because of the question of the origin of Russia.
In 1860, Kostomarov became a member of the Archaeographic Commission, with the task of editing the acts of southern and western Russia, and was elected a full member of the Russian Geographical Society. The commission published under his editorship 12 volumes of acts (from 1861 to 1885), and the geographical society - three volumes of "Proceedings of an ethnographic expedition to the West Russian region" (III, IV and V - in 1872-1878).
In St. Petersburg, a circle was formed near Kostomarov, to which belonged: Shevchenko, however, who soon died, the Belozerskys, the bookseller Kozhanchikov, A. A. Kotlyarevsky, the ethnographer S. V. Maksimov, the astronomer A. N. Savich, the priest Opatovich and many others. In 1860, this circle began to publish the Osnova magazine, in which Kostomarov was one of the most important employees. His articles are published here: “On the Federative Beginning of Ancient Russia”, “Two Russian Nationalities”, “Features of South Russian History”, etc., as well as many polemical articles about attacks on him for “separatism”, “Ukrainophilism”, “ anti-Normanism, etc. He also took part in the publication of popular books in the Little Russian language (“Metelikov”), and for the publication of Holy Scripture, he collected a special fund, which was subsequently used to publish a Little Russian dictionary.
"Duma" incident
At the end of 1861, due to student unrest, St. Petersburg University was temporarily closed. Five "instigators" of the riots were expelled from the capital, 32 students were expelled from the university with the right to take final exams.
On March 5, 1862, a public figure, historian and professor of St. Petersburg University, P.V. Pavlov, was arrested and administratively sent to Vetluga. He did not give a single lecture at the university, but at a public reading in favor of needy writers, he ended his speech on the millennium of Russia with the following words:
In protest against the repressions of the students and the expulsion of Pavlov, professors of St. Petersburg University Kavelin, Stasyulevich, Pypin, Spasovich, Utin resigned.
Kostomarov did not support the protest against Pavlov's expulsion. In this case, he went the "middle way": he offered to continue classes to all students who wished to study, and not to rally. In place of the closed university, due to the efforts of professors, including Kostomarov, a “free university” was opened, as they said then, in the hall of the City Duma. Kostomarov, despite all the persistent "requests" and even intimidation from the radical student committees, began to give his lectures there.
The "advanced" students and some of the professors who followed his lead, in protest against the expulsion of Pavlov, demanded the immediate closure of all lectures in the City Duma. They decided to announce this action on March 8, 1862, immediately after Professor Kostomarov's crowded lecture.
A participant in the student unrest of 1861-62, and in the future a well-known publisher, L.F. Panteleev, in his memoirs, describes this episode as follows:
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“It was March 8, the large Duma hall was crowded not only with students, but also with a huge mass of the public, since rumors about some kind of upcoming demonstration had already penetrated into it. Here Kostomarov finished his lecture; there was the usual applause. Then the student E. P. Pechatkin immediately entered the department and made a statement about the closing of the lectures with the motivation that had been established at the meeting with Spasovich, and with a reservation about the professors who would continue the lectures. Kostomarov, who did not have time to move far from the department, immediately returned and said: “I will continue lecturing,” and at the same time he added a few words that science should go its own way, without getting entangled in various everyday circumstances. There were applause and hissing at the same time; but then, under the very nose of Kostomarov, E. Utin blurted out: “Scoundrel! the second Chicherin [B. N. Chicherin then published, it seems, in Moskovskie Vedomosti (1861, Nos. 247,250 and 260) a number of reactionary articles on the university question. But even earlier, his letter to Herzen made the name of B. N. extremely unpopular among young people; Kavelin defended him, seeing in him a major scientific value, although he did not share most of his views. (Note by L.F. Panteleev)], Stanislav on the neck! The influence that N. Utin used apparently did not give rest to E. Utin, and then he climbed out of his skin to declare his extreme radicalism; he was even jokingly nicknamed Robespierre. E. Utin's trick could blow up even a not so impressionable person as Kostomarov was; unfortunately, he lost all self-control and, returning to the pulpit again, said, among other things: “... I don’t understand those gladiators who want to please the public with their suffering (it’s hard to say who he meant, but these words were understandable as an allusion to Pavlov). I see the Repetilovs in front of me, from which the Rasplyuevs will come out in a few years. Applause was no longer heard, but it seemed that the whole hall hissed and whistled ... " |
When this egregious case became known in wide public circles, it aroused deep disapproval, both among the university professors and among the students. Most of the teachers decided to continue lecturing by all means - now out of solidarity with Kostomarov. At the same time, indignation at the behavior of the historian increased among the radical student youth. Adherents of Chernyshevsky's ideas, the future figures of "Land and Freedom", unequivocally excluded Kostomarov from the lists of "guardians for the people", labeling the professor as a "reactionary".
Of course, Kostomarov could well return to the university and continue teaching, but, most likely, he was deeply offended by the “Duma” incident. Perhaps the elderly professor simply did not want to argue with anyone and once again prove his case. In May 1862, N.I. Kostomarov resigned and forever left the walls of St. Petersburg University.
From that moment on, his break with N.G. Chernyshevsky and circles close to him also took place. Kostomarov finally switches to liberal-nationalist positions, not accepting the ideas of radical populism. According to people who knew him at that time, after the events of 1862, Kostomarov seemed to have “cooled off” to the present, completely turning to the plots of the distant past.
In the 1860s, the Kyiv, Kharkov and Novorossiysk universities tried to invite a historian among their professors, but, according to the new university charter of 1863, Kostomarov did not have formal rights to a professorship: he was only a master. Only in 1864, after he published the essay “Who was the first impostor?”, Kyiv University gave him a doctorate degree honoris causa (without defending a doctoral dissertation). Later, in 1869, St. Petersburg University elected him an honorary member, but Kostomarov never returned to teaching. In order to financially provide for the outstanding scientist, he was assigned the corresponding salary of an ordinary professor for his service in the Archaeographic Commission. In addition, he was a corresponding member of the II Department of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and a member of many Russian and foreign scientific societies.
Leaving the university, Kostomarov did not leave scientific activity. In the 1860s, he published “Northern Russian People’s Rules”, “History of the Time of Troubles”, “Southern Russia at the end of the 16th century.” (reworking of a destroyed dissertation). For the study "The Last Years of the Commonwealth" ("Bulletin of Europe", 1869. Books 2-12) N.I. Kostomarov was awarded the Academy of Sciences Prize (1872).
last years of life
In 1873, after traveling around Zaporozhye, N.I. Kostomarov visited Kyiv. Here he accidentally found out that his ex-fiancee, Alina Leontievna Kragelskaya, by that time already widowed and bearing the name of her late husband, Kisel, lives in the city with her three children. This news deeply disturbed the 56-year-old Kostomarov, already exhausted by life. Having received the address, he immediately wrote a short letter to Alina Leontievna asking for a meeting. The answer was positive.
They met after 26 years, like old friends, but the joy of a date was overshadowed by thoughts of lost years.
“Instead of a young girl, as I left her,” N.I. Kostomarov wrote, “I found an elderly lady, and at the same time sick, the mother of three half-adult children. Our date was as pleasant as it was sad: we both felt that the best time of life in separation had irrevocably passed.
Kostomarov has not grown younger over the years either: he has already suffered a stroke, his eyesight has deteriorated significantly. But the former bride and groom did not want to part again after a long separation. Kostomarov accepted Alina Leontievna's invitation to stay at her Dedovtsy estate, and when he left for St. Petersburg, he took Alina's eldest daughter, Sophia, with him in order to enroll her in the Smolny Institute.
Only difficult everyday circumstances helped the old friends finally get closer. At the beginning of 1875, Kostomarov fell seriously ill. It was thought to be typhus, but some doctors suggested, in addition to typhus, a second stroke. When the patient lay delirious, his mother Tatyana Petrovna died of typhus. Doctors hid her death from Kostomarov for a long time - her mother was the only close and dear person throughout the life of Nikolai Ivanovich. Completely helpless in everyday life, the historian could not do without his mother even in trifles: to find a handkerchief in a chest of drawers or to light a pipe ...
And at that moment Alina Leontyevna came to the rescue. Upon learning of the plight of Kostomarov, she abandoned all her affairs and came to St. Petersburg. Their wedding took place already on May 9, 1875 in the estate of Alina Leontievna Dedovtsy, Priluksky district. The newlywed was 58 years old, and his chosen one was 45. Kostomarov adopted all the children of A.L. Kissel from his first marriage. His wife's family became his family.
Alina Leontievna did not just replace Kostomarov's mother, taking over the organization of the well-known historian's life. She became an assistant in work, a secretary, a reader and even an adviser in scientific matters. Kostomarov wrote and published his most famous works when he was already a married man. And in this there is a share of the participation of his wife.
Since then, the historian spent the summer almost constantly in the village of Dedovtsy, 4 versts from the town of Pryluk (Poltava province) and at one time was even an honorary trustee of the Pryluky men's gymnasium. In winter he lived in St. Petersburg, surrounded by books and continuing to work, despite the breakdown and almost complete loss of vision.
Of his recent works, he can be called "The Beginning of Autocracy in Ancient Russia" and "On the Historical Significance of Russian Song Folk Art" (revision of the master's thesis). The beginning of the second was published in the journal "Conversation" for 1872, and the continuation of the part in "Russian Thought" for 1880 and 1881 under the title "History of the Cossacks in the monuments of South Russian folk songwriting." Part of this work was included in the book "Literary Heritage" (St. Petersburg, 1890) under the title "Family Life in the Works of South Russian Folk Song Art"; part was simply lost (see Kyiv Starina, 1891, No. 2, Documents, etc., Art. 316). The end of this large-scale work was not written by a historian.
At the same time, Kostomarov wrote "Russian History in the biographies of its main figures", also unfinished (ends with a biography of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna) and major works on the history of Little Russia, as a continuation of previous works: "The Ruin", "Mazepa and Mazepintsy", "Paul Polubotok. Finally, he wrote a number of autobiographies that have more than just personal significance.
Constantly ill since 1875, Kostomarov was especially hurt by the fact that on January 25, 1884, he was knocked down by a carriage under the arch of the General Staff. Similar cases had happened to him before, because the half-blind, and besides, the historian, carried away by his thoughts, often did not notice what was happening around him. But before that, Kostomarov was lucky: he escaped with minor injuries and quickly recovered. The incident on January 25 knocked him down completely. At the beginning of 1885, the historian fell ill and died on April 7. He was buried at the Volkovo cemetery on the so-called "literary bridges", a monument was erected on his grave.
Personality assessment of N.I. Kostomarov
In appearance, N. I. Kostomarov was of medium height and far from handsome. Pupils in boarding schools, where he taught in his youth, called him a "sea scarecrow". The historian had a surprisingly awkward figure, liked to wear overly spacious clothes that hung on him like on a hanger, was extremely absent-minded and very short-sighted.
Spoiled from childhood by his mother's excessive attention, Nikolai Ivanovich was distinguished by complete helplessness (mother herself tied her son's tie and handed a handkerchief all her life), but at the same time, he was unusually capricious in everyday life. This was especially evident in adulthood. For example, one of Kostomarov's frequent companions recalled that the aged historian was not shy about being capricious at the table, even in the presence of guests: I didn’t see how whitefish or ruffs or pike perch were killed, and therefore I proved that the fish was bought inanimate. Most of all, he found fault with the oil, saying that it was bitter, although he was taken in the best store.
Fortunately, Alina Leontyevna's wife had the talent to turn the prose of life into a game. Jokingly, she often called her husband "my junk" and "my spoiled old man." Kostomarov, in turn, also jokingly called her "lady".
Kostomarov had an extraordinary mind, very extensive knowledge, and not only in those areas that served as the subject of his special studies (Russian history, ethnography), but also in such areas, for example, as theology. Archbishop Nikanor, a notorious theologian, used to say that he did not even dare to compare his knowledge of Holy Scripture with that of Kostomarov. Kostomarov's memory was phenomenal. He was a passionate esthetician: he was fond of everything artistic, pictures of nature most of all, music, painting, theater.
Kostomarov also loved animals very much. It is said that while working, he constantly kept his beloved cat near him on the table. The creative inspiration of the scientist seemed to depend on the fluffy companion: as soon as the cat jumped to the floor and went about its cat business, the pen in Nikolai Ivanovich’s hand froze impotently...
Contemporaries condemned Kostomarov for the fact that he always knew how to find some negative property in a person who was praised in his presence; but, on the one hand, there was always truth in his words; on the other hand, if under Kostomarov they began to speak ill of someone, he almost always knew how to find good qualities in him. The spirit of contradiction often showed in his behavior, but in fact he was extremely mild-mannered and soon forgave those people who were guilty before him. Kostomarov was a loving family man, a devoted friend. His sincere feeling for his failed bride, which he managed to carry through the years and all the trials, cannot but arouse respect. In addition, Kostomarov also possessed outstanding civic courage, did not give up his views and beliefs, never followed the lead of either the authorities (the story of the Cyril and Methodius Society), or the radical part of the students (“Duma” incident).
Remarkable is Kostomarov's religiosity, which does not stem from general philosophical views, but is warm, so to speak, spontaneous, close to the religiosity of the people. Kostomarov, who knew well the dogma of Orthodoxy and its morality, was also fond of every feature of church rituals. Attending a church service was for him not just a duty, from which he did not shirk even during a severe illness, but also a great aesthetic pleasure.
The historical concept of N.I. Kostomarov
Historical concepts of N.I. Kostomarov for more than a century and a half have been causing ongoing controversy. The works of researchers have not yet developed any unambiguous assessment of its multifaceted, sometimes controversial historical heritage. In the extensive historiography of both the pre-Soviet and the Soviet period, he appears as a peasant, noble, noble-bourgeois, liberal-bourgeois, bourgeois-nationalist and revolutionary-democratic historian at the same time. In addition, it is not uncommon to characterize Kostomarov as a democrat, a socialist, and even a communist (!), Pan-Slavist, Ukrainophile, federalist, historian of folk life, folk spirit, populist historian, truth-seeking historian. Contemporaries often wrote about him as a romantic historian, lyricist, artist, philosopher and sociologist. Descendants, savvy in Marxist-Leninist theory, found that Kostomarov was a historian, weak as a dialectician, but a very serious historian-analyst.
Today's Ukrainian nationalists willingly raised Kostomarov's theories to the shield, finding in them a historical justification for modern political insinuations. Meanwhile, the general historical concept of the long-dead historian is quite simple and it is completely pointless to look for manifestations of nationalist extremism in it, and even more so - attempts to exalt the traditions of one Slavic people and downplay the importance of another.
Historian N.I. Kostomarov put opposition in the general historical process of development of Russia between the state and the people. Thus, the innovation of his constructions consisted only in the fact that he acted as one of the opponents of the “state school” of S.M. Solovyov and her followers. The state principle was associated by Kostomarov with the centralization policy of the great princes and tsars, the people's principle was associated with the communal principle, the political form of expression of which was the people's assembly or veche. It was the veche (and not the communal, as among the “populists”) that embodied in N.I. Kostomarov, the system of the federal structure that most corresponded to the conditions of Russia. Such a system made it possible to use to the maximum extent the potential of the people's initiative, the true driving force of history. The state-centralization principle, according to Kostomarov, acted as a regressive force, weakening the active creative potential of the people.
According to Kostomarov's concept, the main driving forces that influenced the formation of Muscovite Rus were two principles - autocratic and specific veche. Their struggle ended in the 17th century with the victory of the great power. The specific-veche beginning, according to Kostomarov, "clothed in a new image", i.e. image of the Cossacks. And the uprising of Stepan Razin was the last battle between the people's democracy and the victorious autocracy.
It is the Great Russian people that Kostomarov embodies the principle of autocracy, i.e. a set of Slavic peoples who inhabited the northeastern lands of Russia before the Tatar invasion. The South Russian lands experienced foreign influence to a lesser extent, and therefore managed to preserve the traditions of people's self-government and federal preferences. In this regard, Kostomarov's article "Two Russian Nationalities" is very characteristic, in which it is argued that the South Russian nationality has always been more democratic, while the Great Russian has other qualities, namely, a creative principle. The Great Russian nationality created a monocracy (i.e., a monarchical system), which gave it a paramount importance in the historical life of Russia.
The opposite of the “folk spirit” of “South Russian nature” (in which “there was nothing forcing, leveling; there was no politics, there was no cold calculation, firmness on the way to the appointed goal”) and “Great Russians” (who are characterized by a slavish willingness to obey autocratic power, the desire to “give strength and formality to the unity of their land”) determined, according to N.I. Kostomarov, various directions of development of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples. Even the fact of the flourishing of the veche system in the “Northern Russian governments of the people” (Novgorod, Pskov, Vyatka) and the establishment of an autocratic system in the southern regions of N.I. Kostomarov explained by the influence of the “South Russians”, who allegedly founded the northern Russian centers with their veche freemen, while such freemen in the south were suppressed by the northern autocracy, breaking through only in the lifestyle and love of freedom of the Ukrainian Cossacks.
Even during his lifetime, the "statesmen" hotly accused the historian of subjectivism, the desire to absolutize the "people's" factor in the historical process of the formation of statehood, as well as the deliberate opposition of the contemporary scientific tradition to him.
Opponents of “Ukrainization”, in turn, already then attributed nationalism to Kostomarov, justification of separatist tendencies, and in his passion for the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian language they saw only a tribute to the pan-Slavic fashion that captured the best minds of Europe.
It will not be superfluous to note that in the works of N.I. Kostomarov, there are absolutely no clear indications of what should be taken with a plus sign and what should be displayed as a minus. He nowhere unambiguously condemns autocracy, recognizing its historical expediency. Moreover, the historian does not say that specific veche democracy is definitely good and acceptable for the entire population. Russian Empire. Everything depends on the specific historical conditions and characteristics of the character of each people.
Kostomarov was called a "national romantic", close to the Slavophiles. Indeed, his views on the historical process largely coincide with the main provisions of the Slavophile theories. It's faith in the future historical role Slavs, and, above all, those Slavic peoples who inhabited the territory of the Russian Empire. In this respect, Kostomarov went even further than the Slavophiles. Like them, Kostomarov believed in uniting all the Slavs into one state, but in a federal state, with the preservation of the national and religious characteristics of individual nationalities. He hoped that with long-term communication, the difference between the Slavs would be smoothed out in a natural, peaceful way. Like the Slavophiles, Kostomarov was looking for an ideal in the national past. For him, this ideal past could only be a time when the Russian people lived according to their own original principles of life and were free from the historically noticeable influence of the Varangians, Byzantines, Tatars, Poles, etc. Guess these fundamental principles of folk life, guess the very spirit of the Russian people - this is the eternal goal of Kostomarov's work.
To this end, Kostomarov was constantly engaged in ethnography, as a science capable of acquainting the researcher with the psychology and the true past of each people. He was interested not only in Russian, but also in general Slavic ethnography, especially in the ethnography of Southern Russia.
Throughout the 19th century, Kostomarov was honored as a forerunner of "populist" historiography, an oppositionist to the autocratic system, a fighter for the rights of small nationalities of the Russian Empire. In the 20th century, his views were recognized in many respects as "backward". With his national-federal theories, he did not fit into either the Marxist scheme of social formations and class struggle, or the great-power politics of the Soviet empire reassembled by Stalin. The difficult relations between Russia and Ukraine in recent decades once again impose on his works the stamp of some "false prophecies", giving ground to the current especially zealous "independent" to create new historical myths and actively use them in dubious political games.
Today, everyone who wants to rewrite the history of Russia, Ukraine and other former territories of the Russian Empire should pay attention to the fact that N.I. Kostomarov tried to explain the historical past of his country, meaning by this past, first of all, the past of all the peoples inhabiting it. The scientific work of a historian never involves calls for nationalism or separatism, and even more so - the desire to put the history of one people above the history of another. Those who have similar goals, as a rule, choose a different path for themselves. N.I. Kostomarov remained in the minds of his contemporaries and descendants as an artist of words, a poet, a romantic, a scientist, who until the end of his life worked on understanding the new and promising for the 19th century problem of the influence of ethnos on history. It makes no sense to interpret the scientific heritage of the great Russian historian in any other way, a century and a half after the writing of his main works.
"N. I. Kostomarov.
1850s
KOSTOMAROV Nikolai Ivanovich (05/04/1817-04/07/1885) - Ukrainian and Russian historian, ethnographer, writer, critic.
N. I. Kostomarov was the illegitimate son of a Russian landowner and a Little Russian peasant woman. In 1837 he graduated from Kharkov University. In 1841 he prepared his master's thesis "On the causes and nature of the union in Western Russia", which was banned and destroyed for deviating from the official interpretation of the problem. In 1844, Kostomarov defended his dissertation "On the historical significance of Russian folk poetry." From 1846 he held the position of professor at Kyiv University in the department of history.
Together with T. G. Shevchenko, he organized the secret Cyril and Methodius Society, was the author of its charter and program. This secret nationalist political organization for the first time raised the question of the independence of Little Russia from Russia, considering Little Russia an independent political entity - Ukraine. The members of the society aimed to create a Slavic democratic state headed by Ukraine. It was supposed to include Russia, Poland, Serbia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria. In 1847, the society was closed, and Kostomarov was arrested and, after a year of imprisonment, exiled to Saratov.
Until 1857, the historian served in the Saratov Statistical Committee. In Saratov, he met N. G. Chernyshevsky. In 1859-1862. was a professor of Russian history at St. Petersburg University.
Arrest, exile, works on the history of popular movements ("Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the return of Southern Russia to Russia", "Time of Troubles of the Muscovite State", "The Rebellion of Stenka Razin") made Kostomarov widely known. For popular reading Kostomarov wrote "Russian history in the biographies of its main figures." He was one of the organizers and contributors to the Osnova magazine (1861-1862), which was published in Russian and Ukrainian. He appeared in the magazines Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski.
As a theorist of Ukrainian nationalism and separatism, Kostomarov put forward the theory of "two principles" - veche and autocracy - in the history of the people of Little Russia, which he considered independent, not Russian. He believed that the exceptional feature of Ukraine is its "classlessness" and "non-bourgeoisness". Kostomarov refers to ethnographic material as the main, in his opinion, for understanding the history of the people. In his opinion, the main task of the historian is the study of everyday life, "folk psychology", "the spirit of the people", and ethnography is the best means for this.
Kostomarov was a romantic poet. He published collections of poems "Ukrainian ballads" (1839), "Vetka" (1840). In the dramas Savva Chaly (91838) and Pereyaslav Night (1841), he portrayed in a nationalist spirit the national liberation struggle of the people of Little Russia in the 17th century.
School Encyclopedia. Moscow, "OLMA-PRESS Education". 2003
"Portrait of the historian Kostomarov".
1878.
Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov was born in 1817 into a landowner's family in the village of Yurasovka, Ostrogozhsky district, Voronezh province. From 1833 he studied at the Kharkov University at the Faculty of History and Philology, in 1844 he received the title of master. Already in 1839 he published two collections of Ukrainian songs - "Ukrainian Ballads" and "Vetka". Thus began his formation as a writer and ethnographer, a great connoisseur of Ukrainian poetry.
After graduating from the university, he taught at the Rovno, and then at the first gymnasium in Kyiv, and in June 1846 he was elected an adjunct of Russian history at the Kyiv University of St. Vladimir. As Kostomarov later recalled, the procedure for electing him by the university council was that he had to read a lecture on a given topic at the council. In this case, it boiled down to the question, "from what time should Russian history begin?" The lecture "produced the most good impression. Upon my removal from the council hall, - wrote Kostomarov, - a ballot was made, and an hour later the rector of the university, professor of astronomy Fedotov, sent me a note in which he informed me that I had been adopted unanimously and there was not a single vote contrary to my election. It was one of the brightest and most memorable days of my life. The university department has long been a desirable goal for me, which, however, I did not hope to achieve so soon.
Thus began his scientific and pedagogical activity in the field of the history of Russia and Ukraine. And although Kostomarov, in the memoirs cited above, wrote that from that moment on he “began to live in complete solitude, immersed in history,” he did not become an armchair scientist, a kind of Pimen, indifferent to “good and evil.” He did not remain deaf to the call of the realities of his contemporary life, absorbing and sharing the liberation ideas of the progressive people of Russia and Ukraine, which were widely disseminated in the early 40s of the last century. Acquaintance with the first issue of Shevchenko's "Kobzar" (1840), with his poem "Gaidamaki" (1841) and the immortal "Zapovit" (1845) had a stimulating effect on Kostomarov and his friends, who organized the "Slavic Association of St. Cyril and Methodius” (as it is called in the charter, but is known under the name of the “Cyril and Methodius Society”). In 1990, a three-volume collection of documents was published reflecting the history of this organization and providing an opportunity for the first time to thoroughly study this striking historical phenomenon and the role of Kostomarov in it. Among the so-called physical evidence in the “Kostomarov case”, we find his manuscript (autograph) in Ukrainian called “The Book of the Buttya of the Ukrainian People” (“The Book of the Ukrainian People’s Genesis”), where the most important worldview positions of the author are formulated in the form of a biblical legend.
In verse 10, the author writes: “And Solomon, the wisest of all people, was allowed by the Lord into great madness, and therefore he did this to show that no matter how smart he is, but when he begins to rule autocratically, he will become stupefied.” Then, painting already the gospel times, the author states that the kings and pans, having accepted the teaching of Christ, perverted it (“turned it over”). Kostomarov concretizes this villainous deed with an example of the history of Russia, showing how the Russians lived freely without a tsar, and when he reigned, “bowing and kissing the feet of the Tatar Basurman Khan, together with the Basurmans he enslaved the people of Muscovites” (verse 72). And when “Tsar Ivan in Novgorod strangled and drowned tens of thousands of people in one day, the chroniclers, telling this, called him Christ-loving” (verse 73). In Ukraine, “they did not create either a tsar or a pan, but they created a brotherhood-Cossacks, to which everyone could join, whether he was a pan or a slave, but always a Christian. Everyone was equal there, and the foremen were elected and were obliged to serve everyone and work for everyone. And there was no pomp, no title among the Cossacks” (verse 75-76). However, the Polish "pans and Jesuits wanted to forcibly turn Ukraine under their rule ... then brotherhoods appeared in Ukraine, such as those of the first Christians," but Ukraine nevertheless fell into captivity to Poland, and only an uprising of the people freed Ukraine from the Polish yoke, and she stuck to Muscovy as to a Slavic country. “However, Ukraine soon saw that she had fallen into captivity, she, in her simplicity, did not yet know what a tsar was, and the tsar of Moscow is the same as an idol and a tormentor” (verses 82-89). Then Ukraine "stripped off Muscovy and did not know, poor thing, where to turn her head" (verse 90). As a result, it was divided between Poland and Russia, and this "is the most worthless thing that has ever happened in the world" (verse 93). Then the author reports that Tsar Peter “laid hundreds of thousands of Cossacks in ditches and built his capital on their bones”, and “Tsarina Catherine the German, a whore all over the world, an obvious atheist, finished the Cossacks, as she selected those who were foremen in Ukraine, and endowed them with free brothers, and some became lords, while others became slaves ”(verses 95-96). “And so Ukraine disappeared, but it only seems to be,” the author concludes (verse 97) and outlines a way out: “Ukraine “will soon wake up and shout at the whole wide Slavic region, and their cry will be heard, and Ukraine will rise and be an independent Commonwealth (i.e., the Commonwealth). e. republic. - B. L.) in the Slavic union "(verses 108-109).
If we add to this a poem, also in Ukrainian, which was confiscated during a search at Kostomarov’s apartment and mistakenly attributed by the gendarmes to T. G. Shevchenko, but actually written by Kostomarov, then we can determine the worldview and historical and philosophical positions of the 30-year-old historian. Much, of course, is unacceptable for us (for example, the thesis that Catherine II created the feudal system in Ukraine), but the analysis of the poems allows us to define the ideology of the Cyril and Methodius Society as national liberation and democratic; Kostomarov obviously took an active part in its formation. It should be noted that Kostomarov was, to use the modern popular term, neither a Russophobe, nor a Polonophobe, nor a Ukrainian nationalist. He was a man who deeply believed in the need for fraternal unity of all Slavic peoples on a democratic basis.
Naturally, during interrogations, Kostomarov denied the existence of society and his belonging to it, explained that the gold ring with the inscriptions “Kyrie eleison” (“Lord have mercy.” - B.L.) and “St. Cyril and Methodius” is not at all a sign of belonging to society, but an ordinary ring that Christians wear on their fingers in memory of the saints, while referring to the widespread ring with an inscription in memory of St. Barbara. But all these explanations were not accepted by the investigators and, as can be seen from the definition III branch of his own imperial majesty's chancellery dated May 30-31, 1847, approved by the tsar, he was found guilty (especially "because he was the oldest in years, and by the rank of professor he was obliged to turn young people away from a bad direction") and sentenced to imprisonment “in the Alekseevsky ravelin for one year” with the subsequent sending “to serve in Vyatka, but not in the scientific part, with the establishment of the strictest supervision over him; the works “Ukrainian Ballads” and “Vetka” published by him under the pseudonym of Jeremiah Galka should be banned and withdrawn from sale.
Nicholas I allowed Kostomarov to meet with his mother only in the presence of the commandant of the fortress, and when the mother began to literally bombard the III department with petitions for the early release of her son and sending him to the Crimea for treatment due to his illness, not a single petition was granted, they always appeared a short, like a shot, resolution “no”, drawn by the hand of the head of the department, L. V. Dubelt.
When Kostomarov spent a year in the fortress, even then, instead of the replacement of the exile in the city of Vyatka, requested by his mother, with the exile in Simferopol, he was sent to the city of Saratov by order of Nicholas I with the issuance of 300 rubles. silver lump sum. True, not at all out of a sense of compassion, but only because, as the all-powerful chief of the gendarmes and head of the III department, Adjutant General Orlov, reported, the bruised Kostomarov “made it his first duty to express in writing the most lively loyal gratitude to Your Imperial Majesty for the fact that Your Majesty, instead of severe punishment, out of the feelings of their goodness, they gave him the opportunity to make up for his former error with diligent service. This dispatch to Saratov did not yet mean complete release, since Kostomarov was accompanied by a gendarme, lieutenant Alpen, who was supposed to ensure that his supervised person did not enter into "unnecessary conversations with strangers." The lieutenant, so to speak, "surrendered" Kostomarov to the Saratov civil governor M. L. Kozhevnikov. True, Orlov attributed in his official relationship to Kozhevnikov: “I ask you to be merciful to him, a man with virtues, but he was mistaken and sincerely repents,” which, however, did not prevent him from turning to the Minister of Internal Affairs L. A. Perovsky with a proposal to establish over Kostomarov "the strictest supervision". He sent a similar order to the head of the 7th district of the gendarme corps N. A. Akhverdov, so that he established secret surveillance of Kostomarov in Saratov under his jurisdiction and reported every six months on his behavior.
The Saratov exile is an important stage in the ideological development of Kostomarov, here he became close to N. G. Chernyshevsky and the historian D. L. Mordovtsev, who had just begun to develop the history of popular movements and imposture in these years. Working in the provincial government, Kostomarov had the opportunity to get acquainted with secret files, among which there were cases on the history of the split. In Saratov, he wrote a number of works, which, when they were published after the exile and in the conditions of the social upsurge of the 50-60s of the XIX century. became widely known, putting their author in the first row among contemporary historians. A special place in these studies is occupied by works on Ukrainian history.
In the same years, Kostomarov seeks, in modern terms, rehabilitation. On May 31, 1855, he addressed Alexander II, who had recently ascended the throne, with a petition in which he wrote: “At the present time, when Your Imperial Majesty deigned to mark your accession to the throne with a deed of immeasurable mercy, shedding a ray of consolation to the most serious criminals, I dare to pray your sovereign goodness, sovereign, for mercy to me. If supervision over me were limited solely to observation of my political convictions, then I would not dare to wish to be freed from it, for I have no other convictions than those prescribed by law and love for my monarch. But the supervision of the police, coupled with the need to be exclusively in one place, restricts me in my work and home life and deprives me of the means to correct the disease of vision, which I have been suffering for several years. Sovereign father! Honor with an eye of compassion one of the erring, but truly repentant children of your great Russian family, deign to give me the right to serve you, sovereign, and live unhindered in all places of the Russian Empire of Your Imperial Majesty "
The College of Petitions forwarded Kostomarov's petition to the III branch. On June 27, 1855, A.F. Orlov, in his written report, supported Kostomarov’s request, saying in passing that “of the persons related to the same society, the collegiate registrar Gulak, who was the main reason for compiling the society, as well as officials Belozersky and Kulish, guilty no less than Kostomarov, have already received the most merciful forgiveness. On this document, Alexander II imposed the resolution “I agree” with a pencil. But this relatively quick satisfaction of Kostomarov's request still did not mean the granting of complete freedom of activity, since A.F. Orlov, informing the Minister of the Interior D.G. Bibikov about the decision of the king, warned that Kostomarov was not allowed to serve "in the scientific part" . So, freed from supervision, Kostomarov left for St. Petersburg in December 1855. At the same time, he offered the editor of Otechestvennye Zapiski his work The Age of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, but the journal's censor demanded a certificate of the lifting of the prohibitions on Kostomarov's writings, imposed back in 1847. In January 1856, Kostomarov asked for permission to publish of this article to Section III and received permission for publication with the resolution of L. V. Dubelt: "Only strictly censor."
Of the major works, Kostomarov publishes in 1856 in Otechestvennye Zapiski his work The Struggle of Ukrainian Cossacks with Poland in the First Half of the 17th Century before Bogdan Khmelnitsky, and in 1857 - Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the Return of Southern Russia to Russia. These studies introduced a wide circle of the Russian reading public to the bright pages of the history of the fraternal people, affirmed the inseparability of the historical destinies of the two Slavic peoples. They were also an application for the further development of the Ukrainian theme.
But even in the field of Russian history, Kostomarov continued to deal with previously unexplored problems. So, in 1857-1858. "Sovremennik" publishes his work "Essay on the Trade of the Moscow State in the 16th and 17th Centuries", and in 1858 his famous "Rebellion of Stenka Razin" appears on the pages of "Notes of the Fatherland" - a work of acute relevance in the conditions of the brewing first revolutionary situation in Russia.
But there was one more obstacle to his scientific and pedagogical activity. On September 27, 1857, Kostomarov wrote to the new head of the III department, V.A. Dolgorukov: Department of the Ministry of Public Education ... If the mercy of the Sovereign Emperor, which freed me from supervision, does not cancel the previous highest command in the Bose of the deceased Sovereign Emperor to prevent me from scientific service, please, Your Excellency, cast down at the feet of the most merciful Sovereign Emperor my all-submissive request to grant me the right join the scientific service under the department of the Ministry of Public Education. Prince Vasily Andreevich already on October 8 ordered to talk about this with the Minister of Public Education, the latter considered "inconvenient to allow Kostomarov to serve in the scientific department, except as a librarian."
Meanwhile, the council of Kazan University in 1858 elected Kostomarov a professor; as you would expect. The Ministry of National Education did not approve this election. However, in 1859, the trustee of the St. Petersburg educational district petitioned for the appointment of Kostomarov as a corrective professor of Russian history at St. Petersburg University, as evidenced by the attitude of Comrade Minister of Public Education V. A. Dolgorukov. The latter said that this required the highest permission, which, obviously, was received, since in the certificate of the III department of November 24, 1859 we read: “Kostomarov is known for his learning in history, and the first lecture he gave the other day in the local university, earned the general approval of the students, among whom were many outsiders.
So, the attempt of the council of St. Petersburg University to elect Kostomarov as an extraordinary professor in the department of Russian history was crowned with success. Kostomarov "conquers" the capital thanks to a sensational discussion with the famous historian M.P. Pogodin about serfdom in Russia, and a year later - in connection with his argumentative speech against the so-called Norman theory of the origin of Russia, shared by Pogodin ...
To characterize the degree of social activity and state of mind of Kostomarov from the moment when he was released from supervision and exile, and until he was approved by a professor at St. Petersburg University, it would be useful to say that in 1857 he managed to visit Sweden, Germany for eight months. France, Italy and Austria, while working in archives and libraries (especially note the work in Sweden, which provided material for a monograph on Mazepa), and after returning in 1858 he was directly involved in the preparation of the peasant reform, becoming the clerk of the Saratov provincial committee for improving life of landowning peasants. In 1859, when the provincial committees actually ceased their activities, he moved to St. Petersburg, replacing the retired professor N. G. Ustryalov.
By the early 1960s, Kostomarov had firmly established himself as an excellent lecturer and one of the leading historians. He published in "Sovremennik" in 1860 "Essay on the domestic life and customs of the Great Russian people in the 16th and 17th centuries", in "Russian Word" - the work "Russian foreigners. The Lithuanian tribe and its relationship to Russian history”, and, finally, in 1863, one of the most fundamental studies of Kostomarov, “Northern Russian people's rule in the days of the specific veche way of life, was published as a separate book. Novgorod - Pskov - Vyatka.
By this time, Kostomarov, booed by disgruntled students, was forced to leave the teaching department. The students were dissatisfied, as it seemed to them, with the unseemly act of the professor, who did not join the protest action against the expulsion of Professor P.V. Pavlov. This episode is described in sufficient detail by Kostomarov in his autobiography. Let's use his story. When St. Petersburg University was closed in 1861 in connection with student protests, and in early 1862 many arrested students were released from the fortress, the idea arose of giving public lectures for a very moderate fee in order to make up for the losses caused by the closure of the university. Kostomarov in early February 1862 began reading a course in Russian history from the 15th century. In his own words, he did not interfere in student affairs: “I did not take the slightest part in the then (1861 - B. L.) university issues, and although students often came to me to talk to me about what to do , but I answered them that I did not know their affairs, that I knew only the science to which I devoted myself entirely, and everything that did not directly relate to my science did not interest me. The students were very dissatisfied with me for putting myself in such a position in their student affairs…”. This was the backdrop against which the events of the spring of 1862 played out, when a free university was already functioning, accessible to everyone who wanted to listen to lectures read in the spacious hall of the City Duma. On March 5, the professor of this university, P.V. Pavlov, not in the Duma building - the official place for lecturing - but in a private house on the Moika, where a literary evening was held, read his article "The Millennium of Russia". In the text that he showed to Kostomarov the day before, he did not find anything that could "draw the unfavorable attention of the authorities." This article, and especially the refrain taken from the "Gospel" accompanying it - "those who have ears to hear, yes they hear," aroused stormy enthusiasm among students . Pavlov was arrested the next day.
In response to the arrest, some of the professors, under the influence of student demands, stopped lecturing. Kostomarov objected to this, arguing that "the cessation of lectures does not make any sense."
When Kostomarov came to give a lecture on March 9, some of the students, who demanded the cessation of lectures in protest against Pavlov's arrest, obstructed him; others, according to the historian, shouted "Bravo, Kostomarov!" Kostomarov wrote on behalf of a group of professors a petition to the Minister of Public Education for the release of Pavlov, but it did not produce results. Soon Pavlov was exiled to Kostroma, and Kostomarov himself, stung by the ingratitude of the students, submitted his resignation. Since then, he has not been engaged in teaching activities, concentrating entirely on scientific work. ...
Until recently, it was possible to observe, although paradoxical, but touching unity in the assessment of Kostomarov's ideological positions of Soviet historiographers and foreign nationalists. So, in 1967, the University of Michigan Press published a study with a characteristic title: "Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov: Russian historian, Ukrainian nationalist, Slavic federalist" (Popazian Dennis. "Nickolas Ivanovich Kostomarov: russian historian, ukranian nationalist, slavic federalist"), and seven years earlier, the second volume of Essays on the History of Historical Science was published by the Nauka publishing house, in which, on p. 146 printed in black and white: "Kostomarov entered historiography primarily as a spokesman for the views and interests of the emerging Ukrainian bourgeois-landlord nationalism." Indeed, the extremes meet.
B. Litvak. "Hetman-villain".
"Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov".
I saw the historian Kostomarov for the first time when he came to us shortly after his exile. (* In 1846, in Kyiv, around N.I. Kostomarov, the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood was organized, which aimed to spread the idea of \u200b\u200ba federative association of Slavic peoples with the preservation of autonomy in matters of internal administration. Shevchenko was also a member of this society. According to the denunciation of student Petrov N.I. Kostomarov was arrested in the spring of 1847 and, after a year's imprisonment in the fortress, exiled to Saratov, where he stayed until 1855.) I knew in detail about his arrest and his deportation from Petersburg.
It was clear from Kostomarov's sickly appearance that all this trouble had cost him dearly; he dined with us and, apparently, was happy that he could live in Petersburg again.
Leaving the dacha on a steamboat, he asked Panaev for the whole year's "The Bell", which he had not had the opportunity to read in exile. The bundle was quite bulky. A cab was brought in, and Kostomarov left, promising to return to the dacha soon.
Not even half an hour had passed before I saw Kostomarov walking through an abandoned garden near our dacha, separated from it by a rather wide groove.
Gentlemen, this is Kostomarov! How did he get into the garden? - I said to Panaev and Nekrasov.
At first they did not believe me, but after looking carefully, they were convinced that it was definitely him. We all went to the alley and called to Kostomarov, who was walking quickly.
I'm looking for a way to get to your dacha! he answered. He was told that he had not got there - and that he had to go back to the highway.
We went to meet him and noticed that he was very worried about something.
What happened to you? we asked him.
A big misfortune,” he said softly. - Let's go quickly to the dacha, I'll tell you everything there, it's inconvenient to talk here!
We, too, were alarmed, wondering what kind of misfortune had befallen him.
Arriving at the dacha, Kostomarov, exhausted from walking, sank down on a bench, and we surrounded him and waited impatiently for an explanation. Kostomarov looked around in all directions and said quietly:
No one will eavesdrop on us? .. I lost the "Bell".
Lord, we thought God knows what happened to you! - said Nekrasov with annoyance.
Where did you drop it? - asked Panaev.
I don't know myself; wanted to put on an overcoat in the sleeves, put the bundle beside him. I thought about it ... grab it, but it’s already gone! I quickly gave the money to the cabman and went back along the highway in the hope that I would find him, but I did not. So someone picked up the bundle.
It’s clear that he picked it up if you didn’t find it, ”Panaev answered,“ and if an educated person found it, he will mentally thank the one who gave him the opportunity to read The Bell for a whole year.
What if they take it to the police? Searches will go on - and the driver will indicate where he got the rider from?
What's the matter with you, Kostomarov? Panaev remarked to him.
And your footman can say that I lost it!
Yes, the lackey was not even in the garden when you left, - Nekrasov reassured him.
Why did I bring the "Bell" with me! Kostomarov said in despair.
They began to calm him down, they even laughed at his fright, but he said:
Ah, gentlemen, the frightened crow is afraid of the bush. If you had to experience what I experienced, you would not be laughing now. I have seen from experience how much a person can suffer much from a trifle. Returning to Petersburg, I swore to myself to be careful - and suddenly acted like a boy!
Kostomarov was persuaded to stay overnight, because he had a fever, and besides, he would have been late for the ship if he had gone. I made him hot tea with cognac to warm him up.
At the dacha, I usually got up early and went for a swim. It was not yet 7 o'clock when I entered the glass gallery to go out into the park, and Kostomarov was already sitting in it.
What is your fever? I asked him. Kostomarov replied that he had not slept all night, asked what time the first steamer left, and suddenly asked jokingly:
Look... what kind of person is this?
I stood with my back to the glass door and turned around.
This is our Pyotr, probably coming from bathing, - I said and ordered the footman to quickly put on the samovar in order to give Kostomarov coffee to drink.
I no longer went swimming, but stayed with Kostomarov. I advised him not to go on the boat, as he felt unwell, and in the meantime there might be a pitching.
I'd better order the droshky to be laid down, - I said, - they will take you to Peterhof, and there you will find yourself a semi-carriage and get there much calmer.
Kostomarov was very pleased with my proposal and said that, in his mood of spirit, it would be unpleasant for him to be in a crowd of passengers. He waited impatiently for the coachman to lay down the droshky.
I woke up Panaev and said that Kostomarov was leaving.
Panaev, sleepy, went out to Kostomarov, who fussed when he saw that the droshky was ready.
Panaev, saying goodbye to him, said:
Come to us whenever you like, in the morning and spend the night with us.
Well no! - answered Kostomarov. - Thank you: my trip to you made such an impression on me that I won’t show my nose to your Peterhof.
He was about to leave the steps of the gallery, but he returned again, saying:
My God, where is my head, I forgot such an important thing. We must come to an agreement so that there is no contradiction in the testimony.
What? - asked Panaev.
Lord, well, if they ask about the lost bundle.
Come on, Kostomarov!
Not! I am a seasoned person...
I'll tell you what I lost! - said Panaev. Kostomarov was taken aback.
And the witness?
Cab! Panaev laughed.
Forget about the Bell, think for yourself, well, how is it possible to find out who lost the bundle on the highway! Did your driver not know about the loss of him?
I wish I had told him so! I handed over the money, saying that I had changed my mind about going to the ship, and went back, and he went on.
Well, how can he point to you? Kostomarov thought, waved his hand and said: “Well, what to be, that cannot be avoided!” - and, shaking hands with us, got into the droshky and left.
Years in the settlement of Yurasovka, Ostrogozhsky district, Voronezh province (now the village of Yurasovka).
The retired military man Ivan Kostomarov, already at the age, chose the girl Tatyana Petrovna Melnikova as his wife and sent her to Moscow to study at a private boarding school - with the intention of marrying her later. The parents of Nikolai Kostomarov got married in September 1817, after the birth of their son. The father was going to adopt Nikolai, but did not have time to do so.
Ivan Kostomarov, an admirer of French literature of the 18th century, the ideas of which he tried to instill in both his young son and his household. On July 14, 1828, he was killed by his yard people, who stole the capital he had accumulated. The death of his father put his family in a difficult legal position. Born out of wedlock, Nikolai Kostomarov, as a serf of his father, was now inherited by his closest relatives - the Rovnevs, who were not averse to taking their souls away, mocking the child. When the Rovnevs offered Tatyana Petrovna a widow's share for 14 thousand acres of fertile land - 50 thousand rubles in banknotes, as well as freedom for her son, she agreed without delay.
Left with a very modest income, his mother transferred Nikolai from a Moscow boarding school (where he, just starting to study, received the nickname fr. Enfant miraculeux- a miracle child) to a boarding house in Voronezh, closer to home. Education in it was cheaper, but the level of teaching was very low, and the boy barely sat through boring lessons, which practically did not give him anything. After staying there for about two years, he was expelled for "pranks" from this boarding school and transferred to the Voronezh Gymnasium. Having completed a course here in 1833, Nikolai became a student at the Faculty of History and Philology at Kharkov University.
students,
Already in the first years of his studies, Kostomarov's brilliant abilities made themselves felt, giving him the nickname "enfant miraculeux" (fr. "wonder child"). The natural liveliness of Kostomarov's character, on the one hand, the low level of teachers of that time, on the other hand, did not give him the opportunity to seriously get involved in classes. The first years of his stay at Kharkov University, whose historical and philological faculty did not shine at that time with professorial talents, differed little in this respect for Kostomarov from the gymnasium. Kostomarov himself worked a lot, being carried away either by classical antiquity or by new French literature, but these works were carried out without proper guidance and system, and later Kostomarov called his student life "chaotic". Only in 1835, when M. M. Lunin appeared at the department of general history in Kharkov, did Kostomarov’s studies become more systematic. Lunin's lectures had a strong influence on him, and he enthusiastically devoted himself to the study of history. However, he was still so vaguely aware of his real vocation that after graduating from the university he entered the military service. His incapacity for the latter soon became, however, clear to both his superiors and to himself.
Fascinated by the study of the archive of the local county court, preserved in the city of Ostrogozhsk, where his regiment stood, Kostomarov decided to write the history of the suburban Cossack regiments. On the advice of his superiors, he left the regiment and in the autumn of 1837 again appeared in Kharkov with the intention of replenishing his historical education.
At this time of intensive studies, Kostomarov, partly under the influence of Lunin, began to take shape in a view of history, in which there were original features in comparison with the views then prevailing among Russian historians. According to the later words of the scientist himself, he I read many different kinds of historical books, pondered over science and came to the following question: why is it that in all histories they talk about outstanding statesmen, sometimes about laws and institutions, but seem to neglect the life of the masses of the people? It is as if the poor muzhik-farmer-worker does not exist for history; why history does not tell us anything about his way of life, about his spiritual life, about his feelings, the way of his joys and sorrows"? The idea of the history of the people and their spiritual life, in contrast to the history of the state, has since become the main idea in the circle of Kostomarov's historical views. Modifying the concept of the content of history, he expanded the range of its sources. " Soon he writes, I came to the conclusion that history should be studied not only from dead chronicles and notes, but also from living people". He learned the Ukrainian language, re-read published Ukrainian folk songs and printed literature in Ukrainian, then very small, undertook "ethnographic excursions from Kharkov to neighboring villages, to taverns." He spent the spring of 1838 in Moscow, where listening to the lectures of S.P. Shevyryov further strengthened his romantic attitude towards the people.
Interestingly, until the age of 16, Kostomarov had no idea about Ukraine and the Ukrainian language. What is Ukraine and the Ukrainian language, he learned at Kharkov University and began to write something in Ukrainian. " Love for the Little Russian word more and more fascinated me, - Kostomarov recalled, - I was annoyed that such a beautiful language was left without any literary processing and, moreover, was subjected to completely undeserved contempt". From the second half of the 1830s, he began to write in Ukrainian, under the pseudonym Jeremiah Galka, and in -1841 published two dramas and several collections of poems, original and translated.
His studies in history also advanced rapidly. In 1840, Kostomarov passed the master's exam.
Populism, Postage stamp of Ukraine, dedicated to N. I. Kostomarov, (Mikhel 74)
Immediately after completing his second dissertation, Kostomarov undertook a new work on the history of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and, wanting to visit the areas where the events he described took place, became a gymnasium teacher, first in Rovno, then () at the First Kyiv Gymnasium. In 1846, the council of Kyiv University elected Kostomarov as a teacher of Russian history, and from the autumn of that year he began his lectures, which immediately aroused deep interest in the audience.
In Kyiv, as in Kharkov, a circle of people formed around him, devoted to the idea of nationality and intending to put this idea into practice. This circle included P. A. Kulish, Af. Markevich, N. I. Gulak, V. M. Belozersky, T. G. Shevchenko. The interests of the Kyiv circle were not limited, however, to the Ukrainian nationality. Its members, fascinated by the romantic understanding of the people, dreamed of pan-Slavic reciprocity, combining with the latter the wishes of internal progress in their own fatherland.
Reciprocity of the Slavic peoples- in our imagination was no longer limited to the sphere of science and poetry, but began to appear in images in which, as it seemed to us, it should have been embodied for future history. In addition to our will, the federal system began to appear to us as the happiest course of the social life of the Slavic nations ... In all parts of the federation, the same basic laws and rights were assumed, equality of weight, measures and coins, the absence of customs and freedom of trade, the general abolition of serfdom and slavery in which in whatever form, a single central authority in charge of relations outside the union, the army and navy, but the complete autonomy of each part in relation to internal institutions, internal administration, legal proceedings and public education.
In order to spread these ideas, the friendly circle was transformed into a society called the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood.
The pan-Slavist dreams of young enthusiasts were soon cut short. The student Petrov, who had overheard their conversations, denounced them; they were arrested in the spring of 1847, charged with a state crime and subjected to various punishments.
The heyday of activity, Nikolai Ge. Portrait of the historian N. I. Kostomarov () N. I. Kostomarov, 1869.
Kostomarov, a supporter of federalism, always faithful to the Little Russian people of his mother, without any reservations recognized this people as an organic part of a single Russian people, which "the national element of the all-Russian", according to his definition, "in the first half of our history" is "in the aggregate of six main nationalities, namely: 1) South Russian, 2) Seversk, 3) Great Russian, 4) Belorussian, 5) Pskov and 6) Novgorod. At the same time, Kostomarov considered it his duty to “point to those principles that stipulated a connection between them and served as a reason that they all together bore and should have carried the name of the common Russian Land, belonged to the same general composition and were aware of this connection, despite the circumstances, inclined to the destruction of this consciousness. These principles are: 1) origin, way of life and languages, 2) a single princely family, 3) the Christian faith and a single Church.
After the closure of St. Petersburg University caused by student unrest (), several professors, including Kostomarov, arranged (in the city duma) systematic public lectures, known in the then press under the name of a free or mobile university: Kostomarov lectured on ancient Russian history. When Professor Pavlov, after a public reading about the Millennium of Russia, was expelled from St. Petersburg, the committee for the organization of the Duma lectures decided, in the form of a protest, to stop them. Kostomarov refused to comply with this decision, but at his next lecture (March 8), the uproar raised by the public forced him to stop reading, and further lectures were forbidden by the administration.
Having left the professorship of St. Petersburg University in 1862, Kostomarov could no longer return to the department, since his political reliability was again suspected, mainly due to the efforts of the Moscow "protective" press. In 1863, he was invited to the department by Kyiv University, in 1864 - by Kharkov University, in 1869 - again by Kiev University, but Kostomarov, on the instructions of the Ministry of Public Education, had to reject all these invitations and limit himself to one literary activity, which, with the termination of the "Osnovy" , also closed in a tighter framework. After all these heavy blows, Kostomarov, as it were, cooled off towards the present and ceased to be interested in it, finally leaving for the study of the past and archival work. One after another, his works appeared, devoted to major issues in the history of Ukraine, the Russian state and Poland. In 1863, "Northern Russian People's Rights" were published, which was an adaptation of one of the courses read by Kostomarov at St. Petersburg University; in 1866, Vestnik Evropy published The Time of Troubles in the Muscovite State, then The Last Years of the Commonwealth. In the early 1870s, Kostomarov began work "On the historical significance of Russian song folk art." The interruption of archival studies in 1872, caused by the weakening of vision, gave Kostomarov a reason to compile "Russian history in the biographies of its main figures."
Recent years, N. I. Kostomarov in a coffin. Portrait of the work of I. Repin Evaluation of activities,
Kostomarov's reputation as a historian, both during his lifetime and after his death, was repeatedly subjected to strong attacks. He was reproached for the superficial use of sources and the errors resulting from this, for the one-sidedness of his views, for his partisanship. There is a grain of truth in these reproaches, however, a very small one. Minor blunders and errors, inevitable in every scientist, are perhaps somewhat more common in Kostomarov's writings, but this is easily explained by the extraordinary variety of his activities and the habit of relying on his rich memory. In those few cases when Kostomarov's partisanship really manifested itself - namely, in some of his works on Ukrainian history - it was only a natural reaction against even more partisan views expressed in literature from the other side. Not always, furthermore, the material itself, on which Kostomarov worked, gave him the opportunity to adhere to his views on the task of the historian. Historian of the internal life of the people, in his scientific views and sympathies, it was in his works devoted to Ukraine that he should have been a depiction of external history.
In any case, the overall significance of Kostomarov in the development of Russian and Ukrainian historiography can, without any exaggeration, be called enormous. He introduced and persistently pursued in all his works the idea of folk history. Kostomarov himself understood and implemented it mainly in the form of studying the spiritual life of the people. Later researchers extended the content of this idea, but this does not diminish Kostomarov's merit. In connection with this main idea of Kostomarov's works, he had another one - about the need to study the tribal characteristics of each part of the people and create a regional history. If in modern science a somewhat different view of the national character has been established, denying the immobility that Kostomarov attributed to him, then it was the work of the latter that served as the impetus, depending on which the study of the history of the regions began to develop.
Introducing new and fruitful ideas into the development of Russian history, independently investigating a number of issues in its field, Kostomarov, thanks to the peculiarities of his talent, aroused, at the same time, a keen interest in historical knowledge in the mass of the public. Thinking deeply, almost getting used to the antiquity he studied, he reproduced it in his works with such bright colors, in such convex images that it attracted the reader and cut into his mind with indelible features. In the person of Kostomarov, a historian-thinker and an artist successfully combined - and this provided him not only with one of the first places among Russian historians, but also with the greatest popularity among the reading public.
Kostomarov's views find their application in the analysis of contemporary Asian and African societies. So, for example, the modern orientalist S. Z. Gafurov pointed out in his article on the Third World Theory of the Libyan leader M. Gaddafi:
It is interesting to note that the semantics of the word "Jamahiriya" is associated with the concepts that Kropotkin Kostomarovskaya Street in Kharkov
- A street in Kharkov is named after Kostomarov.
- Room No. 558 of the Faculty of History of Kharkiv National University named after N.I. Kostomarov was named after him. V. N. Karazina
Beware - history!
To the 200th anniversary of Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov / May, 2017
If Nikolai Ivanovich, a native of the Voronezh province, a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy, a real state councilor, had learned how his legacy would be disposed of in the 20th and 21st centuries, he could perhaps reconsider his Ukrainophile views. If Kostomarov could have foreseen that Kharkov, whose university he graduated from, would end up on the territory of a state hostile to Russia, it is likely that he would not have organized the secret Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood - a kind of headquarters for the "liberation of Ukraine." More Kostomarov and dill
Nikolay Kostomarov. Artist Nikolai Ge. 1870
However, today Kostomarov can be perceived almost as the banner of the Maidan. Under Soviet rule, he was rightly attributed to the fighters against serfdom, talented popularizers of folk culture. Populism with Little Russian flavor was a special form of the Fronde in the 19th century. Completely Russian people, who absolutely did not know the Little Russian culture, the local dialect, rushed to learn the “Ukrainian language”. Kostomarov was from this cohort, and, for example, the Russian noblewoman Maria Vilinskaya, who became a classic of Ukrainian literature under the pseudonym Marko Vovchok...
Ukrainianism is a form of liberalism of the 19th century, a kind of dissidence. The same phenomenon, adjusted for the wind of change, we observed during perestroika. The Russian-speaking liberal intelligentsia of the Ukrainian SSR rushed to destroy the Soviet Union in partnership with Bandera, and now they are grieving over the abolished research institutes, outraged by the revival of Nazism ... Is the outstanding Russian historian guilty? Nikolai Kostomarov in the tragic events of recent history in the Ukrainian direction? Of course no. But the bizarre fate of his theories proves that the historian has a special responsibility. Responsibility for the future.
Illustrations for "N. I. Kostomarov: biographical information"
Was he Russian or Ukrainian?
200 years ago, on May 16, Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov was born / Present past / People and time
Two beginnings
Andrey Teslya, historian
The fate of Nikolai Kostomarov, including the posthumous one, developed both bizarrely and naturally. To begin with, it is difficult to determine whether he was "Russian" or "Ukrainian", even if guided by his own assessments.
When Kostomarov was the founder and one of the key actors of the Cyril and Methodius Society (1845-1847), the first modern Ukrainian nationalist movement, he defined himself as a “Russian”, “Great Russian”, and in the 1870s, when his nationalist position became much more compromise, moderate, he already considered himself a "Ukrainian".
Later, in the first half of the 20th century, historians will intensively discuss the question of whether it should be included in the course of Russian historiography or whether it belongs to Ukrainian, and if both, then how to divide its scientific and educational heritage between two national historiographies.
A similar situation is typical for the figures of the “borderland”: they simultaneously belong to different communities. And at the same time, each of the communities (national, cultural, etc.) is forced to discard or “shadow” those features that prevent a straightforward interpretation.
Kostomarov was a typical - in the sense of by no means "averaging", but the completeness of the manifestation of the type - a romantic historian: the goal of historical work for him was to reproduce the past, he sought to convey the "spirit" of the past, while understanding the latter not " bright events” and “great personalities”, but first of all the history of the “people”. It was the people that acted for him as the true hero of history, about him, about his past, science had to tell - in order to be an instrument of self-consciousness in the present.
What has been said outwardly contradicts the list of Kostomarov's main works - starting with Bogdan Khmelnitsky (1858), which made him famous throughout reading Russia, to the later created Russian History in the Biographies of Its Main Figures. Kostomarov always wrote either about great personalities, at least persons notable in history, or about large-scale events - such as the Time of Troubles or the Last Years of the Commonwealth. And yet for him there was no contradiction in this - the people manifest themselves in their prominent people, he becomes visible in great events. And in order to understand, to realize these events, it is necessary to know and understand everyday life, the usual, ordinary way of life - hence his extensive everyday descriptions.
Russian history was seen by him as the history of the confrontation between two principles successively replacing each other - federalist, veche and state, autocratic. The first lasted the longest in the south, among the "South Russian people", the second found its bearer in the Muscovite state, created by the Great Russians. Late manifestations of the first beginning Kostomarov saw in popular riots, in the Cossacks.
“We sympathize with them,” Kostomarov argued, “because they are an expression of the desire for freedom, but their success, if they were to win, would only be another expression of the same principle against which they fought.” The beginning of Moscow, according to Kostomarov, is monstrous - and at the same time historically inevitable, the statesmen of Moscow evoke a feeling of moral indignation, but only such could achieve historical success.
Kostomarov's books were read with a sympathetic eye - the reader often read even more than the author had in mind, it is no coincidence that his writings were so popular among populists. They saw in them not so much a story about the Cossack freemen, but about the history of past Russian freedom - in Ukraine, Novgorod, Pskov, as well as the ability of Russian people to decide their own fate, which they proved during the Time of Troubles.
misunderstood
Oleg Nemensky, historian, publicist
There are at least two Kostomarovs - in Russia he is known as a Russian historian, and in Ukraine as one of the fathers of the Ukrainian nation. But now few people hear the real Kostomarov. He is politically irrelevant here and there, and some of his texts are now read quite differently than they were during his lifetime.
His writings are often reprinted, although these are the texts of a man who obviously did not understand and did not like Great Russian life. He felt himself a representative of the Little Russian people, the care of which he gave a lot of effort.
In 1846, having founded the secret Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood in Kyiv, Kostomarov, together with P. Kulish, wrote short essays, where for the first time they spoke about a special Ukrainian people. This gave rise to the movement of Ukrainophilism, which is considered to be a kind of early version of Ukrainian nationalism. However, all further activities of both Kostomarov and Kulish rather indicate the opposite.
The lands of Southwestern Russia at the beginning of the 19th century felt the impact of the imperial center, which came here with its own standards, including in the field of culture and historical memory. The most important text on history, which became the canon and literary language, and models of the past, was N. Karamzin's "History of the Russian State" published throughout the first quarter of the century. It was not the history of the people, but the history of statehood, reduced to the history of rulers. Western Russia, which until recently lived as part of other states, simply fell out of consideration, and, as a result, out of public attention. All the many years of experience of its history, culture - all this turned out to be insignificant, as it were. And now there were people who wished to protect the originality of Little Russian life.
Kostomarov set a goal - to reveal the historical features of different parts of the Russian people, regardless of their participation in state building. He wrote: "To find and capture these features of the folk life of parts of the Russian state was for me the task of my studies in history." But it is very important to emphasize that Kostomarov never spoke about the non-Russian nature of the Ukraine he describes. On the contrary, he tried to give ideas about the Russian people a more complex character, taking into account “peculiar features of the South Russian people”: “It turns out that the Russian people are not united; there are two of them, and who knows, maybe more will be opened, and yet they are Russians, ”he wrote in the program text“ Two Russian Nationalities ”.
Unlike later Ukrainian nationalists, Kostomarov declared the need to "think in a common Russian language" and emphasized his Russian identity. He spoke about the “belonging” of Ukrainians “to the common Russian world”, about their “ancient connection with the common Russian world”, with the “Russian mainland”. Now, for such views in Ukraine, one can easily get into the list of "enemies of the nation." Unlike the nationalists, Kostomarov did not advocate separation from this mainland, but, on the contrary, opposed “Moscow particularism,” as he called the desire of the Great Russians to consider only themselves, their history and tradition, truly Russian. He wanted to see Southwestern Russia as an equal part of a single Russian community: “The Little Russians were never conquered and annexed to Russia, but from ancient times they were one of the elements that made up the Russian state body.”
Now Kostomarov’s words about the ideas of separating Ukraine from Russia look like an evil mockery and reproach: “Only with a deep ignorance of the meaning of our past history, with a lack of understanding of the spirit and concepts of the people, one can reach absurd fears of terminating the connection between the two Russian nationalities with their equal rights.” “The idea of separating Little Russia from the empire,” he noted, “... is equally absurd as the idea of the originality of any specific reign into which the Russian land was once divided ...”
Yes, his desire to justify the equality and interdependence of the “two Russian peoples” played a cruel joke on him: describing their historical characters as directly opposite (and therefore mutually complementary in a common state), he largely set the tone for other works whose authors tried to describe the opposition of Ukrainians to Russians is already an argument in favor of disengagement. But behind this lies a much bigger problem: it is difficult to deny the local tradition the right to defend its own identity, but how to prevent the evolution of this defense into open confrontation? This question is still relevant today, but the works of Kostomarov, and especially their further fate, unfortunately, do not give us an answer.
And yet, the model he set for different “Russian nationalities”, of which he eventually found as many as six, makes us think about a lot. Now, when a war of identities is going on in Ukraine, the question is being decided who will get it - those who see themselves as special Russians - yes, not Great Russians, but the heirs of the local Russian tradition, or those for whom everything Russian is seen as evil, subject to destruction. In this conflict, Kostomarov is clearly not on the side of the latter.