AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Dedicated to my beloved life of Galini Leontyevnya Kostomarova from Jer. Jackdaws

Childhood and adolescence

The surname that I wear belongs to the old Great Russian families of the nobles, or the children of the boyars. As far as we know, it is mentioned in the 16th century; then there were already local names resembling this nickname - for example, Kostomarov Brod on the Upa River. Probably, even then there were already existing villages with the name Kostomarove, located in the provinces of Tula, Yaroslavl and Orel. Under Ivan Vasilievich the Terrible, the boyar's son Samson Martynovich Kostomarov, who served in the oprichnina, fled from the Moscow state to Lithuania, was affectionately received by Sigismund Augustus and endowed with an estate in the Kovel (?) District. He was neither the first nor the last of these defectors. Under Sigismund III, after the death of Samson, the estate given to him was divided between his son and his daughter, who married Lukashevich. Samson's grandson, Pyotr Kostomarov, joined Khmelnitsky and after the Berestetsky defeat was banned and lost his hereditary estate in accordance with the Polish law of the kaduk, as the modern letter of the king to Kisel 2 on the selection of estates that were then subject to confiscation shows. Kostomarov, along with many of the Volynians, who had adhered to Khmelnitsky and entered the rank of Cossacks, went to the boundaries of the Moscow state. It was not the first colony from the South Russians. Even during the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, Little Russian villages appeared along the so-called Belogorodskaya line 3, and the city of Chuguev was founded and populated by Cossacks who fled in 1638 with Hetman Ostranin 4; under Khmelnitsky, the mentioned resettlement of the Cossacks to Moscow lands was, as far as we know, the first of its kind. At that time there were up to a thousand families of all those who crossed over; they were under the command of the leader Ivan Dzinkovsky 6, who bore the rank of colonel. These Cossacks wanted to settle near the Ukrainian borders, somewhere not far from Putivl, Rylsk or Velsk, but the Moscow government found this inconvenient and decided to settle them further to the east. To their request, they were given the following answer: “You will have a frequent quarrel with the Polish and Lithuanian people, but it’s better, as far away from enthusiasm”. They were given a place for settlement on the Tikhaya Pine River, and after that /427/ the Cossack town of Ostrogozhsk was built. From local acts it is clear that this name existed even before, because it is said about the foundation of this town that it was erected on the Ostrogozh settlement. This is how the Ostrogozhsky regiment began, the first in time from the suburban regiments 6. In the vicinity of the newly built city, farms and villages began to be divorced: the land was free and fertile. Kostomarov was among the settlers, and, probably, this surname left its nickname the name of Kostomarova on the Don, now a populous settlement. The descendants of Kostomarov, who came from Volyn, took root in the Ostrogozh region, and one of them settled on the banks of the Olkhovatka River and married the pupil and heiress of the Cossack official Yuri Blum, who built a church in the name of his angel in the settlement, which he founded and named Yurasovka after him. It was in the first half XVIII century... Blum's estate passed to Kostomarova. My father belonged to this branch.

My father was born in 1769, served in the army from a young age, participated in the army of Suvorov during the capture of Izmail, and in 1790 he retired and settled on his estate in the Ostrogozhsky district in the Yurasovka settlement, where I was born *.

* Ostrogozhsky district with the entire southern part of the Voronezh province at that time belonged to the Slobodsko-Ukrainian province - now Kharkov.

My father, according to that time, received an inadequate education and subsequently, realizing this, constantly tried to fill this inadequacy with reading. He read a lot, constantly subscribed to books, even learned French so much that he could read in that language, albeit with the help of a vocabulary. His favorite works were those of Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot and other encyclopedists of the 18th century; in particular, he showed respect to the person of Voltaire, which reached the point of reverence. This trend developed from him the type of an old free-thinker. He fanatically surrendered himself to materialistic teachings and became distinguished by extreme disbelief, although according to his teachers his mind fluctuated between perfect atheism and deism. His hot, addicted nature often drove him to actions that would be ridiculous in our time; for example, by the way and inopportunely, he started philosophical conversations and tried to spread Voltaireism where, apparently, there was no basis for this. Whether he was on the road, he began to philosophize with the innkeepers, and on his estate he gathered a circle of his serfs and read philippics to them against bigotry and superstition. The peasants on his estate were Little Russians and did not succumb to the Voltaire school; but from the courtyard there were several people transferred from the Oryol province, from his maternal estate; and the latter, according to their position as courtiers, who had the opportunity to use frequent conversations with the master, turned out to be more understanding /428/ students. In the political and social concepts of my late parent, some kind of mixture of liberalism and democracy with great-grandfather's nobility prevailed. He loved to interpret to everyone and everyone that all people are equal, that difference in breed is a prejudice, that everyone should live like brothers: but this did not prevent him from showing the master's stick over his subordinates on occasion, or giving him a slap, especially in a moment of irascibility with which he he could not hold back: but after each such trick, he apologized to the offended servant, tried to make up for his mistake in some way, and handed out money and gifts. The lackeys liked it to such an extent that there were times when they intentionally made him angry, in order to make him hot-tempered and then rip him off. However, his hot temper did less harm to others than to himself. Once, for example, being angry that he was not being brought to dinner for a long time, in a fit of annoyance, he interrupted the magnificent Saxon porcelain table service, and then, remembering, sat down in thought, began to examine the image of some ancient philosopher, made on carnelian, and, calling me to myself, he read to me with tears in my eyes a morality about how it is necessary to restrain impulses of passions. With the peasants of his village, he treated kindly and humanely, did not hinder them either by requisitions or work; if he invited me to do something, he paid for the work more expensive than that of strangers, and was aware of the need to free the peasants from serfdom, in which he did not hide before them. In general, it must be said that if he allowed himself antics that did not agree with the preached convictions of freedom and equality, then they arose, apart from his desire, from the inability to restrain impulses of irascibility; that is why everyone who was not put in the need to often be with him loved him. There was no lordly vanity in his character; loyal to the ideas of his French mentors, he did not put the dignity of nobility into anything and could not stand those in whom he noticed at least a shadow of panache in his origin and rank. As if to prove these convictions, he did not want to be related to noble families, and already in his old years, having conceived to marry, chose a peasant girl and sent her to Moscow to be raised in a private institution, so that later she would become his wife. This was in 1812. The entry of Napoleon into Moscow and the burning of the capital did not give her the opportunity to continue the education she had begun: my father, hearing about the devastation of Moscow, sent to take his pupil, who later became his wife and my mother.

I was born on May 4, 1817. Until the age of ten, my childhood passed in my father's house without any tutors, under the supervision of one parent. After reading "Emile" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, my father applied the rules he had read to the upbringing of his only son and tried to teach me from infancy to a life close to nature, he did not allow me to be wrapped up, he deliberately sent me to run in a raw /429/ weather, even getting your feet wet, and generally taught not to be afraid of colds and temperature changes. Constantly forcing me to read, from my tender years he began to inspire me with Voltaire's unbelief, but this tender age of mine, which demanded the constant care of my mother for me, gave her time and the opportunity to oppose this trend. As a child, I was distinguished by an unusually happy memory: it cost nothing to me, having read once or twice some Voltaire's "Tancred" or "Zaira" in Russian translation, read it to my father by heart from blackboard to blackboard. My imagination developed no less strongly. The location where the estate in which I was born and raised lay was quite beautiful. Beyond the river, flowing near the estate itself, dotted with green islets and overgrown with reeds, towered picturesque chalk mountains, dotted with black and green stripes; next to them stretched black-earth mountains covered with green fields, and beneath them stretched a vast meadow, strewn with flowers in spring and. which seemed to me an immeasurable pictorial carpet. The entire courtyard was surrounded by a fence with large aspen and birch trees, and a shady grove with centuries-old trees that belonged to the courtyard stretched along the edge. My father often took me with him, sat on the ground under one old birch, took with him some poetry and read or forced me to read; thus I remember how, in the sound of the wind, we read Ossian with him and, as it seems, in a disgusting prosaic Russian translation. Running into the same grove without my father, I, bumping into glades and groups of trees, imagined different countries, which I saw in the figures on the geographical atlas; then I gave names to some of these places. I had Brazil, Colombia, and the Laplat Republic, and running to the river bank and noticing the islets, I created with my imagination Borneo, Sumatra, Celebes, Java and so on. My father did not allow my imagination to venture into a fantastic, mysterious world, he did not allow me to tell fairy tales, nor to indulge my imagination with tales of ghosts; he was ticklishly afraid that some vulgar belief in goblin, brownies, witches, etc., would not take root in me. However, this did not prevent me from letting me read Zhukovsky's ballads, and my father considered it his duty to constantly explain to me that all this was poetic fiction, not reality. I knew all of Thunderbolt by heart; but my father explained to me that what is described there never was, and could not be. Zhukovsky was his favorite poet; however, my father was not one of those zealots of the old taste who, having respect for old models, do not want to know new ones; on the contrary, when Pushkin appeared, my father immediately became a great admirer of him and was greatly delighted with Ruslan and Lyudmila and several chapters of Eugene Onegin that appeared in the Moscow Bulletin of 1827 7. When I was ten years old, my father took me to Moscow. Until that time, I had not been anywhere except the village, and had not even seen my district town. /430/ Upon arrival in Moscow, we stopped at the London Hotel in Okhotny Ryad, and a few days later my father took me to the theater for the first time in my life. We played Freischütz. I was so frightened by the shots and then the scene in the wolf valley with the ghosts that my father did not let me listen to the plays and after the second act he took me out of the theater. For several days I was fascinated by what I saw in the theater and I wanted to go to the theater to the extreme. My father took me. They gave "Prince Invisible" - some stupid opera, now fallen, but then in vogue. Despite my ten years of age, I realized that there was a big difference between the first opera I had seen and the second, and that the first was incomparably better than the second. The third play I saw was Schiller's Cunning and Love. The role of Ferdinand was played by the famous Mochalov 8 in his time. I liked her very much, my father was moved to tears; looking at him, and I began to cry, although I could not quite understand the whole essence of the presented event.

I was sent to a boarding school, which at that time contained a lecturer in French at the university, Ge. The first time of my stay after my father's departure from Moscow passed in incessant tears; it was unbearable for me to be alone in a foreign country and in the midst of strangers; I continually drew images of my abandoned home life and my mother, whom, as it seemed to me, the separation from me should have become difficult. Little by little, the teaching began to take hold of me and the melancholy subsided. I have acquired the love of comrades; the owner of the boarding house and the teachers were amazed at my memory and abilities. Once, for example, having climbed into the owner's office, I found Latin conversations and, at some half day, learned all the conversations by heart, and then I began to speak read Latin phrases to the boarding-keeper. I studied well in all subjects, except for dances, for which, according to the dancemaster's sentence, I did not show the slightest ability, so that at the same time some called me "enfant miraculeux" 9 and the dancemaster called me an idiot. After a few months I fell ill; they wrote to my father about this, and he suddenly appeared in Moscow at a time when I was not expecting him. I had already recovered, there was a dance class in the boarding house, when suddenly my father enters the hall. After talking with the boarding-keeper, my father made it his best to take me in order to bring me back the next year after the vacations. Later I learned that the man whom my father had left with me at the boarding house as my uncle had written him some kind of slander about the boarding house; besides, I heard that the very illness that I had experienced before was the result of a poison given to me by this uncle, who, as it turned out, was at that time planning to get out of Moscow to the countryside at all costs. Thus, in 1828 I was back in the countryside, hoping after vacations to go back to the Moscow boarding house; meanwhile, a fatal blow was being prepared over my father's head, which was to take his life and change my whole future fate. /431/

It was said above that. there were several immigrants from the Oryol province on my father's estate; of these, the coachman and valet lived in the courtyard, and the third, who had also been a lackey, was expelled from the courtyard for drunkenness and was in the village. They conspired to kill my father with the intention of robbing him of the money, which, as they happened, he had in his casket. They were also joined by a man who was my uncle during my stay in the Moscow boarding house. The villainous intent had been covered for several months, finally, the killers decided to execute it on July 14th. My father was in the habit of going for a walk in the woods at a distance of two or three versts from the yard, sometimes with me, sometimes alone. On the fateful evening in the evening, he ordered a couple of horses to be put into the droshky and, having put me with him, ordered me to go to the grove that bore the name Dolgoe. Sitting on a droshky, for some reason I did not want to go with my father and preferred, staying at home, to shoot a bow, which was then my favorite pastime. I jumped out of the droshky, my father went alone. Several hours passed, a moonlit night fell. It was time for my father to return, my mother was expecting him to have supper - he was not there. Suddenly the coachman runs in and says: "The master's horses have been carried somewhere." There was a general commotion, they were sent to look for, and meanwhile two footmen, participants in the conspiracy, and - as there is a suspicion - with them and the cook did their business: they took out the box, brought it to the attic and took out of it all the money, of which there were several tens of thousands, received by my father for the mortgaged estate. Finally, one of the rural peasants, sent to find the master, came back with the news that "the pan is lying dead, and his head is dyurch and beauty". At dawn on July 15, my mother went with me to the place, and we had a terrible sight: my father was lying in a hole with his head disfigured to the point that it was impossible to notice the human image. Already 47 years have passed since then, but even now my heart is bleeding when I remember this picture, supplemented by the image of my mother's despair at such a sight. Zemstvo police arrived, carried out an investigation and drew up an act, which indicated that my father was undoubtedly killed by horses. They even found on the father's face traces of thorns from horseshoes. For some reason, the investigation did not bring about the loss of money.

Much has changed since then in my life. My mother no longer lived in the old courtyard, but settled in another, located in the same settlement. I was sent to study at the Voronezh boarding school, maintained by the gymnasium teachers there, Fedorov and Popov. The boarding house was at that time in the house of Princess Kasatkina, which stood on a high mountain on the banks of the Voronezh River, directly opposite the shipyard of Peter the Great, his zeichhaus and the ruins of his house. The boarding house stayed there for a year, and then, in connection with the transfer of the house to the military department for the cantonist school, was transferred to another part of the city not far from the Maiden Monastery, to the Borodin house. Although the new premises did not have such a beautiful view as from the previous /432/ there was a huge shady garden with a fantastic pavilion; in it, the young imagination of the students of the boarding school imagined various monstrous images gleaned from scary novels, which were then in great fashion and read with great pleasure secretly from the mentors who were trying to ensure that the students read only useful books. The boarding house, in which this time I had to be brought up, was one of those institutions where most of all they bother to show something extraordinary and excellent in appearance, but in fact they give little to a proper upbringing. Despite my thirteen years of age and playfulness, I realized that I would not learn in this boarding house what I would need to enter the university, which I then already thought of as the first necessity in order to be an educated person. Most of the children who studied at this boarding house belonged to the families of landowners, in which there was such a notion that a Russian nobleman not only had no need, but even humiliatingly, to study science and listen to university lectures, that for a noble title a decent career was military service. which could be passed for a short time, just to reach some rank and then burrow into his village slum to his slaves and dogs. That is why the boarding school did not teach almost anything that was needed to enter the university. The teaching itself was carried out fragmentarily; there was not even a division into classes; one student taught one thing, another another; teachers came only to ask for lessons and to ask them again from books. The height of upbringing and education was considered to babble in French and dance. In the latter art, and here, as once in Moscow, I was recognized as a pure idiot; apart from my physical sluggishness and lack of grace in movements, I could not keep in my memory a single contour dance figure, I constantly lost myself, knocked others down and laughed at both my comrades and the owners of the boarding house, who could not understand how I could fit this into my memory many geographical and historical names and are not able to memorize such an ordinary thing as country dance figures. I stayed in this boarding house for two and a half years and, fortunately for myself, was expelled from it for my acquaintance with the wine cellar, where, together with other comrades, I sometimes made my way at night for wine and berry waters. They whipped me and took me to the village to my mother, and my mother whipped me again and was angry with me for a long time.

At my request, in 1831 my mother assigned me to the Voronezh gymnasium. I was admitted to the third grade, which was equal to the present sixth grade in terms of the structure of the time, because then there were only four grades in the grammar school, and the first grade of the grammar school entered after three grades of the district school. However, accepting me into the gymnasium, they did me a great deal of indulgence: I was very weak in mathematics, and I was completely ignorant of ancient languages. /433/ I was placed with the teacher of the Latin language Andrei Ivanovich Belinsky. He was a good old man, a Galician by birth, who had lived in Russia for more than thirty years, but who spoke with a strong Little Russian style and was distinguished by the same conscientiousness and diligence as by mediocrity. Brought up according to the old Bursak method, he was not able to explain properly the rules of the language, nor even less to inspire love for the subject taught. Knowing his honesty and good nature, one cannot remember him with an unkind word, although, on the other hand, one cannot help but wish that we no longer have such teachers. Recalling the old Bursak customs, Andrei Ivanovich seriously expressed regret that now they do not allow students to give submissions *, as it happened in his homeland with clerks who took on the duty of educators of youth.

Other teachers in the gymnasium were little pedagogical models. The mathematics teacher Fedorov, my former host at the boarding house, was lazy to the point of inexpressibility, and when he came to class, he would read, with his feet on the table, a novel to himself, or he would walk up and down the classroom, observing only that at this time everything were silent; for breaking the silence without ceremony he beat the guilty on the cheeks. And in his own boarding school it was impossible to learn anything from him in mathematics. It is difficult to imagine the existence of such a teacher in our time, although he was a man who knew how to show off perfectly and thus arrange a career for himself. Subsequently, already in the forties, he was the director of the schools in Kursk and, accepting a visit from one significant person in the gymnasium, he realized that this significant person was looking unfavorably at polytechology, and when this significant person, observing the rich library donated by the gymnasium by Demidov, asked him whether he thinks it is appropriate to keep such a library in the gymnasium, Fedorov replied: "I find it an unnecessary luxury." This answer helped him a lot in his further career.

The teacher of Russian literature, Nikolai Mikhailovich Sevastianov, was a type of bigot, quite rare here in Russia, as we know little differing in his penchant for devotism; he composed the akathists of St. Mitrofanu, he constantly visited bishops, archimandrites and, having come to class, taught his pupils more piety than the Russian language. In addition, in his knowledge of Russian literature, he was an extremely backward person: he could not listen without disgust to the name of Pushkin, who was then, so to speak, an idol of youth; the ideals of Nikolai Mikhailovich turned to Lomonosov, Kheraskov, Derzhavin, and even to the Kiev writers of the 17th century. He taught on the rhetoric of Koshansky and asked to write arguments and impressions on it, which depicted natural phenomena - sunrise

* The custom of flogging all students on Saturdays, regardless of which of them is to blame or not. /434/

suns, thunderstorms - rhetorically praised virtues, poured out indignation towards vices, etc. miracles, miraculous icons, bishops, then asked for a lesson, watching that he was answered word for word, and recognizing someone as ignorant, forced to bow down.

The natural history teacher Sukhomlinov, brother of the former Kharkov professor of chemistry, was not a stupid man, but little prepared and little inclined towards science; however, since he was smarter than the others, despite his shortcomings as a teacher in the full sense of the word, he still could convey to his pupils some useful signs of knowledge.

The teacher of general history Tsvetaev taught on the bad history of Shrekk, did not pass on any stories of his own to the students, did not illuminate the facts presented in the book with any explanations and views, did not introduce the students even in their initial form to the criticism of history and, apparently, did not like his subject: always almost sleepy and lethargic, this teacher was able to dispose his pupils to laziness and complete indifference to scientific subjects.

The Greek language was taught by the priest Yakov Pokrovsky, who was also a teacher of the law. He differed only in harsh philippics against boarding education, in general showed a dislike for secular schools, praised seminaries and made it a rule for himself to pronounce the way it is written, demanding the same from the students, which only aroused laughter. He was an extremely rude and arrogant man, and later, as we learned, widowed, he was tried and deprived of the priesthood for unchaste behavior.

The French teacher Jourdain, a former captain of the Napoleonic army and who remained in captivity in Russia, was not distinguished by anything special, was generally lazy and apathetic, did not explain anything and only asked lessons in Lomond's grammar, marking in it with a fingernail the places followed to learn and pronouncing everyone is the same: jusqu "ici 10. Only when he remembered on some occasion the exploits of Napoleon and his great army, the usual apathy left him and he involuntarily showed the inevitable properties of his nationality, made himself alive and uttered some boastful praise to his beloved hero and French weapons. ”At the same time, I consider it appropriate to recall the incident that happened to me in Fedorov’s boarding house, where, after Popov left, he was an assistant to the landlord and had a residence in the boarding house. I did not get along with the tutor, a German by the name of Pral; Jourdain put me on my knees and condemned me to stay without dinner. Wishing to somehow soften his severity, I, on my knees during dinner, said to him: monsie ur Juordin, because Prahler is German for braggart. “Chut! tesez vous! " - hissed Jourdain 11. But I continued: these Germans are big boasters, because like their Napoleon /435/ beat! "Oh, how he beat!" - Jourdain exclaimed and, delighted, began to remember the Jena battle. Taking advantage of his animation, I asked him for forgiveness, and the stern captain relented and allowed me to sit down to dinner.

The German teacher was a certain Flamm, who did not have a special pedagogical talent and did not understand Russian well, which is why his subject did not flourish in the gymnasium. The disciples, as happened everywhere in Russia with the Germans, fooled over his inability to speak Russian. So, for example, not knowing how to pronounce the word “accent” in Russian, instead of saying “accentuate,” he said “take a punch,” and the students, making fun of him, all pounded their fists in one gulp on the notebook. The German lost his temper, but could not explain what he wanted, and the whole class laughed at him.

It remains to say a few more words about the then director of the gymnasium, von Haller. He was distinguished by the fact that each student, coming from a home vacation, considered it his duty to bring a feasible gift: some a couple of geese, and some a pound of tea or a head of sugar; the director went out to the student in the hallway, scolded him for his insolence, said that he was not a bribe-taker and drove the student away with his gift; but in the vestibule, where the pupil left the hallway, a female servant appeared, took the gift and carried it to the back porch. The student came to the class and noticed that the director, during his usual visit to classes, showed him special affection and favor. For several years the director occupied the entire mezzanine of the gymnasium building for himself, and the classrooms were located in the attics; this prompted the teachers to file a denunciation against him: the inspector arrived, and the director had to move from the gymnasium building to a rented apartment. Soon thereafter, his superiors removed him from office.

The number of students in the gymnasium at that time was small and hardly reached up to two hundred people in all classes. According to the concepts prevailing at that time, wealthy parents who were proud of their origin or important rank considered it as if humiliating to send their sons to the gymnasium: therefore, the institution was filled with children of minor officials, poor merchants, bourgeois and commoners. Plebeian origin was manifested very often in the methods and methods of conversion of the pupils, as well as in the neglect of the primary education received in the parental home. Rough curses, fights and dirty fun were nothing in this circle. Among the students there were quite lazy people who almost did not go to the gymnasium, and those who were more diligent were accustomed in advance to look at the teaching only as a means useful in life to get their daily bread. One can judge about the hunt for science from the fact that out of those who graduated from the course in 1833, I entered the university in the same year, and three of my comrades entered the number of students when I was already in my second year.

During his stay at the gymnasium during the vacations /436/ I drove home to my mother; sometimes they sent their horses and a carriage for me, in the summer - a chaise, and in the winter - a covered sleigh; sometimes I followed the postage. In both cases, the route lay to Ostrogozhsk along the postal road through the villages of Oleniy Kolodez, Khvorostan and the city of Korotoyak, where they crossed the Don. Before reaching Korotoyak, the road for about forty versts went in the view of the Don on the left side; near Khvorostan, one could see the picturesque village of Onoshkino, which in 1827 slid down the mountain washed away by the Don. This natural phenomenon, as they say, cost no one life, because almost all people were in the field. From Ostrogozhsk, if I rode on my own horses, I had to make my way to my settlement through the farmsteads, of which there are many in this direction. Until the very settlement, I did not meet a single church. The farmsteads through which I drove were all free, inhabited by the so-called military inhabitants, the descendants of the former Ostrogozh Cossacks and their assistants. This whole region was called Rybianskoye, and the inhabitants of the farms, like the cities, were, as it were, called rybians, unlike other Malorussians. They had a different dialect and costume from the others. Subsequently, having visited Volyn, I saw that both of them denounces purely Volyn immigrants in fish, while residents of other parts of the Ostrogozh district further south denounce their origin from other parts of the Malorussian region with their reprimands, clothes and home furnishings. The fish then lived generally prosperous; they had plenty of land, while others sent various trades and crafts.

Beli had to go by post office, then the path lay somewhat eastward, to Pushkin khutor, where the horses changed; there was a philistine post office, and by hiring postage, one could go to Yurasovka. Usually, leaving Voronezh, I reached Yurasovka the next day, but if I went by post office, then earlier. My mother's new house was about five chambers, covered with reeds and stood at the end of the settlement in a huge courtyard, where, in addition to the house, barns, sheds and stables, there were three huts, and in the back of the courtyard there was an orchard, tithes in three, resting on a hemp plant, bordered two rows of tall willows, behind which stretched an immeasurable swamp. Before, as they say, a river flowed here, but in my time it was all overgrown with reeds and sedge, with the exception of a few stretches, and that in summer they were densely covered with patches *.

* The water plant Nymphea is a pitcher.

There were a significant number of apple, pear and cherry trees in the garden, bearing fruit of delicious varieties. In one corner of the garden there was a scammer for bees, which my mother loved very much. The garden along the fence was planted with birches and willows, and I also planted maple and ash trees there. Horseback riding was a favorite pastime during the days of my mother's stay. I had a gray horse, bought by my father in the Caucasus, extremely fast and meek, although not without whims: as soon as I got off it, it was now struggling out of hand, kicking with its hind legs and running at full speed into it. /437/ nyushin. I rode it on both my own and other people's fields. Apart from this amusement, I sometimes went to shoot, but due to my myopia I was not distinguished by any special art; besides, I was sorry to exterminate innocent creatures. I remember one time I shot a cuckoo and killed it; I felt so sorry for her that for several days my conscience seemed to torment me. In summer vacations, my hunting exploits most successfully turned to blackbirds, which sat in thick clouds on cherries and devoured berries. There was no need to aim here: it was only worth throwing a charge of shot at the tops of the cherries and picking up the killed and shot birds in heaps, then giving them to the kitchen for cooking on the roast.

In addition to hunting and horse riding, I was fascinated by swimming on the water. In the absence of a real boat, I arranged for myself a ship of my own invention: these were two boards connected to each other, on which nights were placed 12. I sat down on those nights with an oar and went for a walk on the reeds. Since the plyos near my house were not large and, moreover, the dense roots of latati blocked the path of my improvised ship, I transported it seven miles away to someone else's estate, where the river was wider and cleaner, went there to swim and often spent whole days there, often forgetting and lunch.

In 1833, when I was already awaiting the end of my grammar school course, an unexpected and extremely unpleasant event happened in my house. My mother left for me in Voronezh for the winter Christmastide. At this time, robbers attacked our village house at night: they tied the watchman, crippled several courtyard people, hammering awls under their nails, burned with a candle, asking if the lady had money; then they went into the house, knocked the locks in the dressers and wardrobes and robbed everything. When the investigation began, it turned out that the culprit of this robbery was the landowner of the Valuisky district, the retired warrant officer Zavarykin, and one of our Maloruss peasants was in thought with him, the other was from strangers in the same settlement. The perpetrators were exiled to Siberia.

In the same year, the real cause of my father's death was revealed. The coachman, who was taking him to the forest, came to the priest and demanded that the people be gathered together with the ringing: he will announce the whole truth about his death at the master's grave. This was done. The coachman publicly, falling to the grave, which was near the church, cried out: “Master, Ivan Petrovich, forgive me! And you, Orthodox Christians, know that it was not horses who killed him, but we, the villains, and took the money from him, and bribed the court with them. " The investigation began, then the trial. Kucher denounced two lackeys, who, however, stubbornly locked themselves out of murder, but could not hide the fact that they were robbing money and bribing the court with them. The cook was also involved, but he locked himself in everything and, for lack of evidence, was left alone. The most important of the killers was already in the grave. It is remarkable that when the guilty began to be interrogated in court, the coachman said: “The master himself is to blame for tempting us; 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 - /438/

May 17, 1817 (Yurasovka, Voronezh province, Russian Empire) - April 18, 1885 (St. Petersburg, Russian Empire)

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 multivolume publication "Russian history in the biographies of its leaders", researcher of the socio-political and economic history of Russia and modern territory Ukraine, which Kostomarov called "southern Russia" or "southern edge". Pan-Slavist.

Biography of N.I. Kostomarova

Family and ancestors

N.I. Kostomarov

Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov 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 boyar's son Samson Martynovich Kostomarov, who served in the oprichnina of John IV, fled to Volyn, where he received an estate, which passed to his son, and then to his grandson Peter Kostomarov. Peter in the second half of the 17th century participated in Cossack uprisings, fled to the Moscow state and settled in the so-called Ostrogozhchina. One of the descendants of this Kostomarov in the 18th century married the daughter of the official Yuri Blum and received the Yurasovka settlement (Ostrogozhsky district of the Voronezh province) as a dowry, which was inherited by the historian's father, Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov, a wealthy landowner.

Ivan Kostomarov was born in 1769, served in the military service and, having retired, 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 "Voltairean", that is, a supporter of education and social equality. Later N.I. Kostomarov in his "Autobiography" wrote about the addictions of a parent:

Everything that we know today about childhood, family and early years of N.I. Kostomarov is drawn exclusively from his "Autobiographies", written by the historian in different versions already in his declining years. These are wonderful, in many ways works of art, in places resemble an adventure novel of the 19th century: very original types of heroes, an almost detective plot with murder, the subsequent, absolutely fantastic remorse 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 historian's autobiographical notes, his father was a tough, wayward, extremely hot-tempered man. Under the influence of French books, he did not put the dignity of nobility into anything and, in principle, did not want to be related to noble families. So, being already in his old years, Kostomarov Sr. decided to get married and chose a girl from his serfs - Tatyana Petrovna Mylnikova (in some publications - Melnikova), whom he sent to study in Moscow, to a private boarding school. It was in 1812, and the Napoleonic invasion prevented Tatyana Petrovna from getting an education. Among the Yurasov peasants long time there was a romantic legend about how "old Kostomar" drove the best three horses to save his former maid Tanyusha from burning Moscow. Tatyana Petrovna was clearly not indifferent to him. However, soon the courtyards turned Kostomarov against his serf. The landowner was in no hurry to marry her, and his 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 he 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 an ardent fantasy made him experience what he got to know from books.

In 1827, Kostomarov was sent to Moscow, to the boarding school of Mr. Ge, a lecturer in French at the University, but soon, due to illness, he was taken home. In the summer of 1828, young Kostomarov was supposed to return to the boarding house, but on July 14, 1828, his father was killed and robbed by the courtiers. For some reason, the father did not manage to adopt Nicholas in 11 years of his life, therefore, born out of wedlock, as a serf 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 dessiatines of fertile land - 50 thousand rubles in banknotes, as well as freedom to her son, she agreed without delay.

The murderers of I.P. Kostomarov presented the whole case as if an accident had occurred: the horses were carried, the landowner allegedly fell out of the cage and died. The loss of a large amount of money from his casket became known later, so no police inquiry was made. The true circumstances of the elder Kostomarov's death were revealed only in 1833, when one of the murderers, the lordly coachman, suddenly repented and pointed out to the police his accomplices, lackeys. N.I. Kostomarov wrote in his "Autobiography" that when the guilty began to be interrogated in court, the coachman said: “The master himself is to blame for tempting us; used to start telling everyone that there is no God, that nothing will happen in the next world, that only fools are afraid of the afterlife punishment - we have taken it into our heads that if nothing will happen in the next world, then everything can be done ... "

Later, the servants, stuffed with "Voltairean sermons", brought the robbers to the house of N.I. Kostomarov's mother, who was also robbed clean.

Left with little funds, 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 recollections, the teachers were bad and unscrupulous, they gave him little knowledge.

After graduating from a course in a gymnasium in 1833, Kostomarov entered first at Moscow, and then at Kharkov University at the Faculty of History and Philology. Professors at that time in Kharkov were unimportant. For example, Russian history was read by Gulak-Artyomovsky, although he was a well-known author of Little Russian poems, but distinguished, according to Kostomarov, in his lectures with empty rhetoric and bombast. However, Kostomarov studied diligently even with such teachers, but, as often happens with young people, he succumbed by nature to one or another hobby. So, settling with the professor of the Latin language P.I. Sokalsky, he began to study classical languages ​​and was especially carried away by the Iliad. V. Hugo's works turned him to the French language; then he began to study the Italian language, music, began to write poetry, and led an extremely chaotic life. He constantly spent his holidays in his village, fond of horse riding, boating, hunting, although his natural myopia and compassion for animals interfered with the last lesson. In 1835, young and talented professors appeared in Kharkov: A.O. Valitsky on Greek literature and M.M. Lunin, who lectured very fascinatingly, on general history. Under the influence of Lunin, Kostomarov began to study history, spent days and nights reading all kinds of historical books. He settled at Artyomovsky-Gulak and now led a very withdrawn lifestyle. 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 full-time student, lived with Artyomovsky for some time, teaching history to his children, then passed the candidate exam and then entered the Kinburn Dragoon Regiment as a cadet.

Kostomarov did not like the service in the regiment; with his comrades, due to the different mentality of their life, he did not become close. Carried away by the analysis of the affairs of the rich archive located in Ostrogozhsk, where the regiment was stationed, Kostomarov often skimped on service and, on the advice of the regimental commander, left it. Having worked in the archive all summer of 1837, he compiled a historical description of the Ostrogozhsk suburb regiment, attached many copies of interesting documents to it, and prepared it for publication. Kostomarov hoped to compose 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 whether 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 this time, he began to think about the question: why is there so little said in history about the masses? Wanting to understand folk psychology for himself, Kostomarov began to study the monuments of folk literature in the publications of Maksimovich and Sakharov, he 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. He only learned about the existence of the Ukrainian (Little Russian) language at Kharkov University. When in 1820-30 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 Artyomovsky and Meshlinsky, and partly of the Russian-language stories of Gogol, in which the Ukrainian flavor is lovingly presented. "Love for the Little Russian word fascinated me more and more," wrote Kostomarov.

An important role in the "Ukrainization" of Kostomarov belongs to II Sreznevsky, then a young lecturer at Kharkov University. Sreznevsky, although a Ryazan by birth, 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 a lot of its legends. This gave him the opportunity to compose "Zaporozhye Antiquity".

The 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 present life. For this purpose, he constantly made ethnographic excursions in the vicinity of Kharkov, and then and further. At the same time, 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 drew a flattering review from Belinsky. In 1838, Kostomarov was in Moscow and listened to Shevyrev's lectures there, thinking to take the exam for a master of Russian literature, but fell ill and returned to Kharkov, having managed to study German, Polish and Czech languages ​​during this time and publish his Ukrainian-language works.

Dissertation by N.I. Kostomarov

In 1840 N.I. Kostomarov passed the exam for the master of Russian history, and the next year he presented his thesis "On the meaning of union in the history of Western Russia." In anticipation of a dispute, he went to the Crimea for the summer, which he examined in detail. Upon his return to Kharkov, Kostomarov became close to Kvitka and also to a circle of Little Russian poets, among whom was Korsun, who published the collection "Snin". In the collection, Kostomarov, under the former pseudonym, published poetry and a new tragedy "No Pereyaslavskaya".

Meanwhile, the Kharkiv Archbishop Innokenty drew the attention of the higher authorities to the dissertation already published by Kostomarov in 1842. On the instructions of the Ministry of Public Education, Ustryalov made its assessment and recognized it as unreliable: Kostomarov's conclusions regarding the emergence of the union and its significance did not correspond to the generally accepted ones, which were considered mandatory for Russian historiography of this issue. The case got such a turn that the dissertation was burned and copies of it now constitute a great bibliographic rarity. However, in a revised form, this dissertation was later published twice, although under different names.

The story with the dissertation could have ended Kostomarov's career as a historian forever. 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, placed in the collection "Molodik" Betsky little Russian poems and his first articles on the history of Little Russia: "The first wars of Little Russian Cossacks with the Poles", etc.

Leaving his post at the university in 1843, Kostomarov became a history teacher at the Zimnitsky men's boarding school. Then he already began to work on the story of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. 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 Kiev educational district to be closer to the place of your hero's activity.

N.I.Kostomarov as a teacher

In the fall of 1844, Kostomarov was appointed a history teacher at a gymnasium in the city of Rivne, Volyn province. On the way, he visited Kiev, where he met with 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 acquired the common love of both students and comrades for his humanity and excellent presentation of the subject. As always, he enjoyed every free time to make excursions to numerous historical areas of Volyn, to make historical and ethnographic observations and to collect monuments of folk art; such were delivered to him by his disciples; all these materials collected by him were printed much later - in 1859.

Acquaintance with the historical places gave the historian the opportunity to later vividly depict many episodes from the history of the first Pretender and Bohdan Khmelnytsky. In the summer of 1845, Kostomarov visited the Holy Mountains, in the fall he was transferred to Kiev as a history teacher in the 1st gymnasium, and then he taught in various boarding schools, including in the women's - de Mellian (Robespierre's brother) and Zalesskaya (widow famous poet), and later at the Institute for Noble Maidens. His pupils and pupils recalled with delight about his teaching.

Here is what the famous painter Ge reports about him as a teacher:

"N. I. Kostomarov was the favorite teacher of all; 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 living, rich in pictures, the old life of Kiev poured, everyone turned into a hearing; 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 fellow Pole ... Nikolai Ivanovich never asked much, never gave points; it used to be our teacher tossed us a piece of paper and said quickly: “Here, we need to give points. So you do it yourself, ”he says; and what - no one was given more than 3 points. I’m 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 grade 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 in the women's boarding school, and then at the University. "

Kostomarov and Cyril and Methodius Society

In Kiev, Kostomarov became close 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 was then emerging under the influence of the works of Shafarik and other famous Western Slavists, Kostomarov and his comrades dreamed of uniting all 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, the projected federation was supposed to establish a liberal state structure, as it was understood in the 1840s, with the obligatory abolition of serfdom. A very peaceful circle of intellectual intellectuals, intending to act only by correct means, and, moreover, deeply religious in the person of Kostomarov, had the appropriate name - the Brotherhood of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. He seemed to indicate by this that the activities 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, wishing 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 it was engraved: "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, on whose work the ideas of the Pan-Slavic brotherhood were so reflected. Occasional "brothers" also attended meetings of the society, for example, the landowner N. I. Savin, who was familiar to Kostomarov from Kharkov. The notorious publicist P.A.Kulish also knew about the brotherhood. With his peculiar humor, he signed some of his messages to members of the brotherhood "Hetman Panka Kulish". Subsequently, in the III-rd department, this joke was estimated at three years of exile, although the "hetman" Kulish himself was not officially a member of the brotherhood. Just so it’s clear ...

June 4, 1846 N.I. Kostomarov was elected an adjunct in Russian history at Kiev University; classes in the gymnasium and other boarding schools, he now left. His mother also settled in Kiev with him and sold the part of Yurasovka that she had inherited.

Kostomarov was a professor at Kiev University for less than a year, but the students, with whom he behaved simply, loved him very much and were fond of his lectures. Kostomarov read several courses, including Slavic mythology, which he printed in Church Slavonic script, which was partly the reason for its prohibition. Only in the 1870s were copies printed 30 years ago put on sale. Kostomarov also worked on Khmelnitsky, using materials available in Kiev and the famous archaeologist Gr. Svidzinsky, and was also elected a member of the Kiev 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 of de Mellan. The wedding was scheduled for March 30th. Kostomarov was actively preparing for family life: he looked for a house on Bolshaya Vladimirskaya for himself and the bride, closer to the university, and ordered a piano for Alina from Vienna itself. After all, the historian's bride was an excellent performer - Franz Liszt himself admired her performance. 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 the protection of gendarmes to the Podolsk unit. Then, two days later, he was brought to say goodbye to his mother's apartment, where Alina Kragelskaya's bride, all in tears, was waiting.

“The scene was tearing apart,” wrote Kostomarov in his Autobiography. “Then they put me on the checkpoint and took me to Petersburg ... The state of my spirit was so deadly that I had the idea to starve myself to death on the way. I refused all food and drink and had the firmness to travel in this way for 5 days ... My guide from the quarter realized what was in my mind and began to advise me to leave my intention. "You," he said, "will not inflict death on yourself, I will have time to drive you, but you will hurt yourself: they will begin to interrogate you, and delirium will become with you from exhaustion and you will say too much about yourself and others." Kostomarov listened to the advice.

In St. Petersburg the chief of the gendarmes, Count Alexei Orlov, and his assistant, Lieutenant General Dubelt, talked to the arrested person. When the scientist asked permission to read books and newspapers, Dubelt said: "You can't, my good friend, you have 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 the case was hampered by their "intractability" by Taras Shevchenko (he received the most severe punishment) and Nikolai Gulak. There was no court. Kostomarov learned the Tsar's decision on May 30 from Dubelt: a year of imprisonment in a fortress and an indefinite exile "to one of the distant provinces." Kostomarov spent a year in the 7th chamber of the Alekseevsky ravelin, where his already not very good health suffered greatly. However, the mother was allowed to the prisoner, books were given and, by the way, he learned ancient Greek and Spanish there.

The historian's wedding with Alina Leontyevna was finally upset. The bride herself, being a romantic nature, was ready, like the wives of the Decembrists, to follow Kostomarov anywhere. But to her parents, marriage to a "political criminal" seemed inconceivable. At the insistence of her mother, Alina Kragelskaya married an old friend of their family, the landowner M. Kisel.

Kostomarov in exile

“For the compilation of a secret society, in which the unification 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 appointed the translator of the Provincial Government, but he had nothing to translate, and the governor (Kozhevnikov) entrusted him with managing, first, a criminal, and then a secret table, where mainly schismatic cases were carried out. This gave the historian the opportunity to thoroughly familiarize himself with the schism and, although not without difficulty, to become close to its followers. Kostomarov published the results of his studies of local ethnography in 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 Bohdan Khmelnitsky, receiving books from Gr. Svidzinsky. In exile, Kostomarov began to collect materials for studying the inner life of pre-Petrine Russia.

In Saratov, near Kostomarov, a circle of educated people was grouped, partly from exiled Poles, partly from Russians. In addition, Archimandrite Nikanor, later the archbishop of Kherson, II Palimpsestov, later a professor at Novorossiysk University, EA 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 mounds. Later, the exiled quite calmly left for Dubovka to get acquainted with the schism; 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 transferred them to D.L. Mordovtsev, who then, with his permission, used them. Mordovtsev at this 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 domestic 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, constituting a preface to his Khmelnytsky. In 1857, "Bogdan Khmelnitsky" finally appeared, albeit 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 turned seriously to the history of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. Despite the unprecedented success of the study and positive reviews about it in the capital, the author still had to return to Saratov, where he continued to study the inner 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 prohibiting him from serving in the academic part remained in force. In the spring of 1857, he arrived in St. Petersburg, submitted his research on the history of trade to print, and went abroad, where he visited Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland and Italy. In the summer of 1858, Kostomarov again worked in the St. Petersburg Public Library on the history of Stenka Razin's revolt and, at the same time, wrote, on the advice of N. V. Kalachov, with whom he became close then, the story "Son" (published in 1859); he also saw Shevchenko, who had returned from exile. In the fall, Kostomarov took the place of a clerk in the Saratov Provincial Committee on Peasant Affairs and thus connected his name with the liberation of the peasants.

Scientific, teaching, publishing activities of N.I. Kostomarova

At the end of 1858, N.I.Kostomarov's monograph "The Riot of Stenka Razin" was published, which finally made his name famous. The works of Kostomarov had, in a sense, the same meaning as, for example, Shchedrin's Provincial Essays. They were the first scientific works on Russian history in time, in which many issues were considered not according to the template of the official scientific direction, which was not obligatory until then; at the same time they were written and presented wonderfully artistically. In the spring of 1859, St. Petersburg University elected Kostomarov an extraordinary professor of Russian history. After waiting for the closure of the Committee on Peasant Affairs, Kostomarov, after a very cordial send-off in Saratov, came to St. Petersburg. But then it turned out that the case about his professorship did not work out, it was not approved, for the Tsar 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 brothers D.A. and N.A. Milyutin, Alexander II allowed N.I. Kostomarov as a professor, only not at Kiev University, as planned earlier, but at St. Petersburg.

Kostomarov's introductory lecture took place on November 22, 1859 and caused a thunderous ovation from the students and the audience. Professor of St. Petersburg University Kostomarov did not stay long (until May 1862). But even during this short time, he became known as a talented teacher and an outstanding lecturer. Several very respectable figures in the field of the science of Russian history emerged from Kostomarov's students, for example, Professor A.I. Nikitsky. The fact that Kostomarov was a great artist-lecturer, many memories of his students have survived. One of Kostomarov's listeners said this about his reading:

“Despite his rather motionless appearance, his quiet voice and not quite clear, lisping accent with a very noticeable pronunciation of words in the Little Russian way, he read remarkably. Whether he portrayed the Novgorod veche or the bustle of the Lipetsk battle, he had to close his eyes - and after a few seconds he seemed to be transported to the center of the depicted events, you see and hear everything that Kostomarov is talking about, who meanwhile stands motionless in the pulpit; his gaze is not looking at the listeners, but somewhere into the distance, as if it is something that is seeing clearly at this moment in the distant past; the lecturer even seems to be a person not of this world, but a native of the other world, who appeared on purpose in order to inform about the past, mysterious to others, but so well known to him. "

In general, Kostomarov's lectures greatly influenced the public's imagination, and his fascination with them can be partly explained by the lecturer's strong emotionality, constantly breaking through, despite his outward calmness. She literally "infected" the listeners. After each lecture, the professor was given a standing ovation, he was carried in his arms, etc. At St. Petersburg University, N.I. Kostomarov taught the following courses: History of Ancient Rus (from which an article was published on the origin of Rus with the Zhmud theory of this origin); ethnography of foreigners who lived in antiquity in Russia, starting with the Lithuanians; the history of the Old Russian regions (part of it was published under the title "Northern Russian People's Rights"), and historiography, from which only the beginning was printed, devoted to the analysis of the chronicles.

In addition to university lectures, Kostomarov also read public ones, which also enjoyed tremendous success. In parallel with his professorship, Kostomarov worked 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 over the issue of the origin of Rus also belongs to this time.

In 1860, Kostomarov became a member of the Archaeographic Commission, with the assignment to edit 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 published three volumes of "Proceedings of the Ethnographic Expedition to the West Russian Territory" (III, IV and V - in 1872-1878).

In St. Petersburg, near Kostomarov, a circle was formed, to which belonged: Shevchenko, however, who soon died, the Belozerskys, the bookseller Kozhanchikov, A. A. Kotlyarevsky, ethnographer S. V. Maksimov, astronomer A. N. Savich, priest Opatovich and many others. This circle in 1860 began to publish the Osnova magazine, in which Kostomarov was one of the most important collaborators. Here are published his articles: "On the federal beginning of ancient Russia", "Two Russian nationalities", "Features of the South Russian history" and others, 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 later used for the publication of the 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, P.V. Pavlov, a public figure, historian and professor at St. Petersburg University, was arrested and administratively exiled to Vetluga. He did not give a single lecture at the university, but at a public reading in favor of writers in need, he ended his speech on the millennium of Russia with the following words:

In protest against the repression of students and the expulsion of Pavlov, the 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 for all students wishing to study and not hold a meeting. To replace the closed university, due to the efforts of professors, including Kostomarov, a “free university”, as they said at the time, was opened in the hall of the City Duma. Kostomarov, despite all the persistent "requests" and even intimidation from the radical student committees, began to lecture there.

The "advanced" students and some of the professors who followed him, in protest against Pavlov's expulsion, demanded the immediate closure of all lectures in the City Duma. They decided to announce this action on March 8, 1862, right after the crowded lecture by Professor Kostomarov.

A participant in the student riots of 1861-62, and in the future, the famous publisher L.F. Panteleev, in his memoirs, describes this episode as follows:

“It was March 8, the big Duma hall was overcrowded not only with students, but also with a huge mass of the public, as rumors about some forthcoming demonstration had already penetrated into it. Now Kostomarov finished his lecture; the usual applause rang out. Then the student E.P. Pechatkin immediately entered the department and made a statement about the closure of the lectures with the same reasoning that was 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 to lecture," and at the same time added a few words that science should go its own way, not getting entangled in various everyday circumstances. At once there were applause and booing; but here under the very nose of Kostomarov E. Utin blurted out: “Scoundrel! second Chicherin [B. N. Chicherin then published, it seems, in Moskovskiye 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 BN extremely unpopular among young people; Kavelin defended him, seeing in him a great scientific value, although he did not share most of his views. (Approx. L. F. Panteleev)], Stanislav on the neck! " The influence enjoyed by N. Utin apparently haunted E. Utin, and he then 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 less impressionable person than Kostomarov; unfortunately, he lost all composure and, returning to the pulpit again, said, among other things: “... I don’t understand those gladiators who want to please the public with their sufferings (whom he meant understandable as an allusion to Pavlov). I see the Repetilovs in front of me, of whom the Rasplyuevs will emerge in a few years. " There was no more applause, but it seemed that the whole hall was hissing and whistling ... "

When this egregious case became known in wider public circles, it caused deep disapproval both among the university professors and among the students. Most of the teachers decided to continue giving lectures without fail - now out of solidarity with Kostomarov. At the same time, indignation at the historian's behavior increased among the radical student youth. The adherents of the ideas of Chernyshevsky, the future figures of "Earth and Freedom", unequivocally excluded Kostomarov from the lists of "guardians for the people", having hung the professor as a "reactionary".

Of course, Kostomarov could well have returned to the university and continued 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 left the walls of St. Petersburg University forever.

From that moment on, his break with N.G. Chernyshevsky and those close to him took place. Kostomarov finally goes over to liberal-nationalist positions, not accepting the ideas of radical populism. According to the people who knew him at that time, after the events of 1862, Kostomarov seemed to have “lost interest” in modernity, completely turning to the subjects of the distant past.

In the 1860s, Kiev, Kharkov and Novorossiysk universities tried to invite a historian to be 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's degree. Only in 1864, after he published the essay "Who was the first impostor?", Kiev University gave him a doctorate honoris causa (without defending his doctoral dissertation). Later, in 1869, St. Petersburg University elected him an honorary member, but Kostomarov never returned to teaching. In order to provide financial support 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 abandon his scientific activities. In the 1860s, he published "North Russian People's Rights", "History of the Time of Troubles", "Southern Russia at the end of the 16th century." (alteration of the destroyed dissertation). For research "The last years of the Commonwealth" ("Bulletin of Europe", 1869. Book 2-12) N.I. Kostomarov was awarded the Academy of Sciences Prize (1872).

last years of life

In 1873, after a trip to Zaporozhye, N.I. Kostomarov visited Kiev. Here he quite by chance found out that his former bride, Alina Leontyevna Kragelskaya, by that time already widowed and bearing the last name of her late husband, Kisel, was living in the city with her three children. This news deeply moved the 56-year-old Kostomarov, who was already exhausted by his life. Having received the address, he immediately wrote a short letter to Alina Leontyevna asking for a meeting. The answer was yes.

They met 26 years later, 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, - wrote NI Kostomarov, - I found an elderly lady and a sick woman, a mother of three half-grown children. Our meeting was as pleasant as it was sad: we both felt that the best time of our separation had passed irrevocably. "

Over the years, Kostomarov also did not look younger: 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 Leontyevna's invitation to stay at her estate Dedovtsy, and when he left for St. Petersburg, he took Alina's eldest daughter, Sophia, with him in order to arrange her at the Smolny Institute.

Only difficult life circumstances helped the old friends finally get closer. At the beginning of 1875, Kostomarov fell seriously ill. It was believed to be typhoid, but some doctors suggested, in addition to typhoid, a second stroke. When the patient was delirious, his mother Tatyana Petrovna died of typhus. Doctors for a long time hid her death from Kostomarov - his 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 the chest of drawers or light a pipe ...

And at that moment Alina Leontyevna came to the rescue. Having learned about the plight of Kostomarov, she gave up all her affairs and came to St. Petersburg. Their wedding took place already on May 9, 1875 in the estate of Alina Leontyevna Dedovtsy of the Priluksky district. The newlywed was 58 years old, and his chosen one was 45. Kostomarov adopted all the children of A.L. Kissel from the first marriage. The wife's family became his family as well.

Alina Leontyevna not only replaced Kostomarov's mother, taking over the organization of the life of the famous historian. She became an assistant in work, a secretary, a reader and even an adviser in scientific affairs. Kostomarov wrote and published his most famous works when he was already a married man. And in this there is a share of participation of his wife.

Since then, the historian spent the summer almost constantly in the village of Dedovtsy, 4 versts from the town of Priluk (Poltava province) and at one time was even an honorary trustee of the Prilutsk men's gymnasium. In the winter he lived in St. Petersburg, surrounded by books and continued to work, despite the breakdown and almost complete loss of sight.

Among the latest works, he can be called "The Beginning of Autocracy in Ancient Rus" 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 magazine "Beseda" for 1872, and the continuation was partly in "Russian Mysl" 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 Creativity"; a part was simply lost (see "Kievskaya Starina", 1891, No. 2, Documents, etc. Art. 316). The end of this large-scale work was not written by the historian.

At the same time, Kostomarov wrote "Russian History in the Biographies of its Main Figures", which was also unfinished (ends with the biography of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna) and major works on the history of Little Russia, as a continuation of previous works: "Ruin", "Mazepa and Mazepa", "Pavel Half-work ". Finally, he wrote a number of autobiographies that have more than just personal meaning.

Constantly ill since 1875, Kostomarov was especially damaged by the fact that on January 25, 1884, he was knocked down by the carriage under the arch of the General Staff. Similar cases had happened to him before, for the half-blind, and besides, the historian carried away by his thoughts, often did not notice what was happening around him. But before Kostomarov was lucky: he got off with minor injuries and quickly recovered. The incident of January 25 knocked him down completely. In early 1885, the historian fell ill and died on April 7. He was buried at the Volkovo cemetery on the so-called "literary bridge", a monument was erected on his grave.

Assessment of the personality of N.I. Kostomarov

Outwardly, N.I. Kostomarov was of average height and far from handsome. The boarding school students where he taught as a young man called him a "sea scarecrow." The historian had a surprisingly awkward figure, loved to wear excessively spacious clothes that hung on him like on a hanger, was extremely absent-minded and very short-sighted.

Spoiled from childhood by the excessive attention of his mother, Nikolai Ivanovich was distinguished by complete helplessness (mother all her life tied a tie to her son and handed him a handkerchief), but at the same time, he was unusually capricious in everyday life. This was especially evident in mature years. For example, one of Kostomarov's frequent diners recalled that the elderly historian did not hesitate to be capricious at the table even in the presence of guests: did not see how they killed whitefish or ruffs, or pike perch, and therefore proved that the fish was bought inanimate. Most of all he found fault with the butter, saying that it was bitter, although it was bought in the best store. "

Fortunately, wife Alina Leontyevna had a talent for turning the prose of life into a game. Jokingly, she often called her husband "my old thing" and "my spoiled old man." Kostomarov, in turn, jokingly called her "lady".

Kostomarov's mind was extraordinary, knowledge is very extensive and not only in those areas that served as the subject of his special studies (Russian history, ethnography), but also in such, for example, as theology. Archbishop Nikanor, a well-known theologian, used to say that he did not 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 was also very fond of animals. They say that while working, he constantly kept his beloved cat next to 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 his cat business, the feather in Nikolai Ivanovich's hand froze powerlessly ...

Contemporaries condemned Kostomarov for the fact that he always knew how to find some negative quality 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 in him and good qualities... In his behavior, a spirit of contradiction was often expressed, but in fact he was extremely gentle 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 endure through the years and all the trials, cannot but inspire respect. In addition, Kostomarov also possessed extraordinary civic courage, did not renounce his views and convictions, never followed the lead either in power (the story of the Cyril and Methodius Society) or among the radical part of the student body (the "Duma" incident).

Remarkable is Kostomarov's religiosity, stemming not from general philosophical views, but 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 dear to every feature of church rituals. Attending divine services was for him not just a duty, which he did not shy away from even during a severe illness, but also a great aesthetic pleasure.

Historical conception of N.I. Kostomarov

Historical concepts of N.I. Kostomarov, for more than a century and a half, have been causing ongoing controversy. In the works of researchers, no unambiguous assessment of its multifaceted, sometimes contradictory historical heritage has yet been developed. In the extensive historiography of both the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods, he appears as a peasant, noble, noble-bourgeois, liberal-bourgeois, bourgeois-nationalist and revolutionary-democratic historian at the same time. In addition, there are frequent characteristics of Kostomarov as a democrat, socialist and even a communist (!), Pan-Slavist, Ukrainianophile, federalist, historian of folk life, folk spirit, historian-populist, historian-lover of truth. Contemporaries often wrote about him as a romantic historian, lyric poet, artist, philosopher and sociologist. Descendants, grounded in Marxist-Leninist theory, found that Kostomarov was a historian, weak as a dialectician, but a very serious historian and analyst.

Today's Ukrainian nationalists willingly raised Kostomarov's theories on the shield, finding in them a historical justification for modern political insinuations. Meanwhile, the general historical concept of the long-deceased historian is quite simple and it makes no sense to look for manifestations of nationalist extremism in it, and even more so - attempts to exalt the traditions of one Slavic people and belittle the importance of another - is completely meaningless.

Historian N.I. Kostomarov put the opposition of state and popular principles in the general historical process of development of Russia. 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 centralizing policy of the great princes and tsars, the national principle with the communal principle, the political form of expression of which was the national assembly or veche. It was the veche (and not the communal, as among the “populists”) principle that embodied in N.I. Kostomarov, the system of federal structure that most corresponded to the conditions of Russia. This system made it possible to maximize the potential of the people's initiative - the true driving force of history. The state-centralizing principle, according to Kostomarov, acted as a regressive force that weakened 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 principle. The specific-veche beginning, according to Kostomarov, “was clothed in a new image,” that is, the image of the Cossacks. And the uprising of Stepan Razin became last fight people's democracy with the victorious autocracy.

The personification of the autocratic principle in Kostomarov is precisely the Great Russian people, i.e. a set of Slavic peoples who inhabited the northeastern lands of Russia before the Tatar invasion. The South Russian lands were less affected by foreign influence, 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, which states that the South Russian nationality has always been more democratic, while the Great Russian has other qualities, namely, a creative beginning. The Great Russian nationality created a monarchy (that is, a monarchical system), which gave it priority importance in the historical life of Russia.

The opposite of the "people's spirit" of "southern Russian nature" (in which "there was nothing violent, leveling; there was no politics, there was no cold calculation, firmness on the way to the appointed goal") and "Great Russians" (which are characterized by a slavish willingness to submit to autocratic power, the desire "to give strength and formality to the unity of their land"), in the opinion of 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 peoples' rights" (Novgorod, Pskov, Vyatka) and southern regions N.I. Kostomarov explained by the influence of the "South Russians", who allegedly founded the North Russian centers with their veche freemen, while such a freeman in the south was suppressed by the northern autocracy, breaking through only in the way of life 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 "popular" factor in the historical process of the formation of statehood, as well as the deliberate opposition of the contemporary scientific tradition.

Opponents of "Ukrainianization", in turn, already then attributed to Kostomarov nationalism, justification of separatist tendencies, and in his enthusiasm for the history of Ukraine and Ukrainian language saw only a tribute to the Pan-Slavic fashion that captured the best minds in 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 perceived with a plus sign and what should be displayed as a minus sign. Nowhere does he unequivocally condemn autocracy, recognizing its historical expediency. Moreover, the historian does not say that specific-vechevaya democracy is unambiguously good and acceptable for the entire population of the Russian Empire. It all 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 basic provisions of Slavophil theories. This is a belief in the future historical role of the Slavs, and, above all, of 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 the unification of all Slavs into one state, but in a federal state, with the preservation of the national and religious characteristics of individual peoples. He hoped that with long-term communication in a natural, peaceful way, the difference between the Slavs would be smoothed out. Like the Slavophiles, Kostomarov was looking for an ideal in the national past. This ideal past could have been for him only 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. 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 a researcher with psychology and the true past of each nation. He was interested not only in Russian, but also in general Slavic ethnography, especially the ethnography of South Russia.

Throughout the 19th century, Kostomarov was honored as the forerunner of "populist" historiography, an oppositionist to the autocratic system, a fighter for the rights of small peoples of the Russian Empire. In the XX century, his views were recognized in many ways "backward". With his national - federal theories, he did not fit into either the Marxist scheme of social formations and class struggle, or into the great - power politics of the Soviet empire, which was already assembled by Stalin. The uneasy relations between Russia and Ukraine in recent decades have again imposed the stamp of some "false prophecies" on his writings, giving rise to the current especially zealous "self-styledists" 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 peoples inhabiting it. The scientific work of the historian never presupposes 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, poet, romantic, scientist, who until the end of his life worked on comprehending a new and promising for the 19th century problem of the influence of an ethnic group on history. It makes no sense to interpret the scientific heritage of the great Russian historian in another way, a century and a half after the writing of his main works.

1. Basic biographical facts and socio-political views

2. Major scientific works

3. Historical concept and scientific methodology

4. Assessment of the scientific heritage

Bibliography

1. Basic biographical facts and socio-political views

The life and career of Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov was by no means strewn with roses. Many times he had to overcome obstacles that could, if not break, then break a person.

He was born on May 4, 1817 from the marriage of a landowner with his serf. In 1828, the life of Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov tragically ended, he was killed by servants who decided to rob him. The bloody body of the father remained in the child's memory for the rest of his life. The widowed mother had to use a lot of efforts to save her son from the fate of a serf: the deceased's nephews strove to turn the boy into a lackey - the trouble was that the father did not have time to adopt him.

The next stage of his life is Kharkov University, where Kostomarov spent four years, from 1833 to 1836. Against the gray background of incompetent university professors, the professor of general history Mikhail Mikhailovich Lukin and the famous philologist, future academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevsky stood out for their outstanding talents. It was they who instilled in the student a love of history, literature and ethnography.

In 1840, Kostomarov successfully passed the exams for a master's degree, and a year later presented a dissertation on the Brest Church Union in 1596. It was she who gave him another trouble. Her defense did not take place: the content of the work, his ideas were met with hostility by the Kharkiv Archbishop Innokentiy Borisov, they did not find support from the well-known historian of the conservation direction Nikolai Gerasimovich Ustryalov. The final verdict was passed by the Minister of Education Sergei Semenovich Uvarov, who ordered that all printed copies of the dissertation be burned.

A new dissertation, this time on a less acute topic - "On the historical significance of Russian folk poetry" - Nikolai Ivanovich defended in 1844. In it, Kostomarov expressed an idea, which he later adhered to throughout his entire career, about the need to study the life of the people.

Kostomarov was appointed a history teacher at the Rivne gymnasium. However, Nikolai Ivanovich had a chance to pull the strap of the teacher of the provincial gymnasium only a few months. He quickly gained a reputation as a teacher who knew his subject and a brilliant lecturer, and this provided him with a new appointment - to the First Kiev Gymnasium. But even here he did not stay long - the department of Russian history at Kiev University was waiting for him.

In Kiev, Kostomarov met with the collegiate secretary Nikolai Ivanovich Gulak, with the author of "Kobzar" poet Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko. The communication resulted in the creation of a secret political organization called the Cyril and Methodius Society - after the creators of the Slavic alphabet. This happened in late 1845 - early 1846. On a denunciation, members of the society were arrested. Kostomarov was guilty and, with the consent of Nicholas I, determined the punishment: after a year's imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress, he was sent into exile in Saratov with a ban on publishing his works.

The arrest and exile of Kostomarov turned into a personal tragedy for him for many years. He was engaged to Alina Leontyevna Krachelskaya. However, the wedding scheduled for March 30, 1847 did not take place due to the arrest of the groom. At the insistence of her mother, her daughter married in 1851.

The death of Nicholas I caused a change in the fate of the exiled. On May 31, 1755, Kostomarov turned to Alexander II with a petition. Emperor Alexander II honored Nikolai Ivanovich with an "eye of compassion": he was allowed to move to the capital and publish his works.

When Academician Ustryalov resigned, Kostomarov received the right to take the department of Russian history at St. Petersburg University. On November 20, 1859, Nikolai Ivanovich gave an introductory lecture, which was enthusiastically greeted by the audience, and among them were not only students, but also professors and officials of the ministry. It would seem that the next take-off of the scientist's career began. However, brilliantly and unexpectedly begun - after all that had been experienced - it ended just as unexpectedly.

The triumph of Kostomarov's professorial popularity was interrupted by the same students who turned their backs on him in 1862. At the beginning of this year, the university stopped classes due to student unrest. The students organized courses of public lectures identical to those of the university. It was the so-called "free university", in which Kostomarov also lectured.

On March 5, 1862, Professor P.V. Pavlov gave a lecture "The Millennium of Russia". The next day, Pavlov was arrested and ordered to be exiled to Kostroma. Students in protest suggested that the professors stop lecturing. Kostomarov, together with other professors, petitioned the Minister of Public Education to release Pavlov from severe punishment, but did not want to refuse to lecture. The students condemned his act.

In 1875, Kostomarov was destined to meet again with Alina Leontyevna. By this time she was widowed and had three daughters. The groom (and he never married all these years) turned 58. He looked sick, this half-blind man. However, mutual affection remained, and in May 1875 they got married. Nikolai Ivanovich spent the last 10 years of his life surrounded by the touching care of his wife. Moreover, she became an indispensable helper for the half-blind historian - he, who had almost completely lost his sight, dictated his latest works to her.

2. Major scientific works

Kostomarov publishes in Sovremennik in 1860 "An Outline of the Domestic Life and Morals of the Great Russian People in the 16th and 17th Centuries", and in the "Russian Word" the work: "Russian foreigners. The Lithuanian tribe and its relationship to Russian history ", and, finally, in 1863, one of the basic research Kostomarova "Northern Russian people's rule in the days of the specific-veche structure of Novgorod-Pskov-Vyatka".

Judging by the most complete bibliography of Kostomarov's works, compiled by F. Nikolaychik and published in the journal Kievskaya Starina (1885), he penned 158 original) works devoted to the history of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, not counting his series Russian History in the biographies of its main figures ", in six editions of which 31" biographies "of historical figures of our country for the X-XVI centuries are placed. and 19 figures for the XVII-XVIII centuries; most of the essays were written specifically for this edition. This is only in Russian. He also wrote up to a dozen works of art in Russian and more than a dozen in Ukrainian. Thus, every year Kostomarov published, starting in 1858, an average of ten works, not counting documentary publications. This is a real labor feat of a scientist.

Kostomarov's cycle of works on the history of Ukraine in total makes up a good half of the historian's creative heritage. This gives the right to call Kostomarov the first historian of Ukraine, the founder of Ukrainian historiography. Until now, this merit of Kostomarov has been misinterpreted. In a touching unity, historiographers of the Ukrainian nationalist school and Marxist-Leninist historiography "count" Kostomarov as the founder of Ukrainian nationalist historiography. Meanwhile, none of Kostomarov's major historical works contains a grain of the idea of ​​the superiority of Ukrainians over other nations, not a single characteristic of the exclusivity of this ethnic group, or Russophobia, or Polonophobia, or anti-Semitism. This legend about Kostomarov's Ukrainian nationalism is a distant echo of the reaction of Russian and Polish noble historiography, as well as journalism, to Kostomarov's struggle for the right of Ukrainians to have their own history, develop their own culture, preserve and develop their national traditions.

3. Historical concept and scientific methodology

Kostomarov lacked a harmonious system of views on the historical process. Historical views of Nikolai Ivanovich were fragmented, fragmented, lack of understanding of the historical process taken as a whole. In his writings, we will not find the complex interaction of all the elements that influenced the course of history. In contrast to the harmonious concept of S. M. Solovyov, in the historical views of Kostomarov one can find contradictions and gaps. And if N.I. Kostomarov left a noticeable mark on Russian historical science, it was thanks to his talented research on specific events in Russian history, and by no means to his theoretical works.

The proportion of theoretical works in the work of N. I. Kostomarov is not great - in fact, these include two small-sized articles: "On the attitude of Russian history to geography and ethnography" and "Thoughts on the federal beginning of Ancient Rus".

A brief excursion into the past of historical science allowed Kostomarov to outline the stages of its development. On initial stage it was distinguished by its "anecdotal character of presentation": the historian drew attention to events that "aroused curiosity" that took place in the political sphere and in the private life of people who "stood on the brow of government."

The next stage in the development of science is characterized by the desire of historians to establish internal connections between events, and since the force that unites these events into one whole was the state, the attention of historians, as before, focused on political history, convenient for a coherent presentation. The subject of coverage was the royal courts, government receptions, wars, diplomacy, legislation. At the same time, the life of the people in all its manifestations (habits, customs, concepts, domestic life, aspirations, etc.) was ignored. According to the figurative expression of Kostomarov, history was reduced to a description of the upper branches of a tree, without touching the trunk and roots.

At the third stage, historians turned to the description of the inner life. "Readers often praised such descriptions, but followed them and could not stand any of them." This was due to the fact that historians paid little attention to the "subtle differences of place" where events unfolded.

Ultimately, Nikolai Ivanovich pronounces a harsh sentence on his predecessors; they were doing the wrong thing. "Historians portrayed signs of life, not life itself, objects and things of people, and not people themselves." The object of the study of history should be the moral organization of people, “the totality of human concepts and views, the motives that guided human actions, the prejudices that bound them, the aspirations that carried them away, the physiognomy of their societies. In the foreground, the historian should have the active power of the human soul, and not what has been done by man. " The latter is the subject of another science - archeology. "The goal of archeology is to study past human life and things, the goal of history is to study the life of people."

So, the subject of history, according to Kostomarov, should not be historical events, their mutual connection and influence, but the motives of human deeds, the disclosure of the "human soul" or "people's spirit". In Kostomarov's view, “human soul” and “people's spirit” are not historical categories, but originally given to each nation, remaining unchanged throughout its history. Hence follows the general conclusion about the paramount importance of ethnographic data for the historian. Since the historian does not have sources for studying the human soul in the distant past, he is given the opportunity to overturn the modern observations of ethnographers into this past. In other words, the historian is obliged to study modern life in order to start from the known and move towards the unknown.

If S. M. Solovyov deduced the peculiarity of the historical development of peoples from the peculiarities of the geographical environment, and put “the nature of the tribe” in second place, then N. I. Kostomarov, on the contrary, attached decisive importance to the mental makeup or, using modern terminology, to mentality.

Guided by the thesis about the dominant influence of the psychological makeup of people on history, Kostomarov draws collective portraits of three Slavic peoples: Russian, Ukrainian and Polish. The differences existing at the present time between them developed in ancient times, in prehistoric times, but they make themselves felt in modern times.

The Russian people, according to Kostomarov, are endowed with such attractive qualities as discipline, organization, gravitation towards the state principle, which culminated in the creation of a strong monarchical state. negative traits as slavish obedience, love for the master, communal property, "where the innocent was responsible for the guilty, the hardworking worked for the lazy." The Russians were also not adorned by the lack of firm faith in God, adherence to "extreme unbelief, materialism."

The Ukrainian people, Kostomarov believed, on the contrary, are characterized by soulfulness, love for freedom, craving for nature, "a developed feeling in the co-presence of God." As a result, the Russian people created their own statehood, while the Ukrainian could not do this and had to be content with joining other states - first Poland, and then Russia.

The psychic properties of the Poles Kostomarov explained the fate of the Commonwealth, its disappearance from the map. However, the fact that the mental makeup of people cannot overshadow the need to study social relations, first of all, follows at least from the fact that historians have developed completely dissimilar ideas about this mental makeup of the people. And this is understandable: the influence of the subjective perception of the object is especially strong here. Solovyov, for example, emphasized other properties of the character of the Russian and Ukrainian than Kostomarov. The South Russian squad, according to Solovyov, was distinguished by the swiftness of the attack, but was devoid of stamina. On the contrary, the population of Northern Russia could not boast of the swiftness of the onslaught, impulsive movements, but they were characterized by firmness, slowness, deliberation and caution in defending what they acquired. The South Russians, in the words of the chronicle cited by Soloviev, "multiplied the Russian land", established its borders, while the northerners were to defend the acquired, to create the unity of the Russian lands.

The next subject of the study of history is the study of the federal system of the Russian lands. " Russian state, - wrote Kostomarov in his "Autobiography", - consisted of parts that previously lived their own independent life and long after that the life of the parts was expressed by excellent aspirations in the general state system. Finding and grasping these features of the life of the people of the Russian state was for me the task of my studies in history. "

Kostomarov counted six nationalities that existed in Russia in the specific veche period; South Russian, Severskaya, Great Russian, Belarusian, Pskov and Novgorod. The differences between them caused centrifugal forces, the desire to isolate, but centrifugal forces were opposed by centripetal forces that supported the unity of the Russian land. There were three such forces: “1) origin, life and language; 2) a single princely family; 3) Christian faith and one church ”. As a result of the interaction of these forces in Russia, a federal system was formed, the stronghold of which became the southern Russian lands. However, the federal principle turned out to be powerless to resist the statehood of the Great Russians that was forming under the aegis of the Mongol-Tatars and, ultimately, fell.

Kostomarov remembered about the federal beginning in Stenka Razin's Riot. Kostomarov viewed this movement as a belated outburst of forces expressing a federal principle: freedom of the individual, the will of a living people against uniformity, in which there was a "preponderance of duty over personal freedom." "In the struggle between these two ways of Russian life - specific veche and autocratic - all the ins and outs of our old descriptiveness." The federal beginning in the 16th - 17th centuries acquired a new look, it found expression in the Cossacks, who frantically resisted the new order. It revived "the old half-extinct elements of the veche freemen" who fought against autocracy. But this libertine lacked creative principles, she rampaged, terrified and ultimately was sterile.

The historical views of N.I. Kostomarov were formed during the years when the so-called state school was gaining strength in Russian historiography. For Solovyov and the "statists", the creator of history was the state, to the study of which the attention of historians should be riveted. In contrast to this concept - harmonious and embracing the main aspects of the life of human society - Kostomarov cut off its main content from historical science: the study of the results of human activity. He gave history only a limited right to investigate the human soul and such an amorphous concept as a people. It is no coincidence that therefore Kostomarov did not have supporters, and his calls to study the soul and the federal principle did not find followers. This happened, probably, also because the fulfillment of Kostomarov's calls required from historians the same literary talents that God had awarded him himself. As a result, the state school flourished until the revolution, while with the death of Kostomarov in 1885, his appeals went into oblivion.

The popularity of N.I. Kostomarov was created not by his excursions into the theory of historical science, but by his specific research. After the death of Karamzin and until the zenith of V.O. His works have been reprinted many times. He was gladly given their pages by magazines that printed essays with continuation in several numbers. Nikolai Ivanovich's monographs were published in separate editions and reprinted. Finally, three editions published the collected works of N. I. Kostomarov under the general title "Historical Monographs and Research".

What attracted him to his work? First of all, his desire to reveal the motives of human actions, to investigate not processes, but the living features of human nature. Possessing the gift of an artist of words, he did not create icon-painting images, but living people with their merits and demerits. Vividly reproducing the era under study, the historian empathized with the events described, tried to visualize how they developed.

While working on the monograph “The Time of Troubles of the Moscow State at the Beginning of the 17th Century,” Kostomarov went to Kostroma and Yaroslavl, where the most important events of those times took place. The work on "The Riot of Stenka Razin" called him on the road through the Saratov province to repeat the path of the Razin gangs. He visited Novgorod and Pskov, carefully studied their topography before sitting down to table and describing the last days of the independent existence of these feudal republics.

On the pages of NI Kostomarov's works there are many dialogues and monologues borrowed from sources, quotes from sources, colorful descriptions of events. All this enlivens the text and increases the interest of readers in it.

The choice of topics was of no small importance in Kostomarov's work. As an object of his study, Nikolai Ivanovich, as a rule, chose not the everyday life of society, often gray and monotonous, but critical epochs saturated with drama.

Critics of Kostomarov noted that he is not always accurate in reproducing facts, is too trusting in folklore, and is able to pass off rumors as a reliable fact. There is a good deal of truth in these reproaches. Before the author historical writing, using the fictionalization of the described events, the question has always arose and arises: how to overcome the contradiction between the artistry of the form and the precise presentation of facts and events. NI Kostomarov did not give up his right to speculation. He replied to his critics: "If some fact had never happened, but there would have been faith and conviction that it happened, it would also be an important historical fact for me."

4. Assessment of the scientific heritage

The huge creative heritage of N.I. Kostomarov is far from equal, as are his views. Therefore, the reader who "discovers" Kostomarov must be oriented in all the complexities of the worldview of this outstanding personality.

All his works are permeated by the idea of ​​the people as the subject of history and the main object of interest in historical science. At the very beginning of his career, Kostomarov became convinced that in historical literature "a poor peasant, a farmer-toiler, as if it does not exist for history," and set himself the task of returning the "peasant" to his place in the historical life of his fatherland.

Kostomarov saw in the natural historical development of Russia the formation of the system of "people's rule", which was forcibly interrupted by an external force - the Tatar-Mongol invasion and yoke, which led to "monocracy". Of course, that federal principle in Ancient Russia and that system of "people's rule" that Kostomarov idealized do not look so ideal in modern historiography, but the fact that Kostomarov showed the alternative of two forms of development of the state structure of Russia was and remains his great merit.

The weakness of this conceptual scheme consisted in the fact that Kostomarov, firstly, from the internal reasons due to which the autocracy was established in Russia, put forward only the factor of the characteristics of the character of Russians and Ukrainians. In general, Kostomarov's ethnography, as a reflection of his fundamental idea of ​​"folk history", always let him down when the historian tried to explain certain major historical events with purely ethnographic reasons.

Kostomarov was the founder of the scientific historiography of Ukraine. In the collection of his works "Historical Monographs and Research", he included 11 monographs on the history of Ukraine, including the monograph "Bohdan Khmelnytsky", which is three volumes of this collection. These works investigate the dramatic history of Ukraine from ancient times to the 18th century. Kostomarov introduced into the scientific circulation a huge number of new sources on the history of the Ukrainian lands and the Ukrainian people, he was one of the first source researchers and archaeographers of the richest corpus of monuments, from chronicles and office documentation to people's "thoughts".

The creative heritage of Kostomarov the historian is divided into three groups of works: the first - purely research monographs; the second - popular science books included in the series "Russian history in the biographies of its main figures"; the third is historical journalism. If the first group of works represents an important contribution to Russian historiography, then the second is distinguished, first of all, by the narrative skill of their author, his rare ability to combine elements of research with a certain compilation.

As B.G. Litvak rightly notes, admiring the narrative skill of Kostomarov, the reader should not forget about the need for a critical attitude to his legacy, as well as to the legacy of other classics of historical science.

Bibliography

1. V. A. Zamlinsky The life and work of N.I.Kostomarov // Questions of history.-1991.-№1.-С.234 - 242.

2. Historians of Russia. Biographies. / Comp. A.A. Chernobaev. - M .: ROSSPEN, 2001.

3. Kostomarov N.I. Collected Works. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 1996.

4. Pavlenko N. Thorny path to glory // Science and life. - 1994. - №4. - S. 86 - 94.

5. Portraits of Historians: Time and Fate / Ed. G.N. Sevostyanova. - S .: Jerusalem, 2000.

6. Fedorov V.A. Historian, ethnographer, writer (to the 180th anniversary of the birth of N.I. Kostomarov) // Bulletin of Moscow State University. History. - 1997. - No. 6. - S. 3 - 21.

7. Cherepnin L.V. Domestic historians. - M .: Nauka, 1984.

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History test

Watch out for history!
To the 200th anniversary of Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov / May, 2017

If Nikolai Ivanovich, a native of the Voronezh province, a member of the Imperial Academy, a full state councilor, had learned how his legacy would be disposed of in the 20th and 21st centuries, he might have revised his Ukrainophile views. If Kostomarov could have foreseen that Kharkov, whose university he graduated from, would find himself 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." Yet Kostomarov and ukrofilia

Nikolay Kostomarov. Artist Nikolay Ge. 1870 year

However, today Kostomarov can be perceived as almost the banner of the Maidan. Under Soviet rule, he was rightly attributed to the fighters against serfdom, talented popularizers of folk culture. Populism with a Little Russian flavor was in the 19th century a special form of frond. Completely Russian people, who absolutely did not know the Little Russian culture, the local dialect, rushed to learn the "Ukrainian language". From this cohort was Kostomarov, and, for example, the Russian noblewoman Maria Vilinskaya, who became a classic of Ukrainian literature under the pseudonym Marko Vovchok ...
Ukrainians are a form of 19th century liberalism, a kind of dissidence. We observed the same phenomenon, adjusted for the wind of change, during perestroika. The Russian-speaking liberal intelligentsia of the Ukrainian SSR rushed to destroy Soviet Union in partnership with Bandera, and now grieves about the abolished research institutes, outraged by the revival of Nazism ... Is the outstanding Russian historian guilty Nikolay 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 note"

Was he Russian or Ukrainian?
200 years ago, on May 16, Nikolay Ivanovich Kostomarov was born / Present past / People and time

Two beginnings
Andrey Teslya, historian

The fate of Nikolai Kostomarov, including the posthumous one, was both bizarre and natural. To begin with, it is difficult to determine whether he was “Russian” or “Ukrainian”, even if we are guided by his own assessments.

When Kostomarov was the creator and one of the key characters in the Cyril and Methodius Society (1845-1847), the first modern nationalist Ukrainian 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 the Ukrainian one, and if both, then how to divide its scientific and educational heritage between the 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 "take into the shadows" those features that prevent a straightforward interpretation.

Kostomarov was a typical - in the sense of not at all "averaging", but the completeness of the manifestation of the type - a romantic historian: the purpose of historical work for him was the reproduction of the past, he sought to convey the "spirit" of the past, while understanding the latter not "bright events" and " great personalities ”, but above all the history of the“ people ”. It was the people who acted for him as a true hero of history, science had to tell about him, about his past - in order to become an instrument of self-awareness in the present.

The above outwardly contradicts the list of the main works of Kostomarov - from Bogdan Khmelnitsky (1858), who made him famous throughout reading Russia, to the later created Russian history in the biographies of its main figures. Kostomarov always wrote either about big personalities, at least persons, noticeable in history, or about large-scale events such as "Time of Troubles" or "The Last Years of the Commonwealth". And yet for him there was no contradiction in this - the people are manifested in their outstanding people, they become visible in great events. And in order to understand, realize these events, one must know and understand everyday life, the usual, ordinary way of life - hence its extensive everyday descriptions.

He saw Russian history as the history of a confrontation between two successively replacing principles - federalist, veche and state, autocratic. The first stayed in the south for the longest, among the "South Russian people", the second found its bearer in the Muscovite state, created by the Great Russians. Kostomarov saw late manifestations of the first beginning in popular riots, in the Cossack region.

"We sympathize with them," Kostomarov argued, "because they are an expression of the desire for freedom, but their success, if they had won the victory, would have become just 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 state people of Moscow evoke a feeling of moral indignation, but only such people could achieve historical success.

Kostomarov's books were read with a sympathetic look - the reader often read even more than the author had in mind, it is no coincidence that his works were so popular among the populists. They saw in them not so much a story about a Cossack freeman, but about the history of the past Russian freedom - in Ukraine, Novgorod, Pskov, as well as the ability of the Russian people to decide their own destiny, 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 in a completely different way than during his lifetime.

His works are often reprinted, although these are the texts of a man who clearly did not understand and did not like Great Russian life. He felt himself to be a representative of the Little Russian nationality, the care of which he devoted much effort to.

In 1846, having founded the secret Cyril and Methodius brotherhood in Kiev, Kostomarov, together with P. Kulish, wrote small essays, which for the first time spoke about the 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 speaks of the opposite.

The lands of Southwestern Russia at the beginning of the 19th century noticeably felt the effect of the imperial center, which came here with its own standards, including in the sphere of culture and historical memory. The most important text on history, which became the canon of both the literary language and the model of the past, was N. Karamzin's History of the Russian State, which was published for the entire first quarter of a century. It was not the history of the people, but the history of statehood, reduced to the history of the rulers. Western Russia, which until recently lived as a part of other states, simply dropped 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 then there were people who wished to protect the originality of Little Russian life.

Kostomarov set a goal - to identify historical features different parts of the Russian people, regardless of their participation in state building. He wrote: "To find and grasp these features of the people's life in parts of the Russian state was for me the task of my studies in history." But it is very important to emphasize: Kostomarov never spoke about the non-Russianness of the Ukraine he describes. On the contrary, he tried to give ideas about the Russian people a more complex character, taking into account the “peculiar features of the South Russian nationality”: “It turns out that the Russian people are not united; there are two of them, and who knows, maybe more of them will be discovered, and nevertheless they are Russians, ”he wrote in the program text“ Two Russian Nationalities ”.

Unlike later Ukrainian nationalists, Kostomarov declared the need to "think in the 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 all-Russian world", with the "Russian continent." Now for such views in Ukraine, you can easily get into the list of "enemies of the nation." Unlike the nationalists, Kostomarov did not advocate separation from this continent, but, on the contrary, against "Moscow particularism", as he called the desire of the Great Russians to consider only themselves, their history and tradition as truly Russian. He wanted to see Southwestern Russia as an equal part of a single Russian community: "The Little Russians, however, were never conquered and annexed to Russia, and since 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 misunderstanding of the spirit and concepts of the people, can one reach the ridiculous fears of breaking the connection between the two Russian nationalities with their equal rights." "The idea of ​​the separation of Little Russia from the empire," he noted, "... is as absurd as the idea of ​​the originality of any appanage reign, into which the Russian land was once broken ..."

Yes, his desire to substantiate the equality and interdependence of the "two Russian peoples" played a cruel joke with him: describing their historical characters as directly opposite (and therefore mutually complementary in a common state), he largely set the tone for other works, the authors of which tried to describe the opposition of Ukrainians to Russians is already an argument in favor of delimitation. 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 protection into open confrontation? This question is relevant today, but the works of Kostomarov, and especially their further fate, unfortunately, do not give us an answer.

And yet, the model of different "Russian nationalities" set by him, of which he eventually found as many as six, makes us think about a lot. Now, when the 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 to be destroyed. In this conflict, Kostomarov is clearly not on the side of the latter.

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 multivolume publication "Russian history in the biographies of its leaders", 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. Kostomarova

Family and ancestors

N.I. Kostomarov

Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov 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 boyar's son Samson Martynovich Kostomarov, who served in the oprichnina of John IV, fled to Volyn, where he received an estate, which passed to his son, and then to his grandson Peter Kostomarov. Peter in the second half of the 17th century participated in Cossack uprisings, fled to the Moscow state and settled in the so-called Ostrogozhchina. One of the descendants of this Kostomarov in the 18th century married the daughter of the official Yuri Blum and received the Yurasovka settlement (Ostrogozhsky district of the Voronezh province) as a dowry, which was inherited by the historian's father, Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov, a wealthy landowner.

Ivan Kostomarov was born in 1769, served in the military service and, having retired, 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 "Voltairean", that is, a supporter of education and social equality. Later N.I. Kostomarov in his "Autobiography" wrote about the addictions of a parent:

Everything that we know today about childhood, family and early years of N.I. Kostomarov is drawn exclusively from his "Autobiographies", written by the historian in different versions already in his declining years. These wonderful, in many ways works of art, in places resemble an adventure novel of the 19th century: very original types of heroes, an almost detective plot with murder, the subsequent, absolutely fantastic remorse 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 historian's autobiographical notes, his father was a tough, wayward, extremely hot-tempered man. Under the influence of French books, he did not put the dignity of nobility into anything and, in principle, did not want to be related to noble families. So, being already in his old years, Kostomarov Sr. decided to get married and chose a girl from his serfs - Tatyana Petrovna Mylnikova (in some publications - Melnikova), whom he sent to study in Moscow, to a private boarding school. It was in 1812, and the Napoleonic invasion prevented Tatyana Petrovna from getting an education. For a long time, among the Yurasov peasants, there lived a romantic legend about how "old Kostomar" drove the best three horses to save his former maid Tanyusha from burning Moscow. Tatyana Petrovna was clearly not indifferent to him. However, soon the courtyards turned Kostomarov against his serf. The landowner was in no hurry to marry her, and his 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 he 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 an ardent fantasy made him experience what he got to know from books.

In 1827, Kostomarov was sent to Moscow, to the boarding school of Mr. Ge, a lecturer in French at the University, but soon, due to illness, he was taken home. In the summer of 1828, young Kostomarov was supposed to return to the boarding house, but on July 14, 1828, his father was killed and robbed by the courtiers. For some reason, the father did not manage to adopt Nicholas in 11 years of his life, therefore, born out of wedlock, as a serf 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 dessiatines of fertile land - 50 thousand rubles in banknotes, as well as freedom to her son, she agreed without delay.

The murderers of I.P. Kostomarov presented the whole case as if an accident had occurred: the horses were carried, the landowner allegedly fell out of the cage and died. The loss of a large amount of money from his casket became known later, so no police inquiry was made. The true circumstances of the elder Kostomarov's death were revealed only in 1833, when one of the murderers, the lordly coachman, suddenly repented and pointed out to the police his accomplices, lackeys. N.I. Kostomarov wrote in his "Autobiography" that when the guilty began to be interrogated in court, the coachman said: “The master himself is to blame for tempting us; used to start telling everyone that there is no God, that nothing will happen in the next world, that only fools are afraid of the afterlife punishment - we have taken it into our heads that if nothing will happen in the next world, then everything can be done ... "

Later, the servants, stuffed with "Voltairean sermons", brought the robbers to the house of N.I. Kostomarov's mother, who was also robbed clean.

Left with little funds, 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 recollections, the teachers were bad and unscrupulous, they gave him little knowledge.

After graduating from a course in a gymnasium in 1833, Kostomarov entered first at Moscow, and then at Kharkov University at the Faculty of History and Philology. Professors at that time in Kharkov were unimportant. For example, Russian history was read by Gulak-Artyomovsky, although he was a well-known author of Little Russian poems, but distinguished, according to Kostomarov, in his lectures with empty rhetoric and bombast. However, Kostomarov studied diligently even with such teachers, but, as often happens with young people, he succumbed by nature to one or another hobby. So, settling with the professor of the Latin language P.I. Sokalsky, he began to study classical languages ​​and was especially carried away by the Iliad. V. Hugo's works turned him to the French language; then he began to study the Italian language, music, began to write poetry, and led an extremely chaotic life. He constantly spent his holidays in his village, fond of horse riding, boating, hunting, although his natural myopia and compassion for animals interfered with the last lesson. In 1835, young and talented professors appeared in Kharkov: A.O. Valitsky on Greek literature and M.M. Lunin, who lectured very fascinatingly, on general history. Under the influence of Lunin, Kostomarov began to study history, spent days and nights reading all kinds of historical books. He settled at Artyomovsky-Gulak and now led a very withdrawn lifestyle. 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 full-time student, lived with Artyomovsky for some time, teaching history to his children, then passed the candidate exam and then entered the Kinburn Dragoon Regiment as a cadet.

Kostomarov did not like the service in the regiment; with his comrades, due to the different mentality of their life, he did not become close. Carried away by the analysis of the affairs of the rich archive located in Ostrogozhsk, where the regiment was stationed, Kostomarov often skimped on service and, on the advice of the regimental commander, left it. Having worked in the archive all summer of 1837, he compiled a historical description of the Ostrogozhsk suburb regiment, attached many copies of interesting documents to it, and prepared it for publication. Kostomarov hoped to compose 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 whether 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 this time, he began to think about the question: why is there so little said in history about the masses? Wanting to understand folk psychology for himself, Kostomarov began to study the monuments of folk literature in the publications of Maksimovich and Sakharov, he 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. He only learned about the existence of the Ukrainian (Little Russian) language at Kharkov University. When in 1820-30 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 Artyomovsky and Meshlinsky, and partly of the Russian-language stories of Gogol, in which the Ukrainian flavor is lovingly presented. "Love for the Little Russian word fascinated me more and more," wrote Kostomarov.

An important role in the "Ukrainization" of Kostomarov belongs to II Sreznevsky, then a young lecturer at Kharkov University. Sreznevsky, although a Ryazan by birth, 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 a lot of its legends. This gave him the opportunity to compose "Zaporozhye Antiquity".

The 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 present life. For this purpose, he constantly made ethnographic excursions in the vicinity of Kharkov, and then and further. At the same time, 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 drew a flattering review from Belinsky. In 1838, Kostomarov was in Moscow and listened to Shevyrev's lectures there, thinking to take the exam for a master of Russian literature, but fell ill and returned to Kharkov, having managed to study German, Polish and Czech languages ​​during this time and publish his Ukrainian-language works.

Dissertation by N.I. Kostomarov

In 1840 N.I. Kostomarov passed the exam for the master of Russian history, and the next year he presented his thesis "On the meaning of union in the history of Western Russia." In anticipation of a dispute, he went to the Crimea for the summer, which he examined in detail. Upon his return to Kharkov, Kostomarov became close to Kvitka and also to a circle of Little Russian poets, among whom was Korsun, who published the collection "Snin". In the collection, Kostomarov, under the former pseudonym, published poetry and a new tragedy "No Pereyaslavskaya".

Meanwhile, the Kharkiv Archbishop Innokenty drew the attention of the higher authorities to the dissertation already published by Kostomarov in 1842. On the instructions of the Ministry of Public Education, Ustryalov made its assessment and recognized it as unreliable: Kostomarov's conclusions regarding the emergence of the union and its significance did not correspond to the generally accepted ones, which were considered mandatory for Russian historiography of this issue. The case got such a turn that the dissertation was burned and copies of it now constitute a great bibliographic rarity. However, in a revised form, this dissertation was later published twice, although under different names.

The story with the dissertation could have ended Kostomarov's career as a historian forever. 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, placed in the collection "Molodik" Betsky little Russian poems and his first articles on the history of Little Russia: "The first wars of Little Russian Cossacks with the Poles", etc.

Leaving his post at the university in 1843, Kostomarov became a history teacher at the Zimnitsky men's boarding school. Then he already began to work on the story of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. 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 receiving a department here, asked to serve in the Kiev educational district in order to be closer to the place of his hero's activity.

N.I.Kostomarov as a teacher

In the fall of 1844, Kostomarov was appointed a history teacher at a gymnasium in the city of Rivne, Volyn province. On the way, he visited Kiev, where he met with 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 acquired the common love of both students and comrades for his humanity and excellent presentation of the subject. As always, he used every free time to make excursions to numerous historical areas of Volyn, to make historical and ethnographic observations and to collect monuments of folk art; such were delivered to him by his disciples; all these materials collected by him were printed much later - in 1859.

Acquaintance with the historical places gave the historian the opportunity to later vividly depict many episodes from the history of the first Pretender and Bohdan Khmelnytsky. In the summer of 1845, Kostomarov visited the Holy Mountains, in the fall he was transferred to Kiev as a history teacher in the 1st grammar school, and then he taught in different boarding schools, including in women's - de Mellian (Robespierre's brother) and Zalesskaya (the widow of the famous poet), and later at the Institute of Noble Maidens. His pupils and pupils recalled with delight about his teaching.

Here is what the famous painter Ge reports about him as a teacher:

"N. I. Kostomarov was the favorite teacher of all; 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 living, rich in pictures, the old life of Kiev poured, everyone turned into a hearing; 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 fellow Pole ... Nikolai Ivanovich never asked much, never gave points; it used to be our teacher tossed us a piece of paper and said quickly: “Here, we need to give points. So you do it yourself, ”he says; and what - no one was given more than 3 points. I’m 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 grade 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 in the women's boarding school, and then at the University. "

Kostomarov and Cyril and Methodius Society

In Kiev, Kostomarov became close 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 was then emerging under the influence of the works of Shafarik and other famous Western Slavists, Kostomarov and his comrades dreamed of uniting all 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, the projected federation was supposed to establish a liberal state structure, as it was understood in the 1840s, with the obligatory abolition of serfdom. A very peaceful circle of intellectual intellectuals, intending to act only by correct means, and, moreover, deeply religious in the person of Kostomarov, had the appropriate name - the Brotherhood of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. He seemed to indicate by this that the activities 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, wishing 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 it was engraved: "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, on whose work the ideas of the Pan-Slavic brotherhood were so reflected. Occasional "brothers" also attended meetings of the society, for example, the landowner N. I. Savin, who was familiar to Kostomarov from Kharkov. The notorious publicist P.A.Kulish also knew about the brotherhood. With his peculiar humor, he signed some of his messages to members of the brotherhood "Hetman Panka Kulish". Subsequently, in the III-rd department, this joke was estimated at three years of exile, although the "hetman" Kulish himself was not officially a member of the brotherhood. Just so it’s clear ...

June 4, 1846 N.I. Kostomarov was elected an adjunct in Russian history at Kiev University; classes in the gymnasium and other boarding schools, he now left. His mother also settled in Kiev with him and sold the part of Yurasovka that she had inherited.

Kostomarov was a professor at Kiev University for less than a year, but the students, with whom he behaved simply, loved him very much and were fond of his lectures. Kostomarov read several courses, including Slavic mythology, which he printed in Church Slavonic script, which was partly the reason for its prohibition. Only in the 1870s were copies printed 30 years ago put on sale. Kostomarov also worked on Khmelnitsky, using materials available in Kiev and the famous archaeologist Gr. Svidzinsky, and was also elected a member of the Kiev 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 of de Mellan. The wedding was scheduled for March 30th. Kostomarov was actively preparing for family life: he looked for a house on Bolshaya Vladimirskaya for himself and the bride, closer to the university, and ordered a piano for Alina from Vienna itself. After all, the historian's bride was an excellent performer - Franz Liszt himself admired her performance. 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 the protection of gendarmes to the Podolsk unit. Then, two days later, he was brought to say goodbye to his mother's apartment, where Alina Kragelskaya's bride, all in tears, was waiting.

“The scene was tearing apart,” wrote Kostomarov in his Autobiography. “Then they put me on the checkpoint and took me to Petersburg ... The state of my spirit was so deadly that I had the idea to starve myself to death on the way. I refused all food and drink and had the firmness to travel in this way for 5 days ... My guide from the quarter realized what was in my mind and began to advise me to leave my intention. "You," he said, "will not inflict death on yourself, I will have time to drive you, but you will hurt yourself: they will begin to interrogate you, and delirium will become with you from exhaustion and you will say too much about yourself and others." Kostomarov listened to the advice.

In St. Petersburg the chief of the gendarmes, Count Alexei Orlov, and his assistant, Lieutenant General Dubelt, talked to the arrested person. When the scientist asked permission to read books and newspapers, Dubelt said: "You can't, my good friend, you have 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 the case was hampered by their "intractability" by Taras Shevchenko (he received the most severe punishment) and Nikolai Gulak. There was no court. Kostomarov learned the Tsar's decision on May 30 from Dubelt: a year of imprisonment in a fortress and an indefinite exile "to one of the distant provinces." Kostomarov spent a year in the 7th chamber of the Alekseevsky ravelin, where his already not very good health suffered greatly. However, the mother was allowed to the prisoner, books were given and, by the way, he learned ancient Greek and Spanish there.

The historian's wedding with Alina Leontyevna was finally upset. The bride herself, being a romantic nature, was ready, like the wives of the Decembrists, to follow Kostomarov anywhere. But to her parents, marriage to a "political criminal" seemed inconceivable. At the insistence of her mother, Alina Kragelskaya married an old friend of their family, the landowner M. Kisel.

Kostomarov in exile

“For the compilation of a secret society, in which the unification 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 appointed the translator of the Provincial Government, but he had nothing to translate, and the governor (Kozhevnikov) entrusted him with managing, first, a criminal, and then a secret table, where mainly schismatic cases were carried out. This gave the historian the opportunity to thoroughly familiarize himself with the schism and, although not without difficulty, to become close to its followers. Kostomarov published the results of his studies of local ethnography in 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 Bohdan Khmelnitsky, receiving books from Gr. Svidzinsky. In exile, Kostomarov began to collect materials for studying the inner life of pre-Petrine Russia.

In Saratov, near Kostomarov, a circle of educated people was grouped, partly from exiled Poles, partly from Russians. In addition, Archimandrite Nikanor, later the archbishop of Kherson, II Palimpsestov, later a professor at Novorossiysk University, EA 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 mounds. Later, the exiled quite calmly left for Dubovka to get acquainted with the schism; 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 transferred them to D.L. Mordovtsev, who then, with his permission, used them. Mordovtsev at this 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 of 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, constituting a preface to his Khmelnytsky. In 1857, "Bogdan Khmelnitsky" finally appeared, albeit 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 turned seriously to the history of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. Despite the unprecedented success of the study and positive reviews about it in the capital, the author still had to return to Saratov, where he continued to study the inner 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 prohibiting him from serving in the academic part remained in force. In the spring of 1857, he arrived in St. Petersburg, submitted his research on the history of trade to print, and went abroad, where he visited Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland and Italy. In the summer of 1858, Kostomarov again worked in the St. Petersburg Public Library on the history of Stenka Razin's revolt and, at the same time, wrote, on the advice of N. V. Kalachov, with whom he became close then, the story "Son" (published in 1859); he also saw Shevchenko, who had returned from exile. In the fall, Kostomarov took the place of a clerk in the Saratov Provincial Committee on Peasant Affairs and thus connected his name with the liberation of the peasants.

Scientific, teaching, publishing activities of N.I. Kostomarova

At the end of 1858, N.I.Kostomarov's monograph "The Riot of Stenka Razin" was published, which finally made his name famous. The works of Kostomarov had, in a sense, the same meaning as, for example, Shchedrin's Provincial Essays. They were the first scientific works on Russian history in time, in which many issues were considered not according to the template of the official scientific direction, which was not obligatory until then; at the same time they were written and presented wonderfully artistically. In the spring of 1859, St. Petersburg University elected Kostomarov an extraordinary professor of Russian history. After waiting for the closure of the Committee on Peasant Affairs, Kostomarov, after a very cordial send-off in Saratov, came to St. Petersburg. But then it turned out that the case about his professorship did not work out, it was not approved, for the Tsar 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 brothers D.A. and N.A. Milyutin, Alexander II allowed N.I. Kostomarov as a professor, only not at Kiev University, as planned earlier, but at St. Petersburg.

Kostomarov's introductory lecture took place on November 22, 1859 and caused a thunderous ovation from the students and the audience. Professor of St. Petersburg University Kostomarov did not stay long (until May 1862). But even during this short time, he became known as a talented teacher and an outstanding lecturer. Several very respectable figures in the field of the science of Russian history emerged from Kostomarov's students, for example, Professor A.I. Nikitsky. The fact that Kostomarov was a great artist-lecturer, many memories of his students have survived. One of Kostomarov's listeners said this about his reading:

“Despite his rather motionless appearance, his quiet voice and not quite clear, lisping accent with a very noticeable pronunciation of words in the Little Russian way, he read remarkably. Whether he portrayed the Novgorod veche or the bustle of the Lipetsk battle, he had to close his eyes - and after a few seconds he seemed to be transported to the center of the depicted events, you see and hear everything that Kostomarov is talking about, who meanwhile stands motionless in the pulpit; his gaze is not looking at the listeners, but somewhere into the distance, as if it is something that is seeing clearly at this moment in the distant past; the lecturer even seems to be a person not of this world, but a native of the other world, who appeared on purpose in order to inform about the past, mysterious to others, but so well known to him. "

In general, Kostomarov's lectures greatly influenced the public's imagination, and his fascination with them can be partly explained by the lecturer's strong emotionality, constantly breaking through, despite his outward calmness. She literally "infected" the listeners. After each lecture, the professor was given a standing ovation, he was carried in his arms, etc. At St. Petersburg University, N.I. Kostomarov taught the following courses: History of Ancient Rus (from which an article was published on the origin of Rus with the Zhmud theory of this origin); ethnography of foreigners who lived in antiquity in Russia, starting with the Lithuanians; the history of the Old Russian regions (part of it was published under the title "Northern Russian People's Rights"), and historiography, from which only the beginning was printed, devoted to the analysis of the chronicles.

In addition to university lectures, Kostomarov also read public ones, which also enjoyed tremendous success. In parallel with his professorship, Kostomarov worked 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 over the issue of the origin of Rus also belongs to this time.

In 1860, Kostomarov became a member of the Archaeographic Commission, with the assignment to edit 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 published three volumes of "Proceedings of the Ethnographic Expedition to the West Russian Territory" (III, IV and V - in 1872-1878).

In St. Petersburg, near Kostomarov, a circle was formed, to which belonged: Shevchenko, however, who soon died, the Belozerskys, the bookseller Kozhanchikov, A. A. Kotlyarevsky, ethnographer S. V. Maksimov, astronomer A. N. Savich, priest Opatovich and many others. This circle in 1860 began to publish the Osnova magazine, in which Kostomarov was one of the most important collaborators. Here are published his articles: "On the federal beginning of ancient Russia", "Two Russian nationalities", "Features of the South Russian history" and others, 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 later used for the publication of the 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, P.V. Pavlov, a public figure, historian and professor at St. Petersburg University, was arrested and administratively exiled to Vetluga. He did not give a single lecture at the university, but at a public reading in favor of writers in need, he ended his speech on the millennium of Russia with the following words:

In protest against the repression of students and the expulsion of Pavlov, the 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 for all students wishing to study and not hold a meeting. To replace the closed university, due to the efforts of professors, including Kostomarov, a “free university”, as they said at the time, was opened in the hall of the City Duma. Kostomarov, despite all the persistent "requests" and even intimidation from the radical student committees, began to lecture there.

The "advanced" students and some of the professors who followed him, in protest against Pavlov's expulsion, demanded the immediate closure of all lectures in the City Duma. They decided to announce this action on March 8, 1862, right after the crowded lecture by Professor Kostomarov.

A participant in the student riots of 1861-62, and in the future, the famous publisher L.F. Panteleev, in his memoirs, describes this episode as follows:

“It was March 8, the big Duma hall was overcrowded not only with students, but also with a huge mass of the public, as rumors about some forthcoming demonstration had already penetrated into it. Now Kostomarov finished his lecture; the usual applause rang out. Then the student E.P. Pechatkin immediately entered the department and made a statement about the closure of the lectures with the same reasoning that was 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 to lecture," and at the same time added a few words that science should go its own way, not getting entangled in various everyday circumstances. At once there were applause and booing; but here under the very nose of Kostomarov E. Utin blurted out: “Scoundrel! second Chicherin [B. N. Chicherin then published, it seems, in Moskovskiye 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 BN extremely unpopular among young people; Kavelin defended him, seeing in him a great scientific value, although he did not share most of his views. (Approx. L. F. Panteleev)], Stanislav on the neck! " The influence enjoyed by N. Utin apparently haunted E. Utin, and he then 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 less impressionable person than Kostomarov; unfortunately, he lost all composure and, returning to the pulpit again, said, among other things: “... I don’t understand those gladiators who want to please the public with their sufferings (whom he meant understandable as an allusion to Pavlov). I see the Repetilovs in front of me, of whom the Rasplyuevs will emerge in a few years. " There was no more applause, but it seemed that the whole hall was hissing and whistling ... "

When this egregious case became known in wider public circles, it caused deep disapproval both among the university professors and among the students. Most of the teachers decided to continue giving lectures without fail - now out of solidarity with Kostomarov. At the same time, indignation at the historian's behavior increased among the radical student youth. The adherents of the ideas of Chernyshevsky, the future figures of "Earth and Freedom", unequivocally excluded Kostomarov from the lists of "guardians for the people", having hung the professor as a "reactionary".

Of course, Kostomarov could well have returned to the university and continued 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 left the walls of St. Petersburg University forever.

From that moment on, his break with N.G. Chernyshevsky and those close to him took place. Kostomarov finally goes over to liberal-nationalist positions, not accepting the ideas of radical populism. According to the people who knew him at that time, after the events of 1862, Kostomarov seemed to have “lost interest” in modernity, completely turning to the subjects of the distant past.

In the 1860s, Kiev, Kharkov and Novorossiysk universities tried to invite a historian to be 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's degree. Only in 1864, after he published the essay "Who was the first impostor?", Kiev University gave him a doctorate honoris causa (without defending his doctoral dissertation). Later, in 1869, St. Petersburg University elected him an honorary member, but Kostomarov never returned to teaching. In order to provide financial support 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 abandon his scientific activities. In the 1860s, he published "North Russian People's Rights", "History of the Time of Troubles", "Southern Russia at the end of the 16th century." (alteration of the destroyed dissertation). For research "The last years of the Commonwealth" ("Bulletin of Europe", 1869. Book 2-12) N.I. Kostomarov was awarded the Academy of Sciences Prize (1872).

last years of life

In 1873, after a trip to Zaporozhye, N.I. Kostomarov visited Kiev. Here he quite by chance found out that his former bride, Alina Leontyevna Kragelskaya, by that time already widowed and bearing the last name of her late husband, Kisel, was living in the city with her three children. This news deeply moved the 56-year-old Kostomarov, who was already exhausted by his life. Having received the address, he immediately wrote a short letter to Alina Leontyevna asking for a meeting. The answer was yes.

They met 26 years later, 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, - wrote NI Kostomarov, - I found an elderly lady and a sick woman, a mother of three half-grown children. Our meeting was as pleasant as it was sad: we both felt that the best time of our separation had passed irrevocably. "

Over the years, Kostomarov also did not look younger: 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 Leontyevna's invitation to stay at her estate Dedovtsy, and when he left for St. Petersburg, he took Alina's eldest daughter, Sophia, with him in order to arrange her at the Smolny Institute.

Only difficult life circumstances helped the old friends finally get closer. At the beginning of 1875, Kostomarov fell seriously ill. It was believed to be typhoid, but some doctors suggested, in addition to typhoid, a second stroke. When the patient was delirious, his mother Tatyana Petrovna died of typhus. Doctors for a long time hid her death from Kostomarov - his 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 the chest of drawers or light a pipe ...

And at that moment Alina Leontyevna came to the rescue. Having learned about the plight of Kostomarov, she gave up all her affairs and came to St. Petersburg. Their wedding took place already on May 9, 1875 in the estate of Alina Leontyevna Dedovtsy of the Priluksky district. The newlywed was 58 years old, and his chosen one was 45. Kostomarov adopted all the children of A.L. Kissel from the first marriage. The wife's family became his family as well.

Alina Leontyevna not only replaced Kostomarov's mother, taking over the organization of the life of the famous historian. She became an assistant in work, a secretary, a reader and even an adviser in scientific affairs. Kostomarov wrote and published his most famous works when he was already a married man. And in this there is a share of participation of his wife.

Since then, the historian spent the summer almost constantly in the village of Dedovtsy, 4 versts from the town of Priluk (Poltava province) and at one time was even an honorary trustee of the Prilutsk men's gymnasium. In the winter he lived in St. Petersburg, surrounded by books and continued to work, despite the breakdown and almost complete loss of sight.

Among the latest works, he can be called "The Beginning of Autocracy in Ancient Rus" 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 magazine "Beseda" for 1872, and the continuation was partly in "Russian Mysl" 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 Creativity"; a part was simply lost (see "Kievskaya Starina", 1891, No. 2, Documents, etc. Art. 316). The end of this large-scale work was not written by the historian.

At the same time, Kostomarov wrote "Russian History in the Biographies of its Main Figures", which was also unfinished (ends with the biography of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna) and major works on the history of Little Russia, as a continuation of previous works: "Ruin", "Mazepa and Mazepa", "Pavel Half-work ". Finally, he wrote a number of autobiographies that have more than just personal meaning.

Constantly ill since 1875, Kostomarov was especially damaged by the fact that on January 25, 1884, he was knocked down by the carriage under the arch of the General Staff. Similar cases had happened to him before, for the half-blind, and besides, the historian carried away by his thoughts, often did not notice what was happening around him. But before Kostomarov was lucky: he got off with minor injuries and quickly recovered. The incident of January 25 knocked him down completely. In early 1885, the historian fell ill and died on April 7. He was buried at the Volkovo cemetery on the so-called "literary bridge", a monument was erected on his grave.

Assessment of the personality of N.I. Kostomarov

Outwardly, N.I. Kostomarov was of average height and far from handsome. The boarding school students where he taught as a young man called him a "sea scarecrow." The historian had a surprisingly awkward figure, loved to wear excessively spacious clothes that hung on him like on a hanger, was extremely absent-minded and very short-sighted.

Spoiled from childhood by the excessive attention of his mother, Nikolai Ivanovich was distinguished by complete helplessness (mother all her life tied a tie to her son and handed him a handkerchief), but at the same time, he was unusually capricious in everyday life. This was especially evident in mature years. For example, one of Kostomarov's frequent diners recalled that the elderly historian did not hesitate to be capricious at the table even in the presence of guests: did not see how they killed whitefish or ruffs, or pike perch, and therefore proved that the fish was bought inanimate. Most of all he found fault with the butter, saying that it was bitter, although it was bought in the best store. "

Fortunately, wife Alina Leontyevna had a talent for turning the prose of life into a game. Jokingly, she often called her husband "my old thing" and "my spoiled old man." Kostomarov, in turn, jokingly called her "lady".

Kostomarov's mind was extraordinary, knowledge is very extensive and not only in those areas that served as the subject of his special studies (Russian history, ethnography), but also in such, for example, as theology. Archbishop Nikanor, a well-known theologian, used to say that he did not 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 was also very fond of animals. They say that while working, he constantly kept his beloved cat next to 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 his cat business, the feather in Nikolai Ivanovich's hand froze powerlessly ...

Contemporaries condemned Kostomarov for the fact that he always knew how to find some negative quality 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. In his behavior, a spirit of contradiction was often expressed, but in fact he was extremely gentle 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 endure through the years and all the trials, cannot but inspire respect. In addition, Kostomarov also possessed extraordinary civic courage, did not renounce his views and convictions, never followed the lead either in power (the story of the Cyril and Methodius Society) or among the radical part of the student body (the "Duma" incident).

Remarkable is Kostomarov's religiosity, stemming not from general philosophical views, but 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 dear to every feature of church rituals. Attending divine services was for him not just a duty, which he did not shy away from even during a severe illness, but also a great aesthetic pleasure.

Historical conception of N.I. Kostomarov

Historical concepts of N.I. Kostomarov, for more than a century and a half, have been causing ongoing controversy. In the works of researchers, no unambiguous assessment of its multifaceted, sometimes contradictory historical heritage has yet been developed. In the extensive historiography of both the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods, he appears as a peasant, noble, noble-bourgeois, liberal-bourgeois, bourgeois-nationalist and revolutionary-democratic historian at the same time. In addition, there are frequent characteristics of Kostomarov as a democrat, socialist and even a communist (!), Pan-Slavist, Ukrainianophile, federalist, historian of folk life, folk spirit, historian-populist, historian-lover of truth. Contemporaries often wrote about him as a romantic historian, lyric poet, artist, philosopher and sociologist. Descendants, grounded in Marxist-Leninist theory, found that Kostomarov was a historian, weak as a dialectician, but a very serious historian and analyst.

Today's Ukrainian nationalists willingly raised Kostomarov's theories on the shield, finding in them a historical justification for modern political insinuations. Meanwhile, the general historical concept of the long-deceased historian is quite simple and it makes no sense to look for manifestations of nationalist extremism in it, and even more so - attempts to exalt the traditions of one Slavic people and belittle the importance of another - is completely meaningless.

Historian N.I. Kostomarov put the opposition of state and popular principles in the general historical process of development of Russia. 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 centralizing policy of the great princes and tsars, the national principle with the communal principle, the political form of expression of which was the national assembly or veche. It was the veche (and not the communal, as among the “populists”) principle that embodied in N.I. Kostomarov, the system of federal structure that most corresponded to the conditions of Russia. This system made it possible to maximize the potential of the people's initiative - the true driving force of history. The state-centralizing principle, according to Kostomarov, acted as a regressive force that weakened 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 principle. The specific-veche beginning, according to Kostomarov, “was clothed in a new image,” that is, the image of the Cossacks. And the uprising of Stepan Razin became the last battle of the people's democracy with the victorious autocracy.

The personification of the autocratic principle in Kostomarov is precisely the Great Russian people, i.e. a set of Slavic peoples who inhabited the northeastern lands of Russia before the Tatar invasion. The South Russian lands were less affected by foreign influence, 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, which states that the South Russian nationality has always been more democratic, while the Great Russian has other qualities, namely, a creative beginning. The Great Russian nationality created a monarchy (that is, a monarchical system), which gave it priority importance in the historical life of Russia.

The opposite of the "people's spirit" of "southern Russian nature" (in which "there was nothing violent, leveling; there was no politics, there was no cold calculation, firmness on the way to the appointed goal") and "Great Russians" (which are characterized by a slavish willingness to submit to autocratic power, the desire "to give strength and formality to the unity of their land"), in the opinion of 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 peoples' rights" (Novgorod, Pskov, Vyatka) and the establishment of a monarchical system in the southern regions of N.I. Kostomarov explained by the influence of the "South Russians", who allegedly founded the North Russian centers with their veche freemen, while such a freeman in the south was suppressed by the northern autocracy, breaking through only in the way of life 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 "popular" factor in the historical process of the formation of statehood, as well as the deliberate opposition of the contemporary scientific tradition.

Opponents of "Ukrainianization", in turn, even then attributed to Kostomarov nationalism, justification of separatist tendencies, and in his enthusiasm for the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian language they saw only a tribute to the Pan-Slavist 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 perceived with a plus sign and what should be displayed as a minus sign. Nowhere does he unequivocally condemn autocracy, recognizing its historical expediency. Moreover, the historian does not say that specific-vechevaya democracy is unambiguously good and acceptable for the entire population of the Russian Empire. It all 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 basic provisions of Slavophil theories. This is a belief in the future historical role of the Slavs, and, above all, of 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 the unification of all Slavs into one state, but in a federal state, with the preservation of the national and religious characteristics of individual peoples. He hoped that with long-term communication in a natural, peaceful way, the difference between the Slavs would be smoothed out. Like the Slavophiles, Kostomarov was looking for an ideal in the national past. This ideal past could have been for him only 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. 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 a researcher with psychology and the true past of each nation. He was interested not only in Russian, but also in general Slavic ethnography, especially the ethnography of South Russia.

Throughout the 19th century, Kostomarov was honored as the forerunner of "populist" historiography, an oppositionist to the autocratic system, a fighter for the rights of small peoples of the Russian Empire. In the XX century, his views were recognized in many ways "backward". With his national - federal theories, he did not fit into either the Marxist scheme of social formations and class struggle, or into the great - power politics of the Soviet empire, which was already assembled by Stalin. The uneasy relations between Russia and Ukraine in recent decades have again imposed the stamp of some "false prophecies" on his writings, giving rise to the current especially zealous "self-styledists" 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 peoples inhabiting it. The scientific work of the historian never presupposes 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, poet, romantic, scientist, who until the end of his life worked on comprehending a new and promising for the 19th century problem of the influence of an ethnic group on history. It makes no sense to interpret the scientific heritage of the great Russian historian in another way, a century and a half after the writing of his main works.