Kostomarov the beginning of an interest in history. Literary and historical notes of a young technician. "Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences"

early years

Nikolai Kostomarov was born before the marriage of the local landowner Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov with a serf and according to the laws Russian Empire became a serf of his own father.

Nikolay Kostomarov was born on May 4 (16) of the year in the Yurasovka settlement of the Ostrogozhsky district of the Voronezh province (now the Yurasovka village).

Retired military man Ivan Kostomarov, already at an age, chose a girl Tatyana Petrovna Melnikova as his wife and sent her to Moscow to study in a private boarding school - with the intention of marrying her later. The parents of Nikolai Kostomarov got married in September 1817, after the birth of their son. The father was going to adopt Nikolai, but did not have time to do so.

Ivan Kostomarov, an admirer of French literature of the 18th century, the ideas of which he tried to instill in both his young son and his household. On July 14, 1828, he was killed by his servants, who stole the capital he had accumulated. The death of his father put his family in a difficult legal position. Born out of wedlock, Nikolai Kostomarov, as a serf father, was now inherited by his closest relatives, the Rovnevs, who were not averse to taking their souls away by mocking the child. When the Rovnevs offered Tatyana Petrovna a widow's share for 14 thousand acres of fertile land - 50 thousand rubles in banknotes, as well as freedom to her son, she agreed without delay.

Left with a very modest income, his mother transferred Nikolai from a Moscow boarding school (where he, just starting to study, for his brilliant abilities received the nickname fr. Enfant miraculeux- a wonderful child) to a boarding house in Voronezh, closer to home. It was cheaper to study, but the level of teaching was very low, and the boy barely hatched boring lessons that gave him practically nothing. After staying there for about two years, he was expelled for "pranks" from this boarding school and moved to the Voronezh gymnasium. After graduating from the course here in 1833, Nikolai became a student at the Kharkov University of History and Philology.

Student body

Already in the first years of his studies, Kostomarov's brilliant abilities were evident, which brought him, from the teachers of the Moscow boarding school, in which he did not study for long during his father's life, the nickname "enfant miraculeux" (fr. "Wonder child" ). The natural liveliness of Kostomarov's character on the one hand, the low level of teachers of that time, on the other, did not give him the opportunity to seriously get carried away with his studies. The first years of his stay at Kharkov University, whose history and philology faculty did not shine at that time with professorial talents, differed little in this respect for Kostomarov from the gymnasium. Kostomarov himself worked a lot, being carried away either by classical antiquity or by the new French literature, but these works were carried out without proper guidance and system, and later Kostomarov called his student life "chaotic." Only in 1835, when M.M. Lunin appeared at the Department of General History in Kharkov, did Kostomarov's studies become more systematic. Lunin's lectures had a strong influence on him, and he eagerly devoted himself to the study of history. Nevertheless, he was so dimly aware of his real calling that after graduating from the university he entered the military service. His inability to do the latter soon became, however, clear to both his superiors and himself.

Carried away by the study of the archive of the local district court, preserved in the city of Ostrogozhsk, where his regiment was stationed, Kostomarov decided to write the history of the suburban Cossack regiments. On the advice of his superiors, he left the regiment and in the fall of 1837 returned to Kharkov with the intention of replenishing his historical education.

At this time of intensive studies with Kostomarov, partly under the influence of Lunin, a view of history began to take shape, in which there were original features in comparison with the views prevailing among Russian historians at that time. According to the later words of Kostomarov himself, he “read a lot of all kinds of historical books, pondered science and came to this question: why is it that in all stories they talk about outstanding statesmen, sometimes about laws and institutions, but as if they neglect the life of the masses? The poor peasant-farmer-worker does not seem to exist for history; why does not history tell us anything about his life, about his spiritual life, about his feelings, the way of his joys and sorrows ”? The idea of the history of the people and their spiritual life, in contrast to the history of the state, has since that time become the main idea in the circle of Kostomarov's historical views. Modifying the concept of the content of history, he expanded the range of its sources. “Soon, he says, I came to the conviction that history should be studied not only from dead chronicles and notes, but also in living people.” He learned the Ukrainian language, re-read the published Ukrainian folk songs and printed literature in the Ukrainian language, then very small, undertook "ethnographic excursions from Kharkov to neighboring villages, on shinki". He spent the spring of 1838 in Moscow, where listening to Shevyrev's lectures further strengthened his romantic attitude towards the people.

Interestingly, until the age of 16, Kostomarov had no idea about Ukraine and the Ukrainian language. He learned what Ukraine and the Ukrainian language are at Kharkov University and began to write something in Ukrainian. “Love for the Little Russian word fascinated me more and more,” wrote Kostomarov, “I was annoyed that such beautiful language, remains without any literary processing and, moreover, is subjected to completely undeserved contempt. " From the second half of the 30s of the XIX century, he began to write in Ukrainian, under the pseudonym Jeremiah Galka, and in -1841 he published two dramas and several collections of poems, original and translated.

His studies in history also moved forward quickly. In 1840, Kostomarov passed his master's exam.

The Pan-Slavic dreams of the young enthusiasts were soon cut short. The student Petrov, who overheard their conversations, reported them; they were arrested in the spring of 1847, charged with a crime against the state, and subjected to various punishments.

Heyday of activity

N.I. Kostomarov, 1869.

Kostomarov, a supporter of federalism, always loyal to the Little Russian nationality of his mother, without any reservations recognized this nationality as an organic part of a single Russian people, whose "national element is all-Russian", according to his definition, "in the first half of our history" is "in the aggregate of six main nationalities, namely: 1) South Russian, 2) Severskaya, 3) Great Russian, 4) Belorusskaya, 5) Pskov and 6) Novgorod. " At the same time, Kostomarov considered it his duty and “to point out those principles that stipulated a connection between them and served as an excuse that they all wore and had to bear the name of the common Russian Land, belonged to the same general composition and were aware of this connection, despite the circumstances, inclined to the destruction of this consciousness. These beginnings: 1) origin, way of life and languages, 2) one princely family, 3) Christian faith and one Church. "

After the closure of the St. Petersburg University caused by student riots (), several professors, including Kostomarov, arranged (in the city duma) systematic public lectures, known in the press at that time under the name of a free or mobile university: Kostomarov lectured on ancient Russian history. When Professor Pavlov, after reading publicly about the millennium of Russia, was expelled from St. Petersburg, the committee for the organization of the Duma lectures decided, in the form of a protest, to stop them. Kostomarov refused to comply with this decision, but at his next lecture (March 8), the noise raised by the public forced him to stop reading, and further lectures were prohibited by the administration.

Having left the faculty of St. Petersburg University in 1862, Kostomarov could no longer return to the department, since his political reliability was again suspected, mainly due to the efforts of the Moscow "protective" press. In 1863 he was invited to the department of Kiev University, in 1864 - Kharkov, in 1869 - again Kiev, but Kostomarov, according to the instructions of the Ministry of Public Education, had to reject all these invitations and confine himself to one literary activity, which, with the termination of the "Fundamentals ”, Also closed itself into a tighter framework. After all these hard blows, Kostomarov seemed to have lost interest in modernity and ceased to be interested in it, finally going into the study of the past and into archival work. One after another, his works were published, devoted to major issues in the history of Ukraine, the Moscow state and Poland. In 1863, "North Russian Narodopravstva" were published, which was an adaptation of one of the courses read by Kostomarov at the St. Petersburg University; in 1866 in the "Vestnik Evropy" appeared "The Time of Troubles of the Moscow State", then "The Last Years of the Commonwealth". In the early 1870s, Kostomarov began work “On the Historical Significance of Russian Song Folk Art”. The interruption of archival studies in 1872, caused by a weakening of his eyesight, gave Kostomarov an excuse to compile "Russian history in the biographies of its main figures."

Last years

Performance evaluation

Kostomarov's reputation as a historian, both during his life and after his death, was repeatedly subjected to strong attacks. He was reproached for the superficial use of sources and the resulting errors, for one-sided views, for partisanship. There is a grain of truth in these reproaches, however, very small. Minor blunders and mistakes inevitable for any scientist, perhaps, are somewhat more common in Kostomarov's works, but this is easily explained by the extraordinary variety of his occupations and the habit of relying on his rich memory. In the few cases when Kostomarov did indeed manifest partisanship - namely, in some of his works on Ukrainian history - this was only a natural reaction against the even more partisan views expressed in literature from the other side. Further, the very material on which Kostomarov worked did not always give him the opportunity to adhere to his views on the task of the historian. The historian of the internal life of the people, according to his scientific views and sympathies, it was in his works dedicated to Ukraine that he was supposed to be a representative of external history.

In any case, the general significance of Kostomarov in the development of Russian and Ukrainian historiography can, without any exaggeration, be called enormous. He introduced and persistently carried out in all his works the idea of folk history. Kostomarov himself understood and implemented it mainly in the form of studying the spiritual life of the people. Later researchers expanded the content of this idea, but this does not diminish Kostomarov's merit. In connection with this, the main idea of Kostomarov's work was another - about the need to study the tribal characteristics of each part of the people and create regional history. If in modern science a slightly different view of the national character was established, denying the immobility that Kostomarov attributed to him, then it was the works of the latter that served as the impetus, depending on which the study of the history of the regions began to develop.

Introducing new and fruitful ideas into the development of Russian history, independently exploring a number of issues in its field, Kostomarov, thanks to the peculiarities of his talent, aroused, at the same time, a keen interest in historical knowledge in the mass of the public. Thought deeply, almost getting used to the antiquity he was studying, he reproduced it in his works with such bright colors, in such convex images that it attracted the reader and pierced his mind with indelible features. In the person of Kostomarov, a historian-thinker and an artist were successfully combined - and this ensured him not only one of the first places among Russian historians, but also the greatest popularity among the reading public.

Kostomarov's views find their application in the analysis of modern Asian and African societies. For example, the modern orientalist S.Z.Gafurov pointed out in his article on the Third World Theory of the Libyan leader M. Gaddafi:

It is interesting to note that the semantics of the word "Jamahiriya" is related to concepts that Kropotkin considered to be early forms of anarchism. For example, he noted that the Russian historian Kostomarov used the concept of "rule of the people", which may well be a successful translation of the Arabic word - the new formation "Jamahiriya" into Russian

Memory

Kostomarovskaya street in Kharkov

A street in Kharkov is named after Kostomarov.
The name of N.I. V. N. Karazina

Autobiography

Kostomarov N.I. Autobiography.

Bibliography

Kostomarov N.I. Russian history in the biographies of its main figures.- M .: Thought, 1993; AST, Astrel, 2006 - 608 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-17-033565-2, ISBN 5-271-12746-X; Eksmo, 2007 .-- 596 p .; Eksmo-Press, 2008 .-- 1024 p. - ISBN 9785699258734; Eksmo, 2009, 2011 .-- 1024 p. - 5000 copies each. - ISBN 978-5-699-33756-9; ; ; ; ; ; ...

Kostomarov N.I. Bestial Riot (1917).
Kostomarov N.I. Serf (1878).

Articles in magazines

Ksenia Borisovna Godunova (Concerning the painting of the artist Nevrev) // Historical Bulletin, 1884. - T. 15. - No. 1. - P. 7-23. (illustration)
False Dmitry the First. Regarding his contemporary portrait. 1606 // Russian antiquity, 1876. - T. 15. - No. 1. - P. 1-8.
Features of resistance to power under Peter the Great // Russian antiquity, 1875. - T. 12. - No. 2. - P. 381-383.

Notes (edit)

Literature

Nikolai Kostomarov was born before the marriage of the local landowner Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov with the serf Tatyana Petrovna Melnikova and, according to the laws of the Russian Empire, became a serf of his own father.

Nikolai Kostomarov was born on May 5 (17), 1817 in the Yurasovka settlement of the Ostrogozhsky district of the Voronezh province (now the village of Yurasovka).

Left with a very modest income, his mother transferred Nikolai from a Moscow boarding school (where he, just starting to study, for his brilliant abilities received the nickname fr. Enfant miraculeux- a miracle child) to a boarding house in Voronezh, closer to home. It was cheaper to study, but the level of teaching was very low, and the boy barely hatched boring lessons that gave him practically nothing. After staying there for about two years, he was expelled for "pranks" from this boarding school and moved to the Voronezh gymnasium. After graduating from the course here in 1833, Nikolai became a student at the Kharkov University of History and Philology.

After graduating from the course at the Voronezh gymnasium, Kolya in 1833 became a student at Kharkov University. Already in the first years of his studies, Kostomarov's brilliant abilities were evident, which gave him the nickname "enfant miraculeux" from the teachers of the Moscow boarding school, in which he did not study for long during his father's life. The natural liveliness of his character and the low level of teachers of that time prevented him from seriously getting carried away with his studies. The first years of his stay at Kharkov University, whose history and philology faculty did not shine at that time with professorial talents, differed little in this respect for Kostomarov from his gymnasium studies. He was fond of classical antiquity, then new French literature, but he worked without proper guidance and system; later Kostomarov called his student life "chaotic".

In 1835, the historian Mikhail Mikhailovich Lunin appeared at the department of general history in Kharkov. His lectures had a strong influence on Kostomarov; he eagerly devoted himself to the study of history, but was still dimly aware of his real vocation, and after graduating from the university he entered the military service.

His inability to do the latter soon became, however, clear to both his superiors and himself. Carried away by the study of the archive of the local district court, preserved in the city of Ostrogozhsk, where his regiment was stationed, Kostomarov decided to write the history of the suburban Cossack regiments. On the advice of his superiors, he left the regiment and in the fall of 1837 again appeared in Kharkov with the intention of replenishing his historical education.

At this time of intensive studies with Kostomarov, partly under the influence of Lunin, a view of history began to take shape, which was very different from the views prevailing among Russian historians at that time. According to the later words of the scientist himself, he " I read a lot of all kinds of historical books, thought about science and came to this question: why is it that in all stories they talk about outstanding statesmen, sometimes about laws and institutions, but they seem to neglect the life of the masses? The poor peasant-farmer-worker does not seem to exist for history; why history does not tell us anything about his life, about his spiritual life, about his feelings, the way of his joys and sorrows"?

The idea of the history of the people and their spiritual life, in contrast to the history of the state, has since that time become the main idea in the circle of Kostomarov's historical views.

Modifying the concept of the content of history, he expanded the range of its sources. " Soon, - he writes, - I came to the conviction that history should be studied not only from dead chronicles and notes, but also in living people". The main content of Russian history, and, consequently, the main subject of study of the past, according to Kostomarov, consists in the study of the development of the people's spiritual life, for here is" the basis and explanation of a great political event, here is the test and judgment of every institution and law. " people is manifested in its concepts, beliefs, feelings, hopes, sufferings.But historians, he was indignant, do not say anything about this.Kostomarov was one of the first to undertake the study of the social and domestic life of the people.

People's life, Kostomarov argued, is in its own way: specific-veche (federal) and autocratic. The struggle between these two principles is the content of his concept of Russian history. The federal system of ancient Russia under the influence of external circumstances, Tatar-Mongol yoke replaced by autocracy. With Ivan III "the existence of an independent monarchical Russian state begins. The freedom of the community and persons is sacrificed. Peter completed, in his opinion, what had been prepared for centuries prior and" led the autocratic statehood to its full apogee. "This led to the isolation of the state from It “formed its own circle, formed a special nationality that joined power.” (the upper strata) Thus, two nationalities arose in Russian life: the state nationality and the mass nationality.

A distinctive feature of Kostomarov's works is that he began to study all the nationalities that make up Russia: the Ukrainian nationality and the Great Russian, Belarusian, South Russian, Novgorod and others. "If we say," he wrote, "the history of the Russian people, then we take this word in a collective sense as a mass of peoples united by the unity of one civilization and constituting a political body."

He learned the Little Russian language, re-read the published Little Russian folk songs and printed literature in the Little Russian language, then very small; undertook "ethnographic excursions from Kharkov to neighboring villages on shinka". " Love for the Little Russian word carried me more and more, - recalled Kostomarov, - I was annoyed that such a beautiful language remained without any literary processing and, moreover, was subjected to completely undeserved contempt". He began to write in Little Russian, under the pseudonym of Jeremiah Galka, and in 1839-1841 published two dramas and several collections of poems, original and translated.

In 1840 Nikolai Ivanovich passed his master's exam and in 1842 he published his thesis "On the Significance of the Union in Western Russia". The dispute already appointed did not take place, due to the report of the archbishop of Kharkov Innokenty Borisov about the outrageous content of the book. It was only about a few unsuccessful expressions, but Professor Ustryalov, on behalf of the Ministry of Public Education, who analyzed the work of Kostomarov, gave such an opinion about him that the book was ordered to be burned.

Nikolai Kostomarov wrote another dissertation, "On the Historical Significance of Russian Folk Poetry," which he defended in early 1844. Immediately after completing his second dissertation, N.I. Kostomarov undertook a new work on the history of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and, wishing to visit the areas where the events he described took place, decided to be a gymnasium teacher, first in Rivne, then in 1845 in Kiev.

In 1846, the council of Kiev University elected Kostomarov as a teacher of Russian history, and in the fall of this year he began his lectures, which immediately aroused deep interest of the audience. In Kiev, as in Kharkov, a circle of people devoted to the idea of nationality and intending to put this idea into practice formed around it. This circle included Panteleimon Aleksandrovich Kulish, Af. Markevich, Nikolai Ivanovich Gulak, Vasily Mikhailovich Belozersky, Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko.

The members of the circle, carried away by the romantic understanding of the nationality, dreamed of common Slavic reciprocity, combining with the latter the wishes of internal progress in their own homeland. "The reciprocity of the Slavic peoples," Kostomarov wrote later, "in our imagination was no longer limited to the sphere of science and poetry, but began to be represented in images in which, as it seemed to us, it should have been embodied for future history. In addition to our will, we began to imagine a federal build as the happiest course of social life of the Slavic nations " In all parts of the federation, the same basic laws and rights were assumed, equality of weight, measures and coins, the absence of customs and freedom of trade, the general abolition of serfdom and slavery in any form, a single central government in charge of relations outside the union, the army and the navy , but complete autonomy of each part in relation to internal institutions, internal government, legal proceedings and public education. With the aim of spreading these ideas, the friendly circle was transformed into a society called Cyril and Methodius. The student Petrov, who overheard the conversations of the members of the circle, reported them; they were arrested (in the spring of 1847), charged with a crime against the state, and subjected to various punishments.

After spending a year in the Peter and Paul Fortress, Kostomarov was "transferred to service" in Saratov and placed under the supervision of the local police, and for the future he was prohibited from teaching and publishing his works. Losing neither idealism, nor energy and ability to work, Kostomarov in Saratov continued to write his "Bogdan Khmelnitsky", began a new work on the inner life of the Moscow state of the 16th - 17th centuries, made ethnographic excursions, collected songs and legends, got acquainted with schismatics and sectarians ... In 1855 he was allowed a vacation to St. Petersburg, which he used to finish his work on Khmelnitsky. In 1856, the ban on publishing his works was lifted and supervision was removed from him.

Having made a trip abroad, Nikolai Kostomarov again settled in Saratov, where he wrote "The Riot of Stenka Razin" and took part, as a clerk of the provincial committee for improving the life of the peasants, in the preparation of the peasant reform.

In the spring of 1859 he was invited by the University of St. Petersburg to take the department of Russian history. This was the time of the most intense work in the life of Kostomarov and his greatest popularity. Already known to the Russian public as a talented writer, he now acted as a professor with a powerful and original talent for exposition and conducting independent and new views on the tasks and essence of history. Kostomarov himself formulated the main idea of his lectures in the following way: “When I entered the department, I set myself the idea in my lectures to highlight the life of the people in all its particular manifestations ... that the life of the units was expressed by excellent aspirations in the general state system. To find and catch these features folk life parts of the Russian state was for me the task of my studies in history. "

In 1860, he accepted the challenge of Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin to a public debate on the origin of Rus, which Kostomarov had taken from Lithuania. Held within the walls of the university on March 19, this dispute did not give any positive result: the opponents remained unconvinced. At the same time, Kostomarov was elected a member of the archaeographic commission and undertook the publication of acts on the history of Little Russia in the 17th century.

Preparing these documents for publication, he began to write a number of monographs on them, which should have, as a result, made up the history of Little Russia from the time of Khmelnitsky; he continued this work until the end of his life. He also took part in magazines (" Russian word"," Sovremennik "), publishing excerpts of his lectures and historical articles in them. He stood then quite close to the progressive circles of St. Petersburg University and journalism, but his complete merger with them was hampered by their enthusiasm for economic issues, while he retained a romantic attitude towards the people and Ukrainophile ideas.

The organ that was closest to Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov was the Osnova, founded by some of the former members of the Cyril and Methodius Society, which had gathered in St. Petersburg, where he published a number of articles devoted primarily to clarifying the independent significance of the Little Russian tribe and polemics with Polish and Great Russian writers who denied such importance.

It turns out that the Russian people are not united; there are two of them, and who knows, maybe even more of them will be discovered, and nevertheless they are Russian ... But understanding this difference in this way, I think that the task of your Foundation will be: to express in literature the influence that should have on our common the formation of the peculiar signs of the South Russian people. This influence should not destroy, but supplement and moderate that fundamental principle of the Great Russian, which leads to cohesion, to fusion, to a strict state and communal form that absorbs the personality, and the desire for practical activity, falling into materiality, devoid of poetry. The South Russian element should give our common life a dissolving, revitalizing, spiritualizing principle.

After the closure of St. Petersburg University, caused by the student riots in 1861, several professors, including Kostomarov, arranged (in the City Duma) systematic public lectures, known in the press of that time as the Free or Mobile University; Kostomarov lectured on ancient Russian history. When Professor Pavlov, after reading publicly about the millennium of Russia, was expelled from St. Petersburg, the committee for the organization of the Duma lectures decided, in the form of a protest, to stop them. Kostomarov refused to comply with this decision, but at his next lecture (March 8, 1862), the noise raised by the public forced him to stop reading, and further reading was prohibited by the administration.

In 1863, "North Russian Narodopravstva" were published, which was an adaptation of one of the courses read by Kostomarov at St. Petersburg University; in 1866 in the "Vestnik Evropy" appeared "The Time of Troubles of the Moscow State", later it also published "The Last Years of the Commonwealth".

Caused by a weakening of vision, a break in archival studies in 1872 was used by Kostomarov to compile "Russian history in the biographies of its main figures." In 1875 he suffered a serious illness that severely damaged his health. In the same year he married Al. L. Kisel, née Kragelskaya, who was his fiancée in 1847, but after his exile she married another.

The works of the last years of Kostomarov's life, with all their great merits, bore some traces of the shaken power of talent: there are fewer generalizations, less liveliness in presentation, sometimes a dry list of facts takes the place of brilliant characteristics. During these years, Kostomarov even expressed the view that the whole of the historian boils down to the transmission of the facts he found in the sources and verified facts. He worked with tireless energy until his death.

He died on April 7 (19), 1885, after a long and painful illness. Nikolai Ivanovich was buried in St. Petersburg at Literatorskie mostki of the Volkovsky cemetery.

Kostomarov, as a historian, both during his life and after his death, was repeatedly subjected to strong attacks. He was reproached for the superficial use of sources and the resulting errors, for one-sided views, for partisanship. There is a grain of truth in these reproaches, however, very small. Minor blunders and mistakes inevitable for any scientist, perhaps, are somewhat more common in the writings of Nikolai Ivanovich, but this is easily explained by the extraordinary variety of his occupations and the habit of relying on his rich memory.

In the few cases when Kostomarov really showed partisanship — namely, in some of his works on Little Russian history — this was only a natural reaction against the even more party views expressed in literature from the other side. Further, the very material on which Kostomarov worked did not always give him the opportunity to realize his views on the task of the historian. The historian of the internal life of the people, in his scientific views and sympathies, it was in his works dedicated to Little Russia that he was involuntarily a depiction of external history. In any case, the general significance of Kostomarov in the development of Russian historiography can, without any exaggeration, be called enormous. He introduced and persistently carried out in all his works the idea of folk history. The historian himself understood and implemented it, mainly in the form of studying the spiritual life of the people.

Later studies expanded the content of this idea, but Kostomarov's merit does not diminish from this. In connection with this main idea of Kostomarov, he had another - about the need to study the tribal characteristics of each part of the people and create regional history. If in modern science a slightly different view of the national character was established, denying the immobility that Kostomarov attributed to him, then it was the works of the latter that served as the impetus, depending on which the study of the history of the regions began to develop. Introducing new and fruitful ideas into the development of Russian history, independently exploring a number of issues in its field, Kostomarov, thanks to the peculiarities of his talent, aroused, at the same time, a keen interest in historical knowledge among the mass of the public. Thought deeply, almost getting used to the antiquity he was studying, he reproduced it in his works with such bright colors, in such convex images that it attracted the reader and pierced his mind with indelible features.

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 figures", researcher of the socio-political and economic history of Russia and the modern territory of Ukraine, called by Kostomarov "southern Russia" or "southern edge". Pan-Slavist.

Biography of N.I. 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 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 marry 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 University, 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-Artemovsky, although he was a famous 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. After working 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 the years 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 the master of Russian literature, but fell ill and returned to Kharkov, having managed to study German, Polish and Czech languages and publish his Ukrainian-language works during this time.

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 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 at the 1st gymnasium, and then he taught in different boarding schools, including in women - 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 famous 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 after a house for himself and the bride on Bolshaya Vladimirskaya, 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 start interrogating 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 a 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 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 rebellion and, at the same time, wrote, on the advice of NV 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 also for this short time he became famous 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. Did he portray Novgorod veche or the confusion of the Lipetsk battle, as soon as you close your eyes - and after a few seconds you yourself seem to be transported to the center of the depicted events, you see and hear everything that Kostomarov is talking about, who meanwhile 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 more than once traveled abroad. 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 12 volumes of acts under his editorship (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 suffering 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 of 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 Dedovtsi, 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 notorious 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, 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 nation.

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 the word, 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. To interpret somehow differently scientific heritage the great Russian historian, a century and a half after the writing of his main works, does not make any sense.

In the 50s of the last century, the famous Russian and Ukrainian historian Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov (1817-1885), who lived in Saratov since the end of the 40s under police supervision, dealt with the problems of the history of the Saratov region.

The historical works of Kostomarov occupy a prominent place in Russian historical thought of the last century. They are distinguished by their interest in the past of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, the desire to penetrate into the essence and content of folk life, a great interest in popular movements, thoroughness and scrupulousness in working on historical sources ...

Nikolai Ivanovich finds himself in Saratov as an already formed historian and public figure. In 1837 he graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Kharkov University. At the turn of the 30s-40s of the 19th century, he published several collections of poetry. In 1841, Kostomarov submitted his master's thesis "On the Significance of the Union in the History of Western Russia", which was banned by the censorship, and by the spring of 1843 he had prepared and then defended a new thesis "On the History and Significance of Russian Folk Poetry."

For some time Kostomarov taught at secondary educational institutions, and from the fall of 1845 - at Kiev University. In addition to teaching, he did a lot of ethnography, folklore, literary activities. From the end of 1845, Kostomarov became a member of the secret anti-government "Cyril and Methodius Society", which fought for the elimination of serfdom, the abolition of estates, the unification of the Slavic peoples, a federal parliamentary republic with equal rights and political autonomy of each nationality. In 1847 he was arrested, spent a year in solitary confinement in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and then exiled to Saratov by order of the tsar, who approved the verdict of the investigative commission in the case of the Cyril and Methodius brotherhood. “... Former associate professor at St. Vladimir University, collegiate assessor Nikolai Kostomarov, along with other persons, - said in the document, - compiled a Ukrainian-Slavic society in Kiev, in which the unification of the Slavic tribes into one state was reasoned, and moreover, he translated from the Polish language one manuscript of criminal content ”... He arrived in Saratov with a prescription "Assign him to the service, but not in the scientific part"... Identified as a translator at the provincial government from January 29, 1849.

The arrival of a young university professor in a provincial town was greeted with extreme interest by the local community. According to an eyewitness, “He was a man of average height, about thirty, well built, but somewhat awkward, as he remained all his life. His clean-shaven face was very mobile; nervous twitching was noticeable in him, so sometimes it seemed that these were not spontaneous grimaces "... The reason for the nervous movements of his face was not so much the ordeals he endured in prison, but a consequence of the shock he endured at the age of ten when his father was killed by thieves.

The life and work of Kostomarov in Saratov was complex and contradictory. At various times, holding the positions of secretary of the provincial statistical committee, translator of the provincial government, editor of Saratov Provincial Gazette, Kostomarov became quite close to the provincial administration, taking, for example, participation in the punishment of several Saratov Jews for the so-called “ritual” murders.

On the other hand, Nikolai Ivanovich was also closely associated with the advanced Saratov intelligentsia, attracting everyone's attention with the position of a political exile. In 1851, in the house of the writer M. Zhukova, Kostomarov met Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, who came to him with a bow from their mutual friend, St. Petersburg professor-Slavist I.I. Sreznevsky. “I found in him a person to whom I could not help but become attached”, - reported Chernyshevsky to the professor in November 1851. A rather friendly relationship was established between them, which lasted all their life, although they did not develop into an ideological closeness.

There is quite a lot of evidence from contemporaries that shed light on the relationship between Chernyshevsky and Kostomarov. So, A.N. Pypin in "My Notes" says that Nikolai Gavrilovich, who since January 1851 became a teacher at a local gymnasium, "I became especially close to Kostomarov. They saw each other constantly; they were people of a fairly high scientific level, which was rare in the provinces. Chernyshevsky highly appreciated the works of Kostomarov and compared them with the works of the famous Thierry."... A.I. Rozanov, Chernyshevsky's seminary classmate, naively believed that Chernyshevsky's fame as a free-thinker began with friendship with Kostomarov: “Just as the historian N.I. Kostomarov had a reputation in our Saratov, for a man of extreme political views, then friendship with him hurt N.G. Chernyshevsky in the eyes of the gymnasium authorities "... Nikolai Gavrilovich himself also spoke definitely: “We saw each other very often, sometimes for whole months every day, and almost every day we sat together ... At the beginning of my acquaintance with him, my way of thinking was already established for a long time, And I found his way of thinking too firm ... About In many ways he judged, in my opinion, either completely correctly, or incomparably more correctly than most of the Russian scientists of that time "... Even after three and a half decades, when their paths diverged, Chernyshevsky still praised Kostomarov highly. In 1889, in the preface to the Russian translation of Weber's General History, Nikolai Gavrilovich said: “Kostomarov was a man of such extensive scholarship, such a mind, and so loved the truth that his works have a very high scientific merit. His concepts of the figures and events of Russian history almost always either coincide with the truth, or are close to it ".

Chernyshevsky quite soberly assessed the political views of Kostomarov. To Olga Sokratovna's question: will Kostomarov take part in the revolutionary coup, Nikolai Gavrilovich answered with conviction : “He is too noble, poetic; he will be frightened by the dirt, the massacre ”.

“... We have, - recalled the Saratov historian E.A. Belov, who was "In the friendliest relationship" and with Chernyshevsky and with Kostomarov, - there were frequent rumors about the events of this century and heated debates, especially about the events of the late 18th century. The process of the formation of parties and their mutual collisions aroused heated debates. N.I. Kostomarov attributed the terror to the death of the Girondins, N.G. Chernyshevsky and I argued that the terror in unconscious self-confidence was prepared by the Girondins themselves ”.

From disputes about the era of the French Revolution, they imperceptibly moved on to discussing the problems of Russian history. Chernyshevsky treasured his conversations with Kostomarov. “Acquaintance with Nikolai Ivanovich ...- he wrote to I.I. Sreznevsky, - it takes a lot of my time, which I, however, will not call in any way lost ”... At the same time, fundamental differences between the liberal and democratic views of the two friends were already revealed here. "He was a man of extremes, always striving to bring his direction to the last limits.", - says Kostomarov in the mid-80s.

In Saratov, Kostomarov continued his intensive scientific activity. "Kostomarov's apartment, - recalls one of his friends of that time, - was littered with a mass of books, from which he drew data, supplementing them with his thoughts. With such work, Kostomarov, being in Saratov, created folios of his own handwriting, which he took with him when he left for St. Petersburg, and served as an aid in his professorship ”... In Saratov, using previously collected materials, Kostomarov creates a monograph "Bogdan Khmelnitsky", prepares materials about the "Time of Troubles", about the bourgeois revolution in France, about Tadeusz Kosciuszko, writes historical and fictional works: the poem "On the Ruins of Panticapaeum" and the story "Son ”.

The dramatic poem On the Ruins of Panticapaeum, written in the period of closest proximity to Chernyshevsky, contains a passionate, albeit masked by historical allegories, protest against the regime of Nicholas I. Published only in 1890, it was highly praised by Ivan Franko, who said that the poem "Belongs to the significant and deeply thought out poetic works, which the Russian literature of the XIX century has the right to be proud of".

While living in Saratov, Kostomarov first continued to correspond with the bride, hoping to obtain permission for marriage. As can be seen from his memoirs, he wrote a letter to the mother of the bride with a request to bring her daughter. However, she decided that the exiled professor was not Alina's couple, and he never received an answer. He was not allowed to leave Saratov as a supervised person, and only on January 25, 1850, in a report addressed to the governor M.L. Kozhevnikov asked for a leave of four months, citing ill health, which he intended to correct in the hydrotherapy institutions in Kochetka, Kharkov province, or Lustdorf near Odessa. With the notification "behaving well", the governor sent the petition to the Ministry of the Interior. In March, a refusal came. At the end of the same year, Kostomarov, addressing himself to the III department, repeated the attempt, but this time, probably on the advice of the governor, he put forward a different reason: to go to Kiev to marry the daughter of the deceased Colonel Kragelsky. The answer from St. Petersburg, signed by the chief of gendarmes, Count Orlov - "... to announce to Kostomarov that he can offer his bride to come to Saratov to marry him." In turn, the governor personally addressed the Minister of the Interior on December 31, 1850. Having coordinated his decision with the head of the III department, the minister, in a response document dated May 4, 1851, allowed a trip to Kiev, "but so that Kostomarov was there no more than three months and that during his stay in Kiev the police continued to monitor him.".

The trip took place. A.L. herself Kragelskaya later recalled how once a gendarme officer came to their house, telling about Kostomarov's attempt to get a leave to get married in Kiev. It was necessary to sign a document confirming the groom's request. Mother handed in some kind of paper - "Seeing nothing in front of me except my mother's index finger, I automatically followed the order and signed."... Most likely, Alina signed a refusal. Mother found her a fiancé; on November 11, 1851, she married M.D. Kisel, with whom she lived until his death in 1870. Kostomarov probably learned about his fiancé during his trip to Kiev. At least N.G. Chernyshevsky, who met Kostomarov in Saratov, testified: "More than six months before the marriage of his bride, he already considered himself to have lost her, I know this, because he told me this from the very beginning of my acquaintance with him.".

One of Kostomarov's acquaintances conveys the details of the dramatic moment experienced by Kostomarov in connection with the loss of his bride: “He was in the full sense of the martyr: out of grief, he grabbed himself by his long hair; wrung his fingers, was ready to bang his head against the wall; eyes were filled with blood and came into some kind of frenzy; the lover was a living corpse, close to insanity ".

Feelings for A.L. Kragelskoy Kostomarov kept for many years. Upon learning of the death of her husband in 1875, he proposed to her. Their life together continued until the death of Kostomarov in 1885.

The names of those who surrounded Kostomarov in Saratov are known to us almost completely. First of all, this is A.D. Gorbunov, an advisor to the treasury chamber, who was fond of translation work (his translation of A. Mitskevich's poem "Konrad Wallenrod" is known), and his brother P.D. Gorbunov. To A.D. Kostomarov appeared to Gorbunov in 1848 with a letter of recommendation from one of the Petersburg officials and was warmly received by him. At the same time, Nikolai Ivanovich became closely acquainted with the family of the solicitor D.E. Stupina, whose youngest daughter Natalya almost became his wife. In 1850, an acquaintance with the poetess A.N. Paskhalova, and in 1855 she met D.L. Mordovtsev, husband of A.N. Paskhalova. They maintained a relationship for the rest of the historian's life. Friends often gathered near Saratov at the dacha of his cousin A.N. Paskhalova - I.D. Esmont. Doctor S.F. Stephanie, Prince V.A. Shcherbatov, official I.A. Gan, A.N. Beketov (brother of the former rector of St. Petersburg University), exiled Poles Minkevich and Khmelevsky, D.L. Mordovtsev and his brother I.L. Mordovtsev - such is the circle of persons close to Kostomarov, indicated by a contemporary.

Kostomarov's stay in Saratov made him turn to some problems of local history. He was avidly interested in Saratov folklore. Together with A.N. Paskhalova-Mordovtseva Kostomarov organized the collection and processing of folk songs, fairy tales, legends. A significant part of them were published in the local press, and in 1862 - in the Chronicle of Russian Literature and Antiquity. Nikolai Ivanovich studied the development of local productive forces, was engaged in the processing of local statistical data. Nikolai Ivanovich analyzed the socio-economic processes that took place in the Saratov Volga region in the middle of the 19th century, sought to identify social contradictions. Kostomarov's interest in the history of the Saratov region is evidenced by a letter about him from the head of the province, sent to the spiritual department in October 1854: "... I ask the Spiritual Consistory to provide the designated official with accurate and satisfactory information and to fulfill his legal requirements regarding statistics, geography, ethnography and the history of the province entrusted to me.".

Kostomarov wrote essays about Petrovsk and Volsk, examined some local archives. A significant part of the collected documents (for example, about E. Pugachev) Kostomarov handed over to his student and successor in the study of the Saratov region Mordovtsev. “I gave the materials to D.L. Mordovtsev,- Nikolai Ivanovich himself told later, - but he himself did not dare to write to Pugachev, since they told me that they would not give the necessary papers in the archive "... On the basis of data on the Saratov region, Kostomarov, together with Mordovtsev, tried to prepare a collection of peasant uprisings in the first half of the 19th century, but the plan remained unfinished, since the governor forbade the publication of the book.

Of particular interest is Kostomarov's historical monograph “Stenka Razin's Revolt” written in Saratov, the first version of which, entitled “Stenka Razin and the Daring Lads of the 17th Century”, was published in 1853 on the pages of “Saratov Provincial Gazette”. Some sections of this work are devoted to the events of the Razin uprising in the Saratov Volga region. The work of Kostomarov caused a great public outcry, was outlined by K. Marx, who learned about it from the Russian populist Danielson. A.M. Gorky in the story "Konovalov": “As the historian painted with the artist's brush the figure of Stepan Timofeevich and the“ prince of the Volga freemen ”grew out of the pages of the book, Konovalov was reborn. Previously boring and indifferent, with eyes clouded with lazy drowsiness - he, gradually and imperceptibly for me, appeared before me in a strikingly new form ....

Literary critics rightly say that Kostomarov's study, a detailed discussion of the details of this work, even then gave Chernyshevsky a historical perspective for understanding the image of Rakhmetov. One of the characters in the novel "Prologue" Volgin recalls the song "We are not thieves, we are not robbers" recorded by Kostomarov and published first in Saratov Provincial Gazette, and then in a separate book about Razin.

In 1858, Kostomarov's work "An Outline of the History of the Saratov Territory from its annexation to the Russian state to the accession to the throne of Nicholas I" was published in the "Memorial Book of the Saratov Province". Kostomarov tried to paint a broad, generalizing picture of the processes that took place in the Volga region in the 16th-18th centuries. Emphasizing the importance of the Volga trade route for the economic development of the Russian state, he raised the question of settling the Saratov region as a consequence of state policy. Saratov, according to the historian, was founded during the reign of Fedor Ivanovich on the left bank of the Volga. However, Nikolai Ivanovich avoided establishing a more precise date. At the end of the 17th century, Kostomarov believed, Saratov was moved to the right bank. Kostomarov clarifies the significance of the annexation of the Lower Volga region to the Russian state, emphasizing: "The Volga became then the only way of this newly discovered acquaintance of the West with the East".

He agreed with the statements of A.F. Leopoldova and R.A. Fadeev, that the need to develop the Volga trade raised the question of building Russian fortress cities along the banks of the Volga, among which was Saratov. Kostomarov singles out in the Saratov Volga region in XVI-XVII centuries the presence of two opposing forces: the Volga Cossacks, which was an expression of the “old veche freemen”, and the autocratic state, which sought to subordinate the Cossacks “under the shining scepter of order and power to the new image of the political and everyday existence of Russia”. This clash, according to Kostomarov, determined the further development of the region. Having emerged in the second half of the 16th century, the Volga Cossacks, in the image of Kostomarov, represented a military organization based on pronounced democratic principles of government. Thus, the problem of social differentiation remained outside the field of view of the historian. Cossack troops... He was unable to understand the internal processes taking place in the Cossack communities.

Since 1855, after the death of Nicholas I, the life of Nikolai Ivanovich begins to change. He is allowed to travel to the capital to work in the central archives. And in 1859 he finally moved to St. Petersburg, where he became a professor of Russian history at St. Petersburg University.

According to contemporaries, in his old age, Kostomarov "loved to talk about his past," and these stories undoubtedly concerned Saratov. "Poetic nature", "a great scientist and artistic talent" - this characteristic fixed to Kostomarov had its origins in his forced, but filled with young creative energy, Saratov decade.

Materials used: - Dechenko A. Ten years under supervision. - Monuments of the Fatherland: The Heart of the Volga Region. - M .: Monuments of the Fatherland, 1998.
- Demchenko A. N. I. Kostomarov in Saratov. - Saratov Volga region in the panorama of centuries: history, traditions, problems. Materials of interregional scientific local history readings on April 7-8, 2000. - Saratov: SSU Publishing House, 2000.

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

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.

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:

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

The beginning of the way

Dissertation by N.I. Kostomarov

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.

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

Kostomarov and Cyril and Methodius Society

Kostomarov in exile

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

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 tumult 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. "

"Duma" incident

In protest against the repression of students and the expulsion of Pavlov, the professors of St. Petersburg University Kavelin, Stasyulevich, Pypin, Spasovich, Utin resigned.

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:

last years of life

They met 26 years later, like old friends, but the joy of a date was overshadowed by thoughts of lost years.

Assessment of the personality of N.I. Kostomarov

Historical conception of N.I. Kostomarov

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.

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 the word, 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.

Kostomarov the beginning of an interest in history. Literary and historical notes of a young technician. "Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences"

early years

Student body

Heyday of activity

Last years

Performance evaluation

Memory

Autobiography

Bibliography

Articles in magazines

Notes (edit)

Literature

Biography of N.I. Kostomarova

Family and ancestors

The beginning of the way

Dissertation by N.I. Kostomarov

N.I.Kostomarov as a teacher

Kostomarov and Cyril and Methodius Society

Kostomarov in exile

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

"Duma" incident

last years of life

Assessment of the personality of N.I. Kostomarov

Historical conception of N.I. Kostomarov

Biography of N.I. Kostomarova

Family and ancestors

The beginning of the way

Dissertation by N.I. Kostomarov

N.I.Kostomarov as a teacher

Kostomarov and Cyril and Methodius Society

Kostomarov in exile

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

"Duma" incident

last years of life

Assessment of the personality of N.I. Kostomarov

Historical conception of N.I. Kostomarov

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