UTOPIA IN LITERATURE(from the Greek ou - not, no and topos - place, i.e. a place that does not exist; another explanation: eu - good and topos - place, i.e. a blessed place) - a literary and artistic work containing a picture of the ideal a society inhabited by absolutely happy people living in conditions of a perfect government system.

Utopian consciousness in the broad sense of the word is characteristic of any society in which developed contradictions exist. Its essence lies in the mental “removal” of these contradictions, in the idea of ​​what society and life should look like ideally.

In traditional society, utopia was retrospective in nature: the ideal state belonged to the “times of our ancestors”; there were legends about happy countries (for example, “The Land of the Hyperboreans” among the ancient Greeks, “Belovodye” and “Oponskaya Kingdom” in Russian legends).

In modern times, these ideas were superimposed on the intellectual and philosophical traditions of constructing an “ideal system”, coming from Plato ( State).

However, philosophical utopia remained only a kind of intellectual game. The crisis of traditional society and modernization, on the one hand, led to a real transformation of society on a rational basis, and on the other, an aggravation of all sorts of contradictions. This situation turned out to be extremely favorable for the emergence of the phenomenon of mass utopian consciousness. The utopian no longer dreamed of the best system as an unattainable ideal, but firmly knew and believed that life must be - and will definitely be - rebuilt on certain principles.

The implementation of utopia became a matter of will. Naturally, in social terms, utopian consciousness is characteristic primarily of the lower classes of society, who suffer most from the existing contradictions.

One of the first attempts to realize utopia can be considered the Jacobin dictatorship; for the first time she expressed a claim to destroy the old world to its foundations and erect a new one.

A new, much more decisive attempt to build a utopian society was made in the 20th century. socialists and fascists (especially the two extreme manifestations of these ideologies - communists and Nazis).

The “realization” of universal happiness on Earth killed the dream: the City of the Sun turned into a concentration camp. In the new conditions, even books that constituted the classics of the utopian genre and delighted many generations (Plato, T. More, T. Campanella) began to be perceived as descriptions of a terrible mechanism of personality suppression.

In modern literature, utopia is considered among the science fiction genres. In utopias, a certain “second reality” is constructed, which is contrasted with the surrounding reality and contains sharp criticism of modernity. The flourishing of utopian literature coincides with periods of acute cultural crises and fundamental changes in the life of society. Utopian literature has its roots in archaic myths about visiting the underworld and in the genre of folk tales, in the figurative and compositional system of which certain blissful magical lands often occupy an important place, where good finally conquers evil, “milk rivers with jelly banks” flow, etc. d. In the process of historical development in literature, a number of stable plot devices have been developed that ensure the movement of the hero from the everyday world to the fantastic reality of utopia: dreams, visions, travel to unknown distant countries or to other planets, etc. The world of utopia is located, as a rule, outside the usual time and space. It is placed either in countries on the other side of the Earth (sometimes beyond its borders), inaccessible to mere mortals, and “accidentally”, “in a fantastic way” is revealed to an outside guest, or is transferred to a “wonderful future” that brings to life the bright aspirations of modern humanity.

The principle of contrast between the present and the future in utopias is often realized through a dialogue between an outside visitor, who is amazed by everything around him, and his “cicerone,” that is, a guide through the new world, explaining to the stranger the structure of an ideal society.

At the origins of utopia stands Plato as the author of dialogues State, Politician, Timaeus, Critias. An important role in the formation of the utopian worldview in Europe was played by the early Christian chiliast heresies - teachings about the coming thousand-year Kingdom of God on earth. Chiliasm was embodied most clearly in the philosophy of history of the 12th century Italian monk-theologian. Joachim of Flora, who predicted the imminent advent of the era of the Third Testament - the Testament of the Holy Spirit, when Christ's truth will finally be established on earth and material life will be clothed in ideal forms.

Joachim of Flor's concept influenced idealistic ideas about the future in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was also tested by the English priest Thomas More, the author of the work to the name of which the very term “utopia” owes its existence - A golden book, as useful as it is amusing, about the best structure of the state and about the new island of Utopia (1516).

Thanks to T. More in Western European literature of the 16th–17th centuries. The genre structure of the utopia and its main thematic principle—a detailed description of regulated social life—are finally formed. The line of T. More was continued by the book of the Italian utopian T. Campanella City of Sun(1623). Here the author offers the reader a navigator's story about an ideal community living without private property and family, where the state supports the development of science and education, ensures the upbringing of children and monitors the mandatory 4-hour working day. In 1614–1627, the English philosopher F. Bacon wrote a book New Atlantis– about the fictional country of Bensalem, which is led by a certain “Solomon’s House”, uniting a collection of wise men and supporting the cult of scientific, technical and entrepreneurial activity. Bacon's book expresses the historical optimism of the emerging bourgeoisie and for the first time the motives of scientific and technological progress arise, with which in subsequent utopias idealistic dreams of a “wonderful future” will almost invariably be associated.

In the book 1657 Another Light, or States and Empires of the Moon S. Cyrano de Bergerac attempts to give a utopian interpretation of the biblical plot and thereby exposes the religious roots of the genre - it tells the story of a journey to a utopian state on the Moon, where Enoch, the prophet Elijah, the Old Testament patriarchs, etc. continue to live.

In the 18th century, during the Age of Enlightenment with its dominant cult of comprehensive reason, utopian projects were perceived as quite serious and real models for the structure of a future society. For this reason, they are mainly expressed not in artistic form, but in the genre of journalistic treatises (J.-J. Rousseau, W. Godwin, etc.). Among the few exceptions Code of Nature(1755) Morelli and the novel by L. Mercier 2440th year, which laid the foundation for a genre subtype of utopian books about the state of society at a certain, clearly dated moment in the distant future.

In the first half of the 19th century. the ideas of utopian socialism are rapidly spreading in Europe (R. Owen, C. Fourier, Saint-Simon). Basically, they are still expressed in philosophical and journalistic works, however, in the fiction of romanticism, individual pictures of a “bright future” may appear ( Queen Mab, Prometheus Unbound P.B. Shelley, Island J. Byron, Monsieur Antoine's sin J. Sand, Les Miserables V.Hugo, Mardi G. Melville and others). One of the classic utopias of the mid-19th century. – Travel to Ikaria(1840) E. Cabet, who influenced J. Verne ( Mysterious Island, 1875). In general, the utopian consciousness of the 19th century. continues the traditions of superficial humanism of the Enlightenment. He is also characterized by obvious anti-historicism, a tendency to create universal schemes for solving any social issues, a vision of the society of the future in a frozen form, and an inability to take into account the irrational nature of man, which cannot be regulated.

At the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. the general crisis of social institutions in Europe, the awareness of the imminent end of the “old world”, the feeling of an approaching world war and a revolutionary explosion lead to the emergence of numerous utopias and theoretical understanding of this literary phenomenon (critical works by A. Vogt, E. Kirchenheim, A. Sventokhovsky, article by Lesya Ukrainka Utopia in a fictional sense, 1906, etc.). Often, utopias try to capture the social contours of the “new world,” the advent of which is “just around the corner.” Some artistic utopias - for example, A look back(1888), E. Bellamy - were perceived as a call to action, as practical recommendations for the real implementation of the ideal. W. Morris entered into a polemic with E. Bellamy, who in the novel News from nowhere(1891) oriented his project of a communist utopia to the example of the Christian Middle Ages. E. Zola's utopian quests are expressed in a series of novels Four Gospels(1899–1903). In 1905, A. France writes another socialist utopia in the novel On a white stone. In 1908 the first utopian drama appeared - Dawns E.Verharna.

In Western literature of the 20th century, utopia increasingly takes on a “technical” slant. Since the middle of the last century, social illusions have been gradually falling in value and at the same time attention to man-made factors in the development of civilization has been increasing. This leads to the fact that the center of utopias is not so much the political organization of the future society, but rather the forecasting of scientific achievements and, most importantly, their social and psychological consequences (A. Azimov, S. Lem, etc.).

The first Russian utopias ( Dream. Happy Society A.P. Sumarokova, 1759, Journey to the land of Ophir M.M.Shcherbatova, 1783–1784, 3448 Manuscript by Martyn Zadek A.F. Veltman, 1833, 4338 Petersburg letters V.F. Odoevsky, 1840) depict the social ideal realized within the framework of an enlightened monarchy. In Russian literature of the 19th century. Pictures of a “bright future” that have no analogues in the West appear, associated with the people’s dream of a “peasant’s paradise” (in L.N. Tolstoy, N.N. Zlatovratsky). In the 1860–1880s, populist ideology finds artistic expression in the utopian sketches of S.M. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, G.I. Uspensky, P.V. Zasodimsky and others. N.G. Chernyshevsky in the “dreams” of Vera Pavlovna from the novel What to do?(1863) gave artistic descriptions of life in a future communist society, characteristic of revolutionary democrats, which can be considered unconvincing, intellectually and aesthetically untenable.

At the beginning of the 20th century. In Russia, interest in science fiction and social forecasts is growing. A number of artistic utopias appear in literature: Half a century later(1902) S.F. Sharapova, Republic of the Southern Cross V.Ya.Bryusova, Red Star(1908) and Engineer Manny(1911) A.A. Bogdanova. In the first of his novels, A.A. Bogdanov depicts the communist way of life on Mars. This turn of the topic is very typical for a representative of the revolutionary intelligentsia of the early 20th century, infected with extreme radicalism and striving for a speedy reconstruction of the universe on a cosmic scale.

The revolution of 1917 gave a new impetus to the development of fantastic and utopian literature, thanks to which Inonia(1918) S.A. Yesenina, My brother Alexey's journey to the land of peasant utopia(1920) A.V.Chayanova, The World to Come Y.M.Okuneva, Road to the ocean(1935) L.M. Leonova and others. The most noticeable utopia of literary emigration of the first wave was the book Behind the Thistle(1922) by P.N. Krasnov, which predicts the gradual transformation of Russia, isolated from the rest of the world, into an exotic popular print monarchy.

Further, the development of utopia as a genre in Russian literature is interrupted until 1956, when it was published Andromeda's nebula I.A. Efremova. This break is due to the fact that the functions of artistic utopia were transferred to the official literature of socialist realism, which reproduced the features of a non-existent, speculatively constructed society, depicting it as it is must be.

A peculiar variety and at the same time a mirror reflection of the genre of utopia is dystopia (from the Greek anti - against, utopia - utopia). Dystopia is a parody of utopian works of art or a utopian idea. Like satire, dystopia can be embodied in a variety of genres: novel, poem, play, story.

If the utopians offered humanity a recipe for salvation from all social and moral ills, then the anti-utopians urge the reader to figure out how the common man in the street pays for universal happiness. The dystopian genre flourished in the 20th century, when, in the wake of revolutions, world wars and other historical upheavals, utopian ideas began to come true. The first country of “realized” utopia was Bolshevik Russia, and therefore dystopian impulses are especially characteristic of Russian literature. The first Russian dystopian novel - We(1920, published in 1924 in England) by E. Zamyatin, followed by Leningrad(1920) M. Kozyreva, Chevengur(1926–1929) and Pit(1929–1930) A. Platonov. Zamyatin in his novel described the United State, which had not yet been built and was only outlined in communist projects. In the United State, everyone has a job and an apartment, people should not think about tomorrow, state art is developing, state music flows from loudspeakers, people listen to poems by state poets, children, as if by choice, are healthy and slender (the state denies others the right to life), learn, absorb the basics of state ideology and history. Zamyatin saw the main thing that the United State brings with it: absolute suppression of the individual, all-pervasive surveillance, transparent (for Zamyatin - in the literal sense) walls of houses, universal worship of the Benefactor-sovereign, and, in the end, a fantastic operation to separate the soul and body of each of the citizens-"numbers". The conflict in dystopian works is associated with the hero’s rebellion against the authorities. The eccentricity and “strangeness” of many heroes of dystopias is manifested in their creative impulse, in the desire to master a gift that is not subject to total control. Usually the severity of the conflict depends only on the behavior of the hero, on the degree of his resistance.

The structural core of dystopia is anti-carnival. The world of dystopias is a parody of the free element of folk laughter culture, a parody of a carnival. If the basis of the usual carnival described in literary criticism of the 20th century. M.M. Bakhtin, lies the so-called. ambivalent, dual, denying-affirming laughter, then the essence of a totalitarian pseudo-carnival is absolute fear. But this fear can also be called ambivalent: it is always accompanied by reverence for power and admiration for it. If in an ordinary carnival any social barriers are abolished, the entire social hierarchy collapses, laughter completely equalizes the rights of the “upper” and “lower”, then in a pseudo-carnival the distance between people at different levels of the social ladder is an irrevocable norm. In a carnival everyone laughs at everyone - in a pseudo-carnival everyone is watching everyone, everyone is afraid of each other

The experience of building a new society in the USSR and Germany was mercilessly ridiculed in classic English-language dystopias Brave New World(1932) O. Huxley, Fur farm(1945) and 1984(1949) J. Orwell. These works, along with the rejection of communist - and any other - tyranny, express a general feeling of confusion at the possibilities of a soulless technocratic civilization.

The appearance of classical dystopia was preceded by warning novels, the authors of which sought to show what fruits the disturbing phenomena of our time could bring in the near future: The Coming Race(1871) E. Bulwer-Lytton, Caesar's Column(1890) I. Donelli, Iron heel(1907) J. London.

In the 1930s, a number of dystopian novels and warning novels of a grotesque satirical nature appeared, indicating the fascist threat: Mr Parham's Autocracy(1930) by H. Wells, This is impossible for us(1935) S. Lewis, War with the Salamanders(1936)K.Czapeka et al.

In Russian literature of the 1980–1990s, several varieties of the dystopia genre were formed: satirical dystopia ( Nikolai Nikolaevich And Disguise, both – 1980, Y. Aleshkovsky, Rabbits and boas, 1982, F. Iskander, Moscow 2042, 1986, V. Voinovich), detective dystopia ( French Soviet Socialist Republic, 1987, A. Gladilina, Tomorrow in Russia, 1989, E. Topol), dystopia-“catastrophe” ( Laz, 1991, V. Makanina, Pyramid, 1994, L. Leonova) and others.

Vadim Polonsky

"A golden little book, as useful as it is funny, about the best structure of the state and about the new island of Utopia" or simply " Utopia"(lat. Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia) - a book by Thomas More (1516), the name of which has become a household name for the entire genre.

Written in Latin.

Working on a book

More began working on the book during an embassy to Flanders in May. The first edition (Leuven) was prepared by a friend of the author, Erasmus of Rotterdam, in 1516. Interest in the book was the reason for the first edition to be reprinted in Paris in 1517 by the bookseller Gilles de Gourmont.

Due to many typographical errors and errors in the Latin language in the first two editions, Erasmus turned to the typographer Froben in Basel, who was also the publisher of his own works. The reasons for the language errors in the first edition remain unknown: More himself was fluent in Latin. Thus, in 1518 (in March and November) two new revised editions appeared.

Since More did not participate in the publishing of the first editions, it can be concluded from Erasmus' letters to More that Erasmus invited him to revise the work and send a revised version.

The first London edition was published 16 years after More's execution, in the city. By that time, the book had already been translated into German (), French (), Italian (), and later into Dutch (). In this regard, for a long time, Utopia was better known on the continent than in More's homeland.

The first Russian translations date back to the end of the 18th century and were carried out based on the French translation of Thomas Rousseau, the archivist of the Jacobin Club. Full titles of the first two editions:

The literary sources of "Utopia" are the works of Plato ("Republic", "Critias", "Timaeus"), 16th-century travel novels (in particular, "The Four Voyages" of Amerigo Vespucci) and to some extent the works of Chaucer, Langland and political ballads. From Vespucci's "Voyages" he took the plot of "Utopia" (meeting with Hythloday, his adventures).

“Utopia” is divided into two parts, not very similar in content, but logically inseparable from each other. The first part of More's work is a literary and political pamphlet; here the most powerful moment is the criticism of contemporary socio-political orders: he castigates “ bloody» legislation on workers, opposes the death penalty and passionately attacks royal despotism and the politics of war, sharply ridicules the corruption of the clergy. But Mor attacks especially sharply the enclosures of common lands, which ruined the peasantry: “The sheep,” he wrote, “ate the people.” The first part of Utopia provides not only a critique of the existing order, but also a reform program reminiscent of More's earlier, moderate projects; this part obviously served as a screen for the second, where he expressed his innermost thoughts in the form of a fantastic story.

In the second part, More's humanistic tendencies are again evident. More placed a “wise” monarch at the head of the state, allowing slaves who had become such for crimes, but were still in a tolerable position, to do menial work; he talks a lot about Greek philosophy, in particular about Plato; the heroes of Utopia themselves are ardent adherents of humanism. Labor is compulsory in Utopias“for everyone, and all citizens up to a certain age are engaged in farming one by one, agriculture is carried out by artisans, but urban production is built on the family-craft principle - the influence of insufficiently developed economic relations in the era of Mora. In Utopia, manual labor dominates, although it lasts only 6 hours a day and is not exhausting. More says nothing about the development of technology. Due to the nature of production, there is no exchange in the state of Mora, there is also no money, it exists only for trade relations with other countries, and trade is a state monopoly. The distribution of products in Utopia is carried out according to needs, without any strict restrictions. The political system of the Utopians, despite the presence of a king, is complete democracy: all positions are elective and can be filled by everyone, but, as befits a humanist, More gives the intelligentsia a leading role. Women enjoy full equality. The school is alien to scholasticism; it is built on a combination of theory and production practice.

In “Utopia” the attitude towards all religions is tolerant, and only atheism is prohibited, for adherence to which one was deprived of citizenship rights. In relation to religion, More occupies an intermediate position between people of religious and rationalistic worldviews, but in matters of society and the state he is a pure rationalist. While admitting that the existing society is unreasonable, More at the same time declares that it is a conspiracy of the rich against all members of society.

Political Views

• The main cause of all vices and disasters is private property and the resulting contradictions between the interests of the individual and society, rich and poor, luxury and poverty. Private property and money give rise to crimes that cannot be stopped by any laws or sanctions.
• Utopia (ideal country) is a kind of federation of 54 cities.
• The structure and management of each city are the same. There are 6,000 families in the city; in a family - from 10 to 16 adults. Each family is engaged in a certain craft (transition from one family to another is allowed). To work in rural areas adjacent to the city, “village families” (from 40 adults) are formed, in which a city resident is required to work for at least two years.
• Officials in Utopia are elected. Every 30 families elect a phylarch (syphogrant) for a year; at the head of the 10 phylarchs is the protophylarch (tranibor). Protophylarchs are elected from among scientists. They form the city senate, headed by the prince. The prince (adem) is elected by the phylarchs of the city from candidates proposed by the people. The position of the prince is irremovable unless he is suspected of striving for tyranny. The most important affairs of the city are decided by the people's assemblies; They also elect most of the officials and hear their reports.
• In Utopia there is no private property and, therefore, disputes between Utopians are rare and crimes are few; therefore, Utopians do not need extensive and complex legislation.
• The Utopians strongly abhor war, as a truly brutal act. Not wanting, however, to reveal, if necessary, their inability to do it, they constantly practice military science. Usually mercenaries are used for war.
• The Utopians recognize as a completely just cause for war the case when a people, possessing in vain and in vain a territory that it does not use itself, nevertheless refuses to use and possess it to others, who, according to the law of nature, must feed from it.

The stories of the inhabitants of the Latin Quarter of the early twentieth century, that very “Parisian school”, give us another definition of the Renaissance - “lost generation”. And that's why

On the threshold of the First World War An exceptional intellectual atmosphere developed in Paris: masters of art and simply semi-creative bohemians hurried to Paris to soak up the special air, to take part in a special life, but no one knew how to define this life.

So Ehrenburg tried in his memoirs “People, Years, Life”, and he didn’t succeed - it is described vividly, particular examples are extremely entertaining, but no explanation of what was so special about this Paris comes from the book. So Hemingway tried in “The Holiday That Is Always With You,” he wrote a whole book about Paris of those years; The result was a poignant story about the writer’s love for his first wife and for his lost youth, about that elusive sincerity that could only blossom in Paris of those years, and why only in Paris remains unclear. So Orwell wrote the book “Pounds of Dashing in Paris and London”, so Henry Miller wrote the book “Black Spring”, so Gertrude Stein wrote a kind of memoir - there is no number of memories of the participants in the strangest European fiesta. It was a fiesta, a carefree celebration in the middle of pre-war Europe.

Remember Hemingway’s novel “Fiesta” - it’s not about a trip to Pamplona, ​​the novel is about a strange carnival in the middle of pre-war Europe, that’s where the “holiday that is always with you” came from, from that very feeling of an eternal fiesta.

There is a definition given by Bob Fosse to Berlin during the Weimar Republic - he called the Prussian capital the word “cabaret”: they said, they danced and had fun, wasted invaluable energy and wasted time, and danger lay in wait for them and slammed down this irresponsible fun. The definition of "fiesta" is similar to the term "cabaret", but there is a difference. Hemingway, an expert in bullfighting, understood the meaning of the word “fiesta” well. Fiesta is a holiday that accompanies bullfighting, shading the deadly duel with barbarism with frenzied fun.

If we proceed from the term “fiesta” and the definition of “a holiday that is always with you,” then the understanding of the phenomenology of the Latin Quarter of the beginning of the last century becomes clearer, but is still extremely weak. Fiesta, carnival, feast during the plague - there are many analogies. Among others, Bruegel’s painting “The Battle of Carnival and Lent” comes to mind - Bruegel often used the metaphor of fasting (understood in all its sanctimonious incarnation) as a metaphor for the global violence of society against man; the plot of Boccaccio’s Renaissance work “The Decameron” also emerges, the heroes of which conduct frivolous conversations in an estate fenced off only by a garden and walls from the plague city; Isn’t this how those having fun in the Rotunda felt before the World War?

Many volumes have been written, but no one has given a clear explanation: what united them - they really sat in a cafe, joked around and drank cheap wine, sometimes drew, sometimes wrote poetry - real Boccaccio characters; were the feasters really united only by fun? Remember these heartbreaking paintings by Pascin or Picasso, and even Van Gogh and Lautrec anticipated the theme - poor people sitting over a glass of absinthe? They are poor and have no prospects; but now and here they are free. The main thing is not in poetry or paintings, the main thing is not in the success of tomorrow, this has long been clear to them, the outcasts; the main thing is the community of people, a free lifestyle.

Pablo Picasso and Max Jacob (center) at the entrance to the Rotunda. Paris 1910

The lucky ones who have chosen high need (by analogy with Aristotle’s “high leisure”) as their life credo do not go to work, they are not slaves of the market, they do not depend on the opinions of museums and experts. They live in the embrace of art not because they are paid money, and not because they “participate in the cultural process.” No, no, they do not participate in the construction of the cultural program of society!

Around them, behind the walls of the cafe, a world swirls with projects, plans, programs - fascists, Bolsheviks and other conspirators want to change culture, throw the authorities off the ship of modernity - but for the drinkers in the Rotunda such a question does not arise; for them there are simply no authorities, they feel in world culture as if in their own attic, they do not need to throw anyone off the ship of modernity. “Soutine is the new Rembrandt,” Modigliani decreed, and this is how it is considered in the Rotunda. None of them abolished the classics; on the contrary, Rembrandt was revered, they just moved Soutine into the classic’s room.

Compare the light burden of the poor man - the arbiter of world destiny with the heavy programs of VKHUTEMAS and Bauhaus, with the manifestos of the Futurists and Trotskyists, with the directives of the parties.

Legends have been written and films have been made about the freedom of the outcast makers of world history, but the further we move away from them in time (more than a hundred years have passed), the more unclear it is what exactly the legend is about. The anarchists of the Café Voltaire, as well as the Trotskyists and their colleagues from the Bauhaus, had enough creative freedom, supported by poverty and drunkenness. And that was a very detailed reasoned freedom, including from the heritage of culture! There is a difference between the functional freedom of the Bauhaus/VKHUTEMAS and the absolutely non-functional freedom of the Latin Quarter, but the definition of this difference eludes.

People flocked to Paris for something new and extraordinary, leaving Berlin and Moscow behind, just as Lorenzo de Medici once flocked to Florence to touch the blood-stirring environment of constant creation. But this is strange: after all, there were, perhaps, more declarations of intentions to create something new in pre-revolutionary Moscow and Weimar Berlin (and even in pre-war Berlin) than in Paris.

Neither the doctrines of communism, nor the slogans of democracy, nor the prospects of world revolution, nor the renewal of the world through fascism - none of this was discussed in the Rotunda.

"Chaim Soutine" Amadeo Modigliani. 1917

The “Lost Generation,” as strange as it may sound, mainly talked about the classics: Modigliani raved about medieval sculpture and Nostradamus, Soutine yearned for Rembrandt, Picasso was engaged in Roman classics and African sculpture, and Rivera’s revolutionary spirit passed somehow on the side, like one of the drinking eccentricities; Ehrenburg quite vividly described their conversations at that time: the remarks of the revolutionary Rivera were drowned in discussions about color and composition.

“Lost Generation” - what a strange name for an environment of intellectuals. Perhaps we misunderstand Gertrude Stein's expression. Today we interpret the “lost generation” as a designation for intellectuals between two world wars, confused intellectuals who have lost their identity, lost touch with their roots and culture, etc.

But what if Stein had presciently called the social milieu of Paris the “lost generation” because the people who inhabited Paris would be misunderstood and therefore lost to history? After all, that's exactly what happened. We remember Modigliani and Soutine, Hemingway and Joyce, but we cannot connect them together. But there was a connection! What do Hemingway and Modigliani have in common? Between Joyce and Pasquin, between Pound and Soutine? Without understanding the society of Paris in those years, it was simply turned into a curious cultural phenomenon, like other artistic circles and schools - Bauhaus, VKHUTEMAS or Voltaire Cabaret.

It happens: talented people get together and invent surrealism; or open a school of new art; They are like-minded people - so they opened a school. But pre-war Paris of the twentieth century did not discover any theory, did not invent any school! Paris of the 10s of the last century has today turned into an exhibit among other art schools and is lost on the shelves of archives; so the generation was “lost” - the life of these outcasts was read as the life of an artistic circle. But it was different: about something else and for the sake of something else.

"Ezra Pound." Percy Wyndham Lewis

Parisian life at the beginning of the twentieth century is a phenomenon of a different order than an artistic movement or a circle of like-minded people. From the narrow circle of artists of the Rotunda – and wider, encompassing immigrant writers, outcast philosophers, journalists and actors – a special milieu of intense intellectual life was woven; and this happened against the background of social disorder and poverty of participants in intellectual debates.

They say about such people “not of this world,” but how can one define a multitude of characters united precisely by the fact that they are all “not of this world”? Is it possible to say this: “it was a world inhabited by people not of this world”? Artists and writers found a common language, philosophers and journalists agreed among themselves; a feeling of a single destiny surrounded this motley group - however, they could not fit into any other group. Soutine, or Pascin, or Modigliani, they are, in principle, asocial. And here the environment arose. They did not accept the rules of the world, they are not of this world - and of course: they themselves created their own society.

The phrase "Paris school" is misleading, since there was no school. What they had in common was a bohemian lifestyle, a demonstrative contempt for careers, for the bourgeoisie, for official culture, one might even say quite simply - a disgusted attitude towards capitalism. Sometimes in artistic monographs these outcasts are defined as existentialists; but the definition is lame - existentialism appeared twenty years later, it is a completely special movement of thought associated with a certain social history; Among the Parisians of those years there were no philosophers engaged in the struggle, and there was no borderline situation. Yes, a war was brewing - but it was an imperialist war in which there was no right or wrong, what kind of existentialism is that? There are no barricades - therefore, there is no existentialism; and there was no program.

Self-portrait of Amedeo Modigliani. 1919

Rather, the situation in the Rotunda resembled the court of Margaret of Navarre (grandmother of the famous Queen Margot) in Lyon, which sheltered a motley collection of humanists from different parts of France. At the court of the author of Heptameron, there was no specific aesthetic program; It was a circle of, to put it extremely conventionally, “humanists,” but the participants in the meetings of the enlightened ruler did not profess a single doctrine. Clément Marot and Bonaventure Deperrier may have sympathized with the Huguenots or Catholics, but the essence of the Lyon circle was that it stood outside and above religious strife.

I believe we have the right to put Paris of the 10s of the last century on a par with the court of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence or with the bizarre Fontainebleau Palace, created by Francis the First in order to take over the baton of the Italian Renaissance. In other words, the audience in the Rotunda represented precisely a renaissance in spirit inflorescence of talents, not held together by the dogma of the school, but united by the principle of Renaissance humanism. What Modigliani, Soutine and Hemingway have in common (however, none of them ever uttered this phrase) is the doctrine of Christian humanism, opposed to time. As soon as this is said, Gertrude Stein’s expression “lost generation” takes on a different meaning: behind these words lies the fate of the Renaissance in principle - the fate of a humanistic effort doomed to get lost among the pragmatics of the historical process.

Was there only one Renaissance in European history, or were there several revivals and “renaissances” are nothing more than persistent efforts of humanistic aesthetics, repeated from century to century, trying in vain to transform the history of mankind? If so, if the Renaissance arises again and again as humanity's response to disease, as an antidote to pragmatism and greedy war, then we have one of the European Renaissances, along with the Ottonian Renaissance, the Carolingian Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the vast county of Burgundy in the 16th century.

It would not be amiss to mention that the unique state of a free collective of creators in Paris in the 10s of the twentieth century is only thirty to forty years removed from the time of the Paris Commune (1871), and what is thirty years? This is the memory of fathers, not even grandfathers. Today we can feel how powerful the memory of the Soviet period of history is in people, and yet the time of socialist Russia is 35 years away from us. Did the Parisians really not remember that the Communards were shot at the Père Lachaise cemetery, not far from Montparnasse? Didn't their free society of the poor remind them of the commune in any way?

Self-portrait of Pablo Picasso. 1907

There is another society, described, by the way, by a French author - this is the Abbey of Theleme, a utopian society invented by Francois Rabelais and built by his hero, brother Jean. The motto of this abbey was the slogan “do what you want” - Brother Jean proceeded from the position that an educated and humanistically oriented person can only want good. The “Thelemites” of Paris in the 10s almost literally echoed Rabelais’ advice: they indulged in high leisure, did not make a career, reasoned and created, kissed the bottle (the “oracle of the divine bottle”, according to Rabelais) - and in their monastery (whether it was the Rotunda or the Kupol cafe), the creator, tired of misunderstanding, gained protection from party engagements and found his own - independent of the world! - place.

It was a true utopia of pre-war Europe. And shouldn’t the expression “lost generation” be read in this case as a euphemism for the term “renaissance”? In a sense, the European Renaissance is also a lost generation. Florence by Lorenzo de' Medici was swept off the historical map as quickly as the fragile world of the Rotunda.

It cannot be said that the inhabitants of the newly-minted Thelema monastery in Paris were not aware that they were a kind of “Thelemites”. Thus, Ilya Erenburg in the utopian novel “The Extraordinary Adventures of Julio Jurenito” made the Teacher (Savior) Mexican, but the action of the novel, the birth of a circle of students, takes place in Paris - only there could such a universal guru, preacher and prophet appear. Moreover, the very idea of ​​the utopian novel “Julio Jurenito” matured in Paris; I suspect that in this way, through this mystical visionary story, Ehrenburg tried to comprehend the Paris experience.

And although the novel itself was written in Belgium (the writer was visiting a friend, Constant Permeke, a Belgian artist), the spirit of the narrative is purely Parisian. Ehrenburg once let it slip that in Jurenito he combined the features of his interlocutors from the Rotunda: he took origins and national rebellion (the Mexican) from Rivera, provocative thinking from Picasso, careless aristocracy from Modigliani, etc.

"Self-portrait with seven fingers." Marc Chagall. 1913

It sounds somewhat insulting to the author of a bold utopia (or anti-utopia, in the case of Ehrenburg’s novel, both definitions of the genre are suitable), but Ehrenburg was unable to draw any solid recipe for the society of the future, no clear (albeit false, but clear in the author’s view) picture, couldn't or didn't want to. This novel is an endless set of provocations and ridicule of dogmas, but through the ridicule and provocations, confusion emerges before the insane pressure of history and the crowd.

Anarchists, Trotskyists, Bolsheviks and fascists are shaping the world, and the fragile Teacher Jurenito can only mockingly analyze their absurdities - but he cannot oppose anything to them. The utopian story ends with the death of Jurenito: the Teacher of Humanity himself decides to die from a robber’s bullet (“die for his boots”), since he no longer wants to give his life for anything; This is how the writer’s attempt to convey the spirit of freedom of the Parisian school ends ingloriously.

There is another utopia (or dystopia, whatever you like), born of the same community in Paris. We are talking about a great, huge poem by Ezra Pound, an American who became a cosmopolitan and spent his entire life fighting against Anglo-Saxon financial civilization.

Strictly speaking, Pound wrote his “Cantos” (a poem consisting of numerous songs that he periodically added throughout his life, as a new “Divine Comedy”, summing up the troubles and hopes of the century) not only in Paris. But the personality of the author and the enormity of the plan fit surprisingly accurately into the Parisian carnival. Pound had an undeniable influence with his presence and - importantly - with his medieval ideals on the Parisian visionaries.

Pound's poem, the songs of which were published scatteredly, is structured as a consistent criticism of Uzura - the dominant world order. Uzura is the definition given by Pound to the entire material, acquisitive, conformist, philistine world - that which hides behind the “logic” of the market, progress, civilization and glorifies success and fashion; Uzura is an extremely capacious concept. Uzura owns minds.

To use Pound's terms, it is the glossy Uzura who conceives wars, pits nations against each other, and creates unemployment and crises. According to Pound, we could define all social projects and temptations as regular manifestations of the mimicking Uzura, changing its appearance, adapting to fashion or forming a new fashion. Pound, like other inhabitants of Paris (Thelema of those years), did not identify with any social project; his ideal remained in the past - in the Provençal poetry of the troubadours, in proto-Renaissance aesthetics, his appeal to Dante's epic was a purely Renaissance desire to re-ignite the golden age of humanity from oblivion.

Uzura for Pound became the embodiment of everything base and material, and Thelema (Paris) of those years was a programmatic anti-London, anti-Uzura, anti-capitalism, the Parisian world of those years was, if you like, an anti-market.

Portrait of Diego Rivera. Amedeo Modigliani. 1914

It would be worth noting the anti-capitalist extremism of the Rotunda, embodied in Rivera and Soutine, and the providential mysticism of Modigliani, who, as we know, was under the spell of Nostradamus and carried Nostradamus quatrains in his pocket. Medieval guild ideals - or more precisely, the Renaissance ethic of work fused with leisure - how different this is from the creative programs of Bauhaus and VKHUTEMAS! They didn’t want to teach anyone, they didn’t want to educate anyone, there were no commissars among them (see Malevich) and “plenipotentiary representatives of art” (see Mayakovsky) - they simply lived freely, and this was their strength.

They did not draw a black square and did not worship idols of violence - it was an atmosphere of acceptance of the other, understanding of the phenomenon of “goal in oneself”; there was no leader among them - and this is amazing. Each of them was a bearer of the principle of humanism - that is, the priority of the image over the scheme.

Pound is a visionary, like Julio Jurenito, like, in a certain sense, Picasso, and Soutine, and, of course, Chagall and, undoubtedly, Joyce - and how not to fall into prophetic hysteria when you oppose a vicious civilization and strive to revive great art ?

The Renaissance is like a utopian idea to bring back the great age of Greece, to make Europe happy and write with lost meanings - how different this is from the projects of demonstrations and skyscrapers that matured in the workshops of VKHUTEMAS.

As you know, the Renaissance is a very fragile substance; the history of political movements is much stronger and more consistent.

Uzura overtook and defeated the brotherhood of the Rotunda, one day she finally won: some were killed by the war, success covered several with its heavy wing, and they were seized by monetary euphoria; and the majority simply could no longer rent housing in Paris. A recent study suggested that the world of the Rotunda naturally died when housing prices in the Latin Quarter soared. This is how the objective-material world overcomes the spiritual. Uzura always wins - this position is as true as the fact that materialistic history always crushes the Renaissance project and the latter remains as a “lost generation.”

Ezra Pound, for example, fell into one of the standard historical traps: rejecting the power of capitalism and the market, Bolshevism and the avant-garde, he succumbed to the charm of traditional values ​​that appealed to fascism - Mussolini became his idol. A lone rebel, Provençal troubadour and Confucian, he became an apologist for Mussolini and even moved to the puppet republic of Salo to share in the dictator's final days. Here he was arrested, extradited to America, tried, and spent 12 years in forced hospitalization in a mental hospital in America.

As Pasternak once wrote: “I know your path is genuine, but how could you be brought under the arches of such almshouses on your sincere path?” However, it skidded. But where else can the renaissance, which is crumbling into dust, go, how can it mimic it? So Florence Medici turned into the “Republic of Jesus Christ”, led by the fanatic Savonarola.

Here it is appropriate to recall an English traditionalist, namely Chesterton, who hated (like the Parisian “Thelemites”) bourgeois civilization, avant-garde and progress and inevitably drifted towards fascism (his cousin, by the way, became Mosley’s deputy). Chesterton was kept from literal party fascism by his healthy Catholicism - although, of course, he paid tribute to Mussolini. It’s curious how he would have reacted to the war in Spain (GKCH died in ’36) and how he would have reacted to the war with Hitler. But the fact that Chesterton, to put it mildly, had nationalist-medieval, largely fascist, ideals is, alas, indisputable.

Pound was not a Catholic and did not have such a powerful brake as Catholicism (more broadly, Christianity). In his denial of the “individualistic” and “liberal”, embodied in the greedy Uzura, Pound, like Mirandola, imperceptibly pushed the problem of Christian humanism aside. And having taken this seemingly not particularly important step, the artist found himself under the spell of Mussolini’s total doctrine.

"Meeting of artists." Chaim Soutine. 1919 From left to right: Henri Epstein, Chaim Soutine, Pinchus Kremen and Japanese artist Ayashi

Pound's case describes a specific dilemma facing a twentieth-century master—and one that continues to be relevant today. Pushing Uzuru away is necessary; but, having abandoned it, having stood in opposition to Anglo-Saxon usury and financial violence, how can one not fall under the spell of fascist renewing morality? “Cleansing” fascist aesthetics (Blake, or the late Pound, are indistinguishably similar in their images to the colossi of Breker, the singer of the Third Reich) is attractive due to the pristine purity of images, these images are depersonalized for the simple reason that individuality is, as it were, compromised by usury. The artist, having abandoned Mammon, easily passes into the power of Thor or Perun.

So, using the example of one of the “Thelemites” of the Rotunda, we see how the aesthetics of the small Renaissance of Paris in the 10s of the 20th century was fading away. No less indicative is the fate of Diego Rivera, another pet of the Parisian Thelema, who, unlike Pound, fell not under the spell of fascism, but under the spell of the communist revolution with all the inevitable consequences.

This should also include Ehrenburg, the restless seeker of truth in pre-war Paris, who ended his days as a Stalinist Kulturträger. Only Modigliani was lucky enough to die on time from tuberculosis and poverty, and Soutine - in a village clinic in occupied France, from an unsuccessful operation; the rest were less fortunate: they saw the collapse of utopia.

Today all that remains of the “holiday that is always with you” are prices at auctions.

Why are renaissances in European culture so fleeting? Why do they arise, why do they attract, and how do the stars and winds converge so that creators connect their destinies not with marches and party programs - but with high leisure and humanism? Renaissances in European history are like remissions after a protracted illness; but the disease is stronger and more consistent.

The dilemma of the European artist, which must be realized in order to choose between the Scylla of the market and the Charybdis of totalitarianism, has practically no solution; how to get between the rocks? Only the Renaissance can resolve the dilemma.
But there is no renaissance.

photo: BRIDGEMAN/FOTODOM; GETTY IMAGES/FOTODOM

Ushakov's Dictionary

Utopia

uto piya, utopias, wives(from Greek and - not and topos - place).

1. An impossible dream, an impossible fantasy.

2. A literary work that depicts the ideal social system of the future ( lit.). Historian 18 V. husband. M. Shcherbakov wrote a utopia called “Journey to the Land of Ophir.” (From the name of the fictional country Utopia with an ideal social system in the novel of the same name English writer Thomas More (15 - 16 centuries).)

Culturology. Dictionary-reference book

Utopia

(Greek u – no + topos – place, lit. - a place that does not exist) is an image of an ideal social system, devoid of scientific justification, as well as the designation of all works containing unrealistic plans for social transformation. The term comes from the title of the book by T. More (XVI century).

Terminological dictionary-thesaurus on literary criticism

Utopia

(from Greek u - no and topos - place, that is, a place that does not exist) is a work depicting a fictional picture of an ideal life arrangement.

RB: Types and genres of literature

Reporter: Dystopia

Genre: Genre

Type: Utopian novel

Ass: fantastic in literature, fiction

Example: T. More. "Utopia", T. Campanella. "City of the Sun", V.F. Odoevsky. "City without a name", N.G. Chernyshevsky. "What to do?" (4th dream of Vera Pavlovna)

* Socialist utopia is presented in the novel by the English writer V. Morris News from Nowhere, in the dreams of Vera Pavlovna in the novel by N. Chernyshevsky What to do? (S. Nebolsin). *

Philosophical Dictionary (Comte-Sponville)

Utopia

Utopia

♦ Utopie

That which does not exist anywhere (literally “in no place”: u-topos). So, utopia is an ideal? In a sense, yes, but the ideal is programmed and organized, planned out with manic precision of detail. It is an ideal that does not want to be an ideal and claims to be a prophecy or an instruction. Ideal societies are usually called utopias. In this case, utopia acts as a political fiction, serving not so much to condemn the existing society (no utopia is needed for this), but to propose another society, thought out to the smallest detail, so that all that remains is to implement the plan. Such are the utopias of Plato, Thomas More (who is credited with inventing this word) or Fourier.

The word "utopia" can take on a positive or negative meaning. In the first case, it denotes something that does not yet exist, but that someday will definitely appear; in the second - something that does not exist and cannot exist. In the first case, utopia is a goal to be strived for; in the second, it is an illusion, into which it is better not to fall. In colloquial language, the second meaning is the most commonly used: it is customary to call unrealizable goals or programs utopian. What makes us consider them unfeasible - lack of imagination, courage, faith in the future? Some people adhere to this very point of view, arguing that today's utopia will become tomorrow's reality. And they give examples of paid vacations, social insurance, television and the Internet - all those things that a few centuries ago would have seemed like pure utopia to anyone. What can you say to them? That utopia should not be confused with science fiction, or Thomas More with Jules Verne. The greatest utopias of the past (starting with Plato’s “Republic” and ending with the socialist utopianism of the 19th century) today seem as impossible to implement as they seemed when they appeared, only much more dangerous. It’s just that we already know what kind of violence and what kind of brainwashing (totalitarianism) is accompanied by attempts to bring utopia to life. Utopia is not just a project for a social structure that seems impossible today, it is a project for a perfect society in which no changes are needed. But such a society would mean the end of history, the end of all conflicts, a kind of “collective paradise” like the “Mediterranean Club” (that is the name of the French travel company that provides its clients with the most favorable conditions for traveling around the world. - Ed.) - in other words , it would mean death.

encyclopedic Dictionary

Utopia

(from the Greek u - no and topos - place, i.e. a place that does not exist; according to another version, from eu - good and topos - place, i.e. a blessed country), an image of an ideal social system, devoid of scientific justification ; science fiction genre; designation of all works containing unrealistic plans for social transformation. The term comes from the title of the book by T. More (16th century).

INTRODUCTION

Some literary phenomena are exhausted by the needs of the times and countries in whose atmosphere they arose. The artistic process is just as impossible without them. Having played their role, they find themselves in the history of literature.
One of these phenomena is utopia. The very definition of the word utopia is an impossible dream in which various society ideals and aspirations are expressed.

In all utopias there is the idea that in the future humanity will not know the division into races. People will speak the same language and have common interests.

Utopia is the “kingdom of the future” that a person creates for himself in his dreams. This is the better future for which a person fights and lives.

The first European utopias of the 16th-17th centuries had a strong impact on the mind and imagination. But they were not the earliest. Dreams of happiness, of an ideal structure of society have long excited the minds of the apostles, the lower classes and the elite.

For example, in the dialogue “State” Plato appears as a staunch opponent of tyranny and oligarchy, the death penalty and arbitrariness of power. But his humanism is anti-democratic. There cannot be complete equality; people are unequal by nature. The state should be headed by the most intelligent - scientists and philosophers who create laws. They are guarded by warriors. At the very bottom are traders, artisans, farmers, who manage material property. But their main duty is to supply the higher groups with everything they need.

The essence of Plato's utopian dream is the elimination of discord and struggle within the ruling slave-owning class. He wants to return not to the primitive community, but to a more recent past. And then - no shifts, no development, everything is established forever with an absolute separation of mental and physical labor.

But still, the first ideas about utopia are associated for many with names
Thomas More and Tommaso Campanella.

They were progressive thinkers and writers, children of the era
The Renaissance, when Western Europe, shaken by anti-feudal movements, entered the stage of the initial development of capitalism, when technology and science moved forward, when thought overtook reality in search of something new.

The theories of More and Campanella suggest the possibility of building a perfect society on the basis of not only existing tools and forms of production, but also social relations, which was denied by many thinkers long before the utopians. In their concepts, willingly or unwillingly, one can trace the desire to preserve the existing stage of social development, but only slightly modify the forms of social relations.

To make it clearer on what the utopian theories of the thinkers of the Middle Ages were based, I want to consider the works of the most prominent European utopians and understand the origins of their worldview.

THOMAS MORE and his “UTOPIA”

Thomas More was a man of great intelligence and broad erudition, one of the brilliant geniuses that the Renaissance gave the world - a humanist writer, dreamer and thinker, lawyer, politician, diplomat and theologian.

He was born on February 7, 1478 in London, into an obscure but wealthy family. He received a deep and varied education, spending about two years at Canterbury College of Oxford University, and Oxford at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries was the center of humanism in England. At my father's insistence
Thomas More left the university to study law. IN
In 1502 he became a lawyer and as such soon gained great popularity in London.

In 1504, twenty-six-year-old More was elected to Parliament as a member of the House of Commons. However, he was soon forced to leave politics - after he boldly spoke out in parliament against the king, who demanded new subsidies for himself, and the Mora family was subjected to repression for this. More returned to parliamentary activity only six years later.

More was acutely aware of the cruelty and immorality of social injustice. However, More did not know how to destroy social evil, but a popular uprising for him was not the achievement of this goal.

In May 1515, More, as a representative of the City, was included in the royal embassy in Flanders. During the trip, he met the outstanding Dutch humanist Peter Egidius, whose name he immortalized in
“Utopias”. Aegidius, like Erasmus, became one of More's closest friends. At the same time, during his trip to Flanders, More began work on his most famous work, Utopia. And in the fall of 1516, through the efforts of friends - Erasmus and Aegidius - the manuscript was published under the title
“A golden little book, as useful as it is funny, about the best structure of the state and about the new island of “Utopia.”

The book is written in the popular at that time genre of the “traveler's story.” The navigator tells the author and others about various peoples and countries, including the island of Utopia.

In the first part of the work, More sharply criticizes the bloody enclosure legislation of contemporary England. Decrying the senseless cruelty of numerous laws against theft and vagrancy, More raises the question of the causes of crime. The main cause of all vices and disasters, More believed, is private property, due to which contradictions arise between the interests of the individual and society, idleness and exhausting labor, luxury and poverty; it gives rise to crimes.

The author of “Utopia” was one of the first to emphasize that the complexity and complexity of legislation meets the interests of the rich and is directed against workers. The very living conditions of the common people and their situation do not make it possible to understand complex legislation, interpret and understand its intricate provisions.

The second part of the book describes the institutions and customs of the inhabitants of the island
Utopia, located in the New World, somewhere in the southern hemisphere. In Utopia there is common property and universal obligatory labor; this fundamentally distinguishes their social and political system from other states.

Utopia is a kind of federation of 54 cities. The Utopian Senate discusses the general affairs of the island - redistribution of products, labor, reception of foreign embassies, etc.

The structure and management of each city are the same. There are 6,000 families in the city; in a family - from 10 to 16 adults. Each family is engaged in a certain craft. To work in rural areas adjacent to the city, they are formed
“village families” - from 40 adults, in which a city resident is required to work for at least two years.

Officials in Utopia are elected. Every 30 families elect a phylarch for a year; At the head of the 10 phylarchs is the protophylarch. Protophylarchs are elected from among scientists. They form the city senate, headed by the prince. Prince
(princeps) is elected by the phylarchs of the city from candidates proposed by the people.
The position of the prince is irremovable unless he is suspected of striving for tyranny.
The most important affairs of the city are decided by the people's assemblies; They also elect most of the officials and hear their reports.

Describing the government institutions of Utopia, More largely followed ancient models, introducing some of his own changes. The authorities of Utopia exercise general management of the national economy and education.
Officials are elected from among scientists; special institutions are created to coordinate production and consumption.

In Utopia there is tolerance for various religious movements. There are many sects and religions there. But it is forbidden to incite religious fanaticism and condemn the beliefs of others.

The state strives to do without prohibitions that restrict the freedom of citizens. There are public canteens, but you can cook at home. Incentives for those who do something useful for society are widely used. At the same time, the duty of the siphogrants is to see that no one sits idle, but that everyone diligently works at his craft.

More's reasoning about law in Utopia is original. Since there is no private property in Utopia, disputes between residents are rare and crimes are few; therefore they do not need complex legislation.

This slavery is not at all the slavery that was known to the Ancient World - it is not lifelong and not hereditary. Prisoners of war, taken with weapons in their hands, and criminals sentenced to execution, bought in other countries, also become slaves. Slaves are shackled in gold chains and perform unpleasant tasks. However, free Utopians work alongside them, voluntarily performing dirty work. More's main idea is that forced labor is a more humane punishment than the death penalty, which was widespread in his time.

More had a sharply negative attitude towards wars. He opposed the policy of monarchs, who thought mainly about conquests, with peacefulness.

T. More considered the main obstacle to the establishment of a new system to be the greed and pride of the rich. He relied on reason and chance.

This book, extremely bold for the 16th century, seems naive in our time, because we, in our democratic system, have come far from that
the “ideal” system that Henry VIII’s chancellor dreamed of. In the four centuries that separate us from this first real utopia, such an incredible number of utopias have been created that entire volumes would have to be written just to list them. And, although all utopias are based on the well-being of humanity, they all differ significantly.

TOMMASO CAMPANELLA AND THE “CITY OF THE SUN”

Subsequent theorists of early socialism were strongly influenced by “Utopia,” including new ideas about state and law.

The further spread of utopian socialism in Europe is associated with the name of Giovanni Domenico Campanella, the author of “City of the Sun”, a famous Italian philosopher, sociologist and writer.

He was born in 1568 in the south of Italy, in Calabria, which was under the yoke of the Spanish crown. At the age of fifteen, against the will of his father, who dreamed of seeing him become a certified lawyer, he took monastic vows into a Dominican monastery under the name Tommaso. Persistent studies in philosophy and theology and the study of the works of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas begin. On the shelves of monastery libraries he finds the works of Democritus and Plato and interprets them in his own way. His greatest interest was aroused by the philosophy of the Italian
Bernardino Telesio, a fierce opponent of Aristotle's scholasticism, whose works were included by the Catholic Church in the list of prohibited books.
Campanella openly defends the ideas of Telesio and publishes philosophical works.
Such insolence could not go unpunished, and the Inquisition became interested
Campanella. He showed himself as an opponent of the Reformation and a supporter of both the ecclesiastical and secular authority of the pope; the Inquisition turned a blind eye to many of his sins.

Campanelli was seriously involved in astrology, which played a significant role in his life and work. In 1597, he returned to his homeland and, based on the position of the stars, predicted a victorious uprising against the power of the Spanish Habsburgs. However, indignation at the arbitrariness of foreigners then gripped all layers of Calabria, and Campanella led a conspiracy, which was joined by nobles, monks, peasants, and robbers. But the Spaniards were warned, and the top of the conspiracy was captured. Campanella also ended up in a Neapolitan prison. He was saved from a death sentence only by being declared a heretic. In 1602, Campanella was sentenced to life imprisonment, and he spent over twenty-seven years in various prisons.

Utopia “City of the Sun, or Ideal Republic. Poetic Dialogue” was written in Latin in prison in 1602, and published for the first time in
1623. And this utopia bears the imprint of its time, its torment and problems.

On the gloomy horizon of the dramatic life of the then Italy, the State
The sun appears as a bright vision. Somewhere in the Indian Ocean, in some unknown land, there rises a mountain on which a beautiful radiant city is built. Its walls are decorated with wonderful and instructive paintings, the buildings are light and spacious. The cherished dreams of human happiness came true there, because there is no private property and everything is built on the basis of the natural laws of nature. Campanella believed that in a society based on common property the state would remain. It depicts a completely new organization of state power, which has no parallel in history.

The City of the Sun is a theocratic republic, organized along the lines of a monastic Order and vaguely reminiscent of the state of the ancient Incas. It is headed by the wisest and all-knowing high priest the Sun (aka
Metaphysician), to whom three co-rulers are subordinate: Power, in charge of military affairs, Wisdom - knowledge, sciences, and Love - food, clothing, procreation and education. They elect lower officials, bearers of true knowledge, despising scholasticism - “dead signs of things.”

In the City of the Sun, a general meeting of all solariums who have reached 20 years of age is convened twice a lunar month. At the Great Council, everyone is invited to speak out about what shortcomings there are in the state. On
The Grand Council discusses all important issues of the life of the state.

Campanella's thoughts on ways to combine democracy and rule by scientific specialists are very original. Candidates for a particular post are proposed by teachers, senior foremen, squad leaders and other officials who know which of the solarium workers is more suitable for which position. In the Great Council, everyone can speak for or against election. The decision on appointment to a position is made by a panel of officials. The officials, in turn, are assisted by advice from the so-called priests, who determine the days of sowing and harvest, keep records, and engage in scientific research.

In this state there is law, justice, and punishment. The laws are few, short and clear. The text of the laws is carved on the pillars at the doors of the temple where justice is administered. Tanning salons argue with each other almost exclusively on matters of honor. This process is public, oral, and fast. Five witnesses are required to convict a crime. Torture and judicial duels, characteristic of the feudal process, are not allowed. Punishments are given according to justice and according to the crime.

The source of human evil is selfishness. The author sees the possibility of its eradication when all members of society are equal in all respects. Common dining rooms, identical clothes, common jewelry, common houses, bedrooms and beds... And if everything is common, then there should be common husbands and wives, common children. With incredible meticulousness, Campanella describes childbirth and sexual relations and reveals an almost unconcealed contempt for paired love. For him, she is more acceptable fun than a serious feeling.

Women of the City of the Sun have the same rights as men; they can engage in science and anything else. They are only exempted from heavy forms of labor. The “community of wives” corresponds to the “community of husbands” on the basis of mutual equality.

In the “City of the Sun” there is a difference in economic and social existence compared to “Utopia”. The working day is reduced to four hours, and yet abundance is evident, for work, as Campanella realizes for the first time in the history of human thought, is the first need of man. Campanella is interested in the problem of identifying human abilities, although he solves it in a fantastic-astrological spirit: natural inclinations must be unraveled through the same horoscope.

Campanella places the moral regulation of public life on religion, but he does not rely on religion for everything. He developed a number of legal and moral sanctions of a non-religious nature, sometimes very cruel, directed against idleness and debauchery. And he, unlike More, shows the inhabitants of his state capable of taking up arms not only to protect themselves from external attacks. Killing a tyrant is an honor. To expel a quarrelsome and insignificant monarch is humane.

Campanella writes about painful issues. He draws an ideal society, from his point of view, where everyone works and there are no “idle scoundrels and parasites.” During his 27 years of imprisonment, he thought for a long time about inequality and the best form of government.

Having comprehended the reality around him, he came to only one conclusion: the existing political system is unjust. For people to live better, it must be replaced by another, more perfect system. Where all people are equal.

COMMON IDEAS OF MORE AND CAMPANELLA

According to many researchers of the work of utopian socialists, in those days people could not yet imagine the realities of socialism, so their utopias turned out to be slightly fantastic.

Naturally, in the 16th and 17th centuries, capitalism was only gaining momentum; society was not yet ready for the transition to socialism. The prerequisites for this transition are not ripe: neither the productive forces nor the relations of production.

In general, the ideas of equality between More and Campanella are similar. They both dream of a state where everyone would be equal. Moreover, the equality described by them often goes beyond all boundaries.

Thus, in More, people represent a mass that has lost its individuality. No one even has a chance to stand out: everyone is obliged to dress the same, spend the same time, work exactly 6 hours a day. Actually, no one asks people’s opinions.

Of course, capitalist society, with its inequality and exploitation, is unjust to some extent. But it gives people freedom, the right to choose.
If a person wants to achieve something in this life, if he is hardworking and capable, he achieves something in this life. Those who cannot reach the heights settle at the bottom. And such people are the majority. Of course, this “gray” majority agrees to life under a utopia. People who have achieved something in life, and they are a minority, do not want to be like everyone else. And they don’t need utopia.

Unlike Campanella, More retains slavery. This does not allow us to say that all people are equal. In addition, even law-abiding citizens are not at all equal to each other, as is propagated. Women should listen to their husbands, children to their parents, and younger people to their elders.

In addition, both Utopia and the City of the Sun have power. Power is people who have the authority to decide the fate of others. And let this power change every year, like Mora’s. And people in power are no lower in status than others. If only because they work on laws, and not on a rural field.

Both More and Campanella see the ideal as totalitarian societies, where the lives of citizens are limited on all sides and marked out by the state.
A person does not have the right to decide for himself what to do and what not to do.

Such was the aesthetic influence of utopias - it was nowhere and everywhere. It is difficult to detect its individual manifestations, but in any highly artistic work of art and literature there is a piece of utopia - a dream of perfect humanity.

Observing the cruel mores of the late Middle Ages, social thinkers
The 16th and 17th centuries directed their efforts not only to justify the inviolability of the sovereign’s power, but also to search for a more perfect type of social structure, “which can rightfully be called a state.”

CONCLUSION

There were significant similarities in the life of England at the beginning of the 16th century and Italy at the beginning of the 17th century. After the rapid development of manufacturing, when Italy was the most advanced country in Europe, and advanced not only in economics, a time of decline began. The focus on the foreign market turned out to be fatal: the great geographical discoveries and the domination of the Turks in the eastern Mediterranean led to the relocation of the main trade routes and a severe economic crisis. As in England during the “enclosure”, although for a different reason, thousands of people - artisans, small traders, factory workers - did not know where to put their hands. The peasantry suffered from barbaric forms of feudal exploitation and from foreign domination.
Technical development came to a standstill, but meanwhile the creative activity of spider people continued, and this led to opposition among the intelligentsia.
And under these conditions, utopianism, like the dream of cutting the Gordian knot of disastrous circumstances, was inevitable.

The early utopian socialists More and Campanella made a great contribution to the development of literature not so much with their judgments as with the deep aesthetic meaning of their utopias. “I believe,” wrote Thomas More in “Utopia,” “that human life cannot be balanced in its value by all the blessings of the world.” In place of the religious ideal of passivity and humility, along with utopian socialism, comes a new ideal of a person who improves himself and corrects the world around him.

It would seem that for all people and all times this kingdom of the future should be depicted as the same, but in reality this has never been and never will be. Not only has every era had its own utopia, every nation has its own utopia, even more so, every thinking person.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. World history in 10 volumes, Vol.4. M.: Institute of Social and Economic Literature, 1958.

2. History of theoretical sociology. In 5 volumes. T.1. – M.: Science,

3. Reizov B.G. Italian literature of the 18th century. M., 1966.

4. Article by L. Vorobyov “Utopia and reality”

5. Campanella T. City of the Sun. M., 1980

6. More T. Utopia. M., 1978