Член Союза благоденствия С. Д. Нечаев в Обществе любителей российской словесности при Московском университете

Abstract

The terms “literary Decembrism” and “Decembrist literature”, which have become established in literary studies, denote the civil trend in Russian romanticism of the 1810s-1820s. In addition to the Decembrist writers themselves, an important role in this direction is assigned to A.S. Pushkin, who has never been a member of secret societies. As an alternative, we consider the case of the writer S.D. Nechaev. He was a member of the Decembrist secret society Union of Prosperity, but remained in the history of Russian literature as the author of sentimental album poems and moralizing aphorisms. His only poem filled with truly civic pathos was “The Drinking Song of the Greeks” (1823). However, for Nechaev, membership in a secret society was not an empty formality. At the end of October he also became a member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature at Moscow University. And already in November, Nechaev spoke to “lovers of Russian literature” with a speech “On the choice of objects in the fine arts in general”. The speaker promoted ideas and aesthetic principles that he did not adhere to in his own work, but which were enshrined in the statutory document of the Union of Prosperity. So he denied his own value of art and saw its purpose in serving the “common good”, strengthening morality and virtue, and educating youth. This article substantiates the proposal to consider the speech of Nechaev not as his individual speech, but as a propaganda action of the Union of Prosperity.