"You were corrupted by autocracy, "we read in Fyodor Tyutchev's poem" December 14, 1825", which was not published during the poet's lifetime. It was first published in 1881 in the Russian Archive magazine. For a long time, his autograph, along with other manuscripts of the poet, was kept by Prince I. S. Gagarin, an old acquaintance of Tyutchev, and then was transferred to Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov.

In a letter dated November 24 / December 6, 1874, Aksakov wholeheartedly thanks the prince for promising to give him Tyutchev's manuscript: "I see that the interests of Russian literature are still dear to you, that the Russian feeling is still alive in you, that, placed by your personal fate outside your native land, you have not severed your spiritual connection with it." Here Aksakov also speaks about the poem "December 14, 1825": "Of the two poems you sent, one, I believe, refers to the Decembrists ("You were corrupted by autocracy..."), so: written in 1826, when he was 23 years old. It is severe in its judgment. Neither Pushkin nor anyone at that time, for fear of being considered illiberal, would have dared to express such an independent opinion - and it was completely sincere, alien to any calculations, because, except for you, it has not been communicated to anyone for almost fifty years "(Lit. inheritance. Vol. 97: In 2 books. Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev. Book 2. Moscow, 1989, p. 56).

So, the poem dates back to the second half of 1826. The reason for writing it was the publication of the verdict in the Decembrist case.

You were corrupted by Autocracy,
And his sword smote you ,
and in incorruptible impartiality
This sentence was sealed by the Law.
A people who shun treachery,
Blasphemes your names -
And your memory for posterity,
Like a corpse in the ground, buried.
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Oh victims of reckless thought,
You were hoping, maybe,
What will make your blood lean,
To melt the eternal pole!
Barely, smoking, it glittered
On the age-old mass of ice,
Winter iron died -
And there were no traces left.
Commentators of the poem are unanimous in understanding its meaning.: "It would seem that Tyutchev is entirely on the side of friendship: the Decembrists for the poet are "victims of reckless thought" who dared to encroach on the historically established system. However, Tyutchev blames not only the Decembrists, but also the arbitrariness of the "autocracy"for what happened. And for the system itself, he did not have any other poetic images, except "the eternal pole", "the age-old bulk of ice" and "iron winter" "(Tyutchev F. I. Soch.: In 2 vols. Moscow, 1984. Vol. I. P. 455).

V. V. Kozhinov interprets the poem in the same vein: "At first glance, it may seem that Tyutchev here "condemns" the Decembrists. In fact, his position is complex and ambiguous. Already in the first line, the historical "blame" is laid on "Autocracy", which in the final stanza appears in extremely gloomy tones: "the eternal pole"," the age-old mass of ice","iron winter". Tyutchev speaks of the deliberate doom of the Decembrists - and in this he is historically right: the uprising of a narrow circle of noble revolutionaries was doomed to defeat. Similarly, he is right when he speaks of the complete isolation of the Decembrists from the people... But Tyutchev was decidedly wrong about one thing: he believed that "posterity" would forget the Decembrists, but in reality they became an example for the next generations of revolutionaries. In his remarkable last lines, the poet captured the selfless," reckless "heroism of the Decembrists, who gave up their "meager blood", which was " smoking... it glittered on the age-old mass of ice"".

In fact, the meaning of the poem is interpreted in the same way in the new Complete works and letters of Tyutchev. V. N. Kasatkina's commentary notes the "ambivalence of the author's position in relation to the Decembrists": "Autocracy is a corrupting force, it is an "eternal pole", "an age-old mass of ice", but the efforts of the December 14 figures are fruitless and historically unpromising due to their small number ("scanty blood") and ethical permissiveness ("treachery"), the poet appeals to the objectivity ("incorruptibility") of the law" (Tyutchev F. I. Poly. collected Works and Letters, vol. 1, Moscow, 2002, p. 313).

In such interpretations of the poem, the concept of "autocracy" (or arbitrariness of autocracy, which is the same thing) is identical to the concept of autocracy, i.e., the established system of state administration.-

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research institutes in Russia. At the same time, it remains unclear how Tyutchev, a staunch monarchist, an opponent of all revolutions, could lay even part of the blame on the autocracy, sympathize with the December revolt. The poet's political views are well known. As the same Ivan Aksakov testified, the autocracy was recognized by Tyutchev as "that national form of government, outside of which Russia can not yet invent any other, without departing from the national historical form, without a final, disastrous break between society and the people" (Lit. inheritance. Vol. 97. Book 2. pp. 56-57).

A. L. Ospovat, who dedicated a special article to the poem "December 14, 1825", seems to make an important clarification: "You were corrupted by autocracy..." is by no means equivalent to a judgment: "You were provoked to revolt by the autocracy." According to the researcher, the" political opponent " of the Decembrists and Tyutchev is "not autocracy as such, but "autocracy", that is, despotism " (Tyutchev's collection. Tallinn, 1990, p. 241).

However, such a clarification does not bring anything new to the understanding of the meaning of the poem. "Corrupting" autocracy (the arbitrariness of the autocracy) - prompted the Decembrists to revolt. And the "sword" of this autocracy struck the rebels. The same "ambivalence" remains in Tyutchev's attitude to the Decembrists. I. Nepomnyashchy, in a recent work devoted to literary sources of the poem, concludes: "A historical thinker, Tyutchev, while agreeing with the Decembrist critique of autocratic-feudal reality, cannot agree with the lawless means of changing the political system that the conspirators have chosen" (Nepomnyashchy I. " About our thought seduction... "(about the lyrics of F. I. Tyutchev). Bryansk, 2002, p. 78).

Meanwhile, for the poet's contemporaries, the meaning of the poem did not contain any duality. According to Ivan Aksakov, " it is harsh in its verdict." The memory of the Decembrists is "buried like a corpse in the ground." We still do not know the exact burial place of the executed Decembrists. The publisher of the Russian Archive, Pyotr Bartenev, remarked: "... in Yaroslavl, the people threw frozen mud at the Decembrists, which gave Fyodor Tyutchev an excuse to write: 'The people, shunning treachery, revile your names '" (Russkiy Archiv. 1896. N 10. P. 166).

It seems that the main idea of the poem is contained in its first line, more precisely, in the word "autocracy". In the modern dictionary of the Russian language (MAS), two meanings of this word are given: 1."sole, unlimited power (ruler, sovereign), as well as a system of state administration based on such power; autocracy". 2. "the tendency to rule, to command, to subordinate everything to one's will, love of power, domineering" (Dictionary of the Russian Language, vol. 4. Moscow, 1984, p. 17). Approximately the same was understood as dan-

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in the Tyutchev era, too. Take, for example, the Dictionary of the Pushkin Language. It says: "Autocracy is an unlimited power, despotism." The famous lines from the poem "To Chaadaev" (1818)are given as an example of such word usage:

Comrade, believe: it will rise,
Star of captivating happiness,
Russia will wake up from sleep,
And on the wreckage of autocracy
They'll write our names!
In this case, the word "autocracy" is close in meaning to the concept of "autocracy". But in his ode to Liberty (1817), Pushkin speaks not of autocracy, but of autocracy (despotism), of which Napoleon is the personification.

Autocratic Villain!
You, your throne I hate,
Your death, the children's death
I see it with cruel joy.
Pushkin, as is well known, had a negative attitude towards the French Revolution (see the elegy "Andrei Chenier"), as, indeed, to the revolt in general ("God forbid to see a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless"). According to the poet, power should be based on the Law.

My lords! A crown and a throne for you
It is the law that gives , not nature;
Do you stand above the people,
But the eternal Law is above you.
The tsar, the monarch, must be the first to bow down before the eternal Law, to have humility before the Providence of God. If he becomes an autocratic tyrant, he violates the legitimacy of his autocracy, which was blessed by God at the coronation. This brings misfortune to those over whom he is placed, and to himself. He becomes the victim of a rebellion, a conspiracy.

And today learn, O kings:
No punishment, no reward,
No dungeon shelters, no altars
Bad fences for you.
Bow down to the head
Under the shadow of the Law,
And they will become the eternal guardians of the throne
People's freedom and peace.
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Pushkin even in his early "freedom-loving" lyrics (paying tribute to his time) adhered to moderate political views. There is nothing revolutionary or seditious about the ode to Liberty. Similar thoughts were expressed by Emperor Alexander I. The question, however, is how to understand the Law. The age of Enlightenment brought forth the idea of a law that was not related to God's predestination. This is the" Social Contract " of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. According to the French philosopher-educator, people make a contract among themselves and obey it. And everything seems to be going well. Such a materialistic understanding of the law is unacceptable for a Russian person who has an Orthodox disposition of the soul. The law is only firm and unshakable when it is established from above, not by people. Then it is not dangerous to obey such a law and the monarch. For in this law he is subject to God's will. On the other hand, the French Revolution showed how vulnerable the social contract can be, which is created by people who are intoxicated with autocracy, seeking to subordinate others to their will.

This understanding of "autocracy" is confirmed in Pushkin's poem "Anchar" (1828). Anchar - tree of poison, source of death, curse of nature.

Nature of the Thirsty Steppes
He was born on the day of wrath,
And the green dead branches
And she gave the roots poison to drink.
But the tree itself cannot be blamed for being evil. This is allowed by the Creator of nature. For what? For the same purpose that the tree of temptation was created in Eden: to test man. Anchar is not a threat to anyone but a human:

The bird does not fly to it,
and the tiger will not enter...
A person is a being, although created by God, but endowed with autocracy, that is, freedom of will. I. I. Sreznevsky in the dictionary of the Old Russian language indicates: "Autocracy is free will "(Vol. 3. Part I. M., 1989 / Reprint edition. p. 246). In Orthodox asceticism, "autocracy" is understood as the ability of a conscious choice between good and evil inherent in a person as a rational being (see: Zarin S. M. Asceticism according to the Orthodox-Christian teaching, Moscow, 1996, p. 79). Those who have power over other people often use it for evil:

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...A person a person
He sent an imperious look at Anchar,
and he obediently flowed on his way
And in the morning he returned with the poison.
And the king fed that poison
Your obedient arrows
And with them death sent out
To neighbors in foreign borders.
In the draft, Pushkin's thought is expressed even more clearly: "I sent him to Anchar without authority." The source of evil is the autocratic will of man. The Dictionary of the Pushkin language notes: "Autocratic - at personal discretion, arbitrariness, unauthorized." Not only the tsar, but also the robber can act autocratically in Pushkin. This is evidenced by the example of such usage from the "Captain's Daughter": "Gangs of robbers did evil everywhere; the chiefs of individual detachments arbitrarily punished and pardoned..."

It seems to us that the meaning of the poem "December 14, 1825"should also be understood in this Pushkin context. Tyutchev's article "Russia and the Revolution", written in French and first published in Paris in 1849, helps to clarify this. In particular, it says: "The human ego, which wants to depend only on itself, does not recognize or accept any other law than its own expression of will, in a word, the human ego, which replaces God, is certainly not something new among people; the autocracy of the human ego, which has been built up by God, becomes new." in political and social law and seeking to master society through it. This innovation received the name of the French Revolution in 1789 "(Tyutchev F. I. Poly. collected Works and Letters, vol. 3, Moscow, 2003, p. 145).

The same idea is expressed in Tyutchev's poem "Napoleon":

Son of the Revolution, you're with a terrible mother
Bravely entered the battle - and was exhausted in the struggle...
your autocratic genius did not overcome it!..
The fight is impossible, the work is in vain!..
You carried it all inside you...
Thus, Tyutchev tries to determine the spiritual causes of the revolution. Its idea is "the autocracy of the human self, elevated to political and social law." It is in this sense that the word "autocracy" is used in the poem "December 14, 1825". Ivan Aksakov, who knew Tyutchev intimately and wrote his biography, noted that "in his writings from the earliest years, a remarkable independence and unity of thought was expressed."

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(Lit. inheritance, vol. 97, Book 2, p. 56). Corrupted by the "autocracy of the human self" ("Autocracy has corrupted you..."), the Decembrists carried the punishment within themselves ("And his sword has smitten you..."). According to Tyutchev, the reason for the revolt and death of the Decembrists in relation to them is not external-autocracy (autocracy), but internal - the desire to assert the power of one's own "I".

Tyutchev's" autocracy "is largely understood as" lyubonachalie " - the desire to rule. Here again it is appropriate to recall Pushkin:

Lord of my days! the spirit of dull idleness,
Lyubonachaliya, this hidden snake,
And don't let my soul be idle.
("Desert Fathers and immaculate Wives...", 1836)

In the dictionary of the Pushkin language, only one meaning of the word "lyubonachalie" is given - " love of power, the desire to rule over others." But lyubonachaliya's passion is diverse. This is not only the love of power, but also exaltation and pride. It directly contradicts the gospel commandment: "Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant; and whosoever will be first among you, let him be your servant" (Mt 20: 26-27). Adam and Eve's violation of the prohibition imposed by God was not a simple act of disobedience. "And you will be like gods," the serpent said to them in temptation (Gen. 3: 5). This is where the autocracy of the Decembrist rebels lies.

The images of the second stanza of the poem - "the eternal pole", "the age-old mass of ice", "iron winter" - are associated with the symbolism of Russian statehood. On the contrary, spring, the melting of snow and ice symbolized a revolution in that era. According to Tyutchev, the Decembrists encroached on the fundamental laws of Russian life, on which the Russian Empire rested, so their reckless rebellion was doomed: "And there's no trace left."

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