Kostomarov Nikolai Ivanovich main works. Literary and historical notes of a young technician

Nikolai Kostomarov (1817–1885) historian, romantic poet, social thinker, public figure On a par with the greatest scientists of the mid-19th century N. Karamzin, S. Solovyov, V. Klyuchevsky, M. Grushevsky stands Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov, an unsurpassed historian and

Kostomarov Nikolai Ivanovich (born in 1817 - died in 1885) A classic of Ukrainian historiography. One of the founders of the Cyril and Methodius Society. Among Russian and Ukrainian historians, Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov occupies a very special place. This man was

GNEDICH, Nikolai Ivanovich (1784–1833), poet, translator 435...Pushkin, Proteus With your flexible language and the magic of your chants! “To Pushkin, after reading his tale about Tsar Saltan...” (1832)? Gnedich N.I. Poems. – L., 1956, p. 148 Then from V. Belinsky: “Pushkin’s genius-proteus”

early years

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

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

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

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

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

Students

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

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

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

It is interesting that until the age of 16, Kostomarov had no idea about Ukraine and the Ukrainian language. He learned what Ukraine is and the Ukrainian language at Kharkov University and began to write something in Ukrainian. “The love for the Little Russian word captivated me more and more,” wrote Kostomarov, “I was annoyed that such a beautiful language remains without any literary treatment and, moreover, is subjected to completely undeserved contempt.” From the second half of the 30s of the 19th century, he began to write in Ukrainian, under the pseudonym Jeremiah Galki, and in -1841 he published two dramas and several collections of poems, original and translated.

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

The pan-Slavist dreams of young enthusiasts were soon cut short. Student Petrov, who overheard their conversations, reported on them; they were arrested in the spring of 1847, accused of a state crime and subjected to various punishments.

Heyday of activity

N. I. Kostomarov, 1869.

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

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

Having left the professorship at St. Petersburg University in 1862, Kostomarov could no longer return to the department, since his political trustworthiness was again suspected, mainly due to the efforts of the Moscow “protective” press. In 1863, he was invited to the department by the Kiev University, in 1864 - by the Kharkov University, in 1869 - again by the Kiev University, but Kostomarov, according to the instructions of the Ministry of Public Education, had to reject all these invitations and limit himself to one literary activity, which, with the cessation of the "Fundamentals" ”, also closed itself into a tighter framework. After all these heavy blows, Kostomarov seemed to have lost interest in modernity and ceased to be interested in it, finally immersing himself in the study of the past and archival work. One after another, his works appeared, devoted to major issues in the history of Ukraine, the Moscow state and Poland. In 1863, “Northern Russian People's Rules” were published, which was an adaptation of one of the courses given by Kostomarov at the St. Petersburg University; in 1866, “The Time of Troubles of the Moscow State” appeared in the “Bulletin of Europe”, then “The Last Years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth”. In the early 1870s, Kostomarov began work “On the historical significance of Russian folk song art.” The break in archival studies in 1872 caused by weakening of eyesight gave Kostomarov the opportunity to compile “Russian history in the biographies of its most important figures.”

Last years

Performance evaluation

Kostomarov's reputation as a historian, both during his life and after his death, was repeatedly subjected to strong attacks. He was reproached for his superficial use of sources and the resulting mistakes, one-sided views, and partisanship. There is some truth in these reproaches, although very small. Minor mistakes and mistakes, inevitable for any scientist, are perhaps somewhat more common in Kostomarov’s works, but this is easily explained by the extraordinary variety of his activities and the habit of relying on his rich memory. In those few cases when partisanship actually manifested itself in Kostomarov - namely in some of his works on Ukrainian history - it was only a natural reaction against even more partisan views expressed in literature from the other side. Not always, further, the very material on which Kostomarov worked gave him the opportunity to adhere to his views on the task of a historian. A historian of the internal life of the people, according to his scientific views and sympathies, it was precisely in his works dedicated to Ukraine that he was supposed to be an exponent of external history.

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

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

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

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

Memory

Kostomarovskaya street in Kharkov

• A street in Kharkov is named after Kostomarov.
• Auditorium No. 558 of the Faculty of History of the Kharkov National University is named after N.I. Kostomarov. V. N. Karazin

Autobiography

• Kostomarov N. I. Autobiography.

Bibliography

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

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

Articles in magazines

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

Notes

Literature

Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov(May 4, Yurasovka, Voronezh province - April 7, St. Petersburg) - Russian public figure, historian, publicist and poet, corresponding member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, active state councilor. Author of the multi-volume publication “Russian History in the Lives of Its Figures”, researcher of the socio-political and economic history of Russia, especially the territory of modern Ukraine. One of the leaders of the Cyril and Methodius Society.

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Biography

early years

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

Nikolai Kostomarov was born on May 4 (16) in the settlement of Yurasovka, Ostrogozhsky district, Voronezh province (now in the Olkhovatsky district of the Voronezh region).

Retired military man Ivan Petrovich Kostomarov (1769-07/14/1828) already at an old age chose the girl Tatyana Petrovna Melnikova (1800-02/1/1875) as his wife and sent her to Moscow to study at a private boarding school - with the intention of later marrying her. Nikolai Kostomarov's parents got married in September 1817, after the birth of their son. The father was going to adopt Nikolai, but did not have time to do this.

Ivan Kostomarov was a fan of French literature of the 18th century, the ideas of which he tried to instill in both his young son and his servants, but he treated the serfs very harshly. On July 14, 1828, he was killed by his servants, who stole the capital he had accumulated. Ivan Kostomarov, returning to Yurasovka with his crew, was killed at night by his own coachman and his accomplices, trying to present the murder as an accident. The crime, committed for the purpose of enrichment, was solved without delay, however, local residents claimed that not all accomplices were punished, and that part of the funds stolen from the landowner remained with the attackers [ ] .

However, according to another version, the crime was not solved immediately. The zemstvo police, who investigated the case, did not carry out any investigation into the missing money, and recognized the murder as an accident. Only five years later, at the church at the grave of Ivan Kostomarov, the coachman who committed this murder publicly repented of the crime. As Nikolai Kostomarov himself writes:

The coachman's name was Savely Ivanov, he was already over 60 years old. A man carried sin within himself for years. Could not resist. He asked the priest to ring the bells and publicly confessed at the grave cross and told the whole truth about what had happened. The villains were tried, and during interrogations the coachman said: “The master himself is to blame for tempting us; sometimes he would start telling everyone that there is no God, that there will be nothing in the next world, that only fools are afraid of punishment after death - we got it into our heads that if there is nothing in the next world, then everything can be done.”

There is no consensus in the memoirs of contemporaries and research literature about the reasons that prompted the peasants to kill. N.I. Kostomarov himself considers convincing the version about the thirst for profit and the lack of fear of punishment in the afterlife among the peasants. His opinion was confirmed by Yurasovka’s old-timer Zakhar Ivanovich Eremin, who remembered from his grandfather’s stories that “they didn’t hold a grudge against Kostomar. The managers were unkind, everything evil came from them. And he was killed, sir, by a coachman, a strong man. He killed because of wealth, coveted someone else’s.” Murder with robbery is not the first case, unfortunately, and not the last in the human race. In the literature about Kostomarov there is another explanation for what happened. The historian N. Belyaev calls the master’s unjust cruelty the only reason for the murder. The peasants took revenge on him because he mocked them, “put them on a chain chained to a block.” Apparently, there is some truth in every statement. Archpriest Andrei Tkachev believes that Ivan Kostomarov himself is to blame for his murder, since he himself convinced his peasants of the absence of God and conscience:

The police searched for the killers and could not find them. And after some time, the murderers themselves confessed. These were the serfs of the deceased: the coachman and someone else. To the question: “Why did you obey?” - they said: “My conscience is tormented. The master, they say, convinced in this way and that that there is no eternal torment, and there is no conscience, and there is no God. Do what you said you want. Well, we killed it. But God, it turns out, exists. And there is a conscience - it torments us. And there is hell - we live in it. And in order to escape eternal hell, they decided to submit.”

The death of Ivan Kostomarov put his family in a difficult legal situation. Born “to the crown”, Nikolai as a serf was now inherited by his father’s closest relatives - the Rovnevs,

"N. I. Kostomarov.”
1850s.

KOSTOMAROV Nikolai Ivanovich (05/04/1817-04/07/1885) - Ukrainian and Russian historian, ethnographer, writer, critic.

N.I. Kostomarov was the illegitimate son of a Russian landowner and a Little Russian peasant woman. In 1837 he graduated from Kharkov University. In 1841 he prepared a master's thesis “On the causes and nature of the union in Western Russia,” which was banned and destroyed for departing from the official interpretation of the problem. In 1844, Kostomarov defended his dissertation “On the historical significance of Russian folk poetry.” Since 1846, he held the position of professor at Kyiv University in the department of history.

Together with T. G. Shevchenko, he organized the secret Cyril and Methodius Society and was the author of its charter and program. This secret nationalist political organization first raised the question of the independence of Little Russia from Russia, considering Little Russia an independent political entity - Ukraine. Members of the society set the goal of creating a Slavic democratic state led by Ukraine. It was supposed to include Russia, Poland, Serbia, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria. In 1847, the society was closed, and the Kostomarovs were arrested and, after a year's imprisonment, exiled to Saratov.

Until 1857, the historian served in the Saratov Statistical Committee. In Saratov I met N. G. Chernyshevsky. In 1859-1862. was a professor of Russian history at St. Petersburg University.
The arrest, exile, and works on the history of popular movements (“Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the return of Southern Rus' to Russia,” “The Time of Troubles of the Moscow State,” “The Revolt of Stenka Razin”) created wide fame for Kostomarov. For popular reading, Kostomarov wrote “Russian history in the biographies of its main figures.” He was one of the organizers and employee of the magazine “Osnova” (1861-1862), which was published in Russian and Ukrainian. He has appeared in the magazines Sovremennik and Otechestvennye zapiski.

As a theorist of Ukrainian nationalism and separatism, Kostomarov put forward the theory of “two principles” - the veche and the autocratic - in the history of the people of Little Russia, which he considered independent, not Russian. He believed that the exceptional feature of Ukraine was its “classlessness” and “non-bourgeoisism.” Kostomarov turns to ethnographic material as the main one, in his opinion, for understanding the history of the people. In his opinion, the main task of a historian is to study everyday life, “folk psychology,” “the spirit of the people,” and ethnography is the best means for this.

Kostomarov was a romantic poet. He published collections of poems “Ukrainian Ballads” (1839), “Branch” (1840). In the dramas “Savva Chaly” 91838), “Pereyaslav Night” (1841) in a nationalist spirit he depicted the national liberation struggle of the people of Little Russia in the 17th century.

School encyclopedia. Moscow, "OLMA-PRESS Education". 2003

"Portrait of the historian Kostomarov."
1878.

Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov was born in 1817 into a landowner family in the village of Yurasovka, Ostrogozhsky district, Voronezh province. From 1833 he studied at Kharkov University at the Faculty of History and Philology, and in 1844 received the title of master. Already in 1839, he published two collections of Ukrainian songs - “Ukrainian Ballads” and “Branch”. Thus began his development as a writer and ethnographer, an excellent connoisseur of Ukrainian poetry.

After graduating from the university, he taught in Rivne and then in the Kyiv first gymnasium, and in June 1846 he was elected adjunct of Russian history at the Kyiv University of St. Vladimir. As Kostomarov later recalled, the procedure for electing him by the university council was that he had to give a lecture on a given topic at the council. In this case, it boiled down to the question “from what time should Russian history begin?” The lecture “made the best impression. After I was removed from the council hall,” Kostomarov wrote, “a ballot was held, and an hour later the rector of the university, professor of astronomy Fedotov, sent me a note in which he informed me that I was accepted unanimously and there was not a single vote against my election. It was one of the brightest and most memorable days of my life. The university department has long been a desired goal for me, which, however, I did not hope to achieve so soon.”

This is how his scientific and pedagogical activity began in the field of the history of Russia and Ukraine. And although Kostomarov, in the memoirs cited above, wrote that from that moment he “began to live in complete solitude, immersed in the study of history,” he did not become an armchair scientist, a kind of Pimen, indifferent to “good and evil.” He did not remain deaf to the call of the realities of contemporary life, absorbing and sharing the liberation ideas of the progressive people of Russia and Ukraine, which were widely disseminated in the early 40s of the last century. Acquaintance with the first issue of “Kobzar” by Shevchenko (1840), with his poem “Haydamaky” (1841) and the immortal “Zapovit” (1845) had a stimulating effect on Kostomarov and his friends, who organized the “Slavic Fellowship of St. Cyril and Methodius" (as it is called in the charter, but is known under the name "Cyril and Methodius Society"). In 1990, a three-volume collection of documents was published reflecting the history of this organization and making it possible for the first time to thoroughly study this striking historical phenomenon and Kostomarov’s role in it. Among the so-called material evidence in the “Kostomarov case” we find his manuscript (autograph) in Ukrainian entitled “The Book of the Ukrainian People” (“The Book of the Existence of the Ukrainian People”), where the author’s most important ideological positions are formulated in the form of a biblical tale.

In verse 10, the author writes: “And Solomon, the wisest of all people, was allowed by the Lord to fall into great madness, and therefore he did this to show that no matter how smart he would be, when he began to rule autocratically, he would become stupid.” Then, depicting the Gospel times, the author states that the kings and lords, having accepted the teaching of Christ, distorted it (“reversed it”). Kostomarov concretizes this villainous act with the example of the history of Rus', showing how freely the Russians lived without a king, and when he reigned, “bowing and kissing the feet of the Tatar Basurman Khan, together with the Basurmans he enslaved the people of Muscovites” (verse 72). And when “Tsar Ivan in Novgorod strangled and drowned tens of thousands of people in one day, the chroniclers, telling this, called him a lover of Christ” (verse 73). In Ukraine, “they did not create either a tsar or a lord, but they created a brotherhood-Cossacks, to which everyone could join, whether he was a lord or a slave, but always a Christian. There everyone was equal, and the elders were elected and were obliged to serve everyone and work for everyone. And there was no pomp, no title between the Cossacks” (verse 75-76). However, the Polish “lords and Jesuits wanted to forcibly turn Ukraine under their rule... then brotherhoods appeared in Ukraine, such as the first Christians had,” but Ukraine still fell into captivity to Poland, and only the uprising of the people freed Ukraine from the Polish yoke, and she stuck to Muscovy as a Slavic country. “However, Ukraine soon saw that it had fallen into captivity; in its simplicity, it still did not know what a tsar was, and the Tsar of Moscow was like an idol and a tormentor” (verses 82-89). Then Ukraine “fought off Muscovy and, poor thing, did not know where to turn its head” (verse 90). As a result, it was divided between Poland and Russia, and this “is the most worthless thing that has ever happened in the world” (verse 93). Then the author reports that Tsar Peter “laid hundreds of thousands of Cossacks in ditches and built his capital on their bones,” and “Tsarina Catherine the German, whore of the world, an obvious atheist, finished off the Cossacks, since she selected those who were the elders in Ukraine, and gave them free brothers, and some became lords, and others became slaves” (verses 95-96). “And so Ukraine disappeared, but it only seems,” the author concludes (verse 97) and outlines a way out: “Ukraine “will soon wake up and shout to the entire wide Slavic region, and they will hear its cry, and Ukraine will rise and become an independent Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (i.e. e. a republic. - B.L.) in the Slavic union" (verses 108-109).

If we add to this a poem, also in Ukrainian, which was seized during a search at Kostomarov’s apartment and mistakenly attributed by the gendarmes to T. G. Shevchenko, but in fact written by Kostomarov, then we can determine the ideological and historical-philosophical positions of the 30-year-old historian. Much, of course, is unacceptable to us (for example, the thesis that Catherine II created the feudal system in Ukraine), but analysis of the poems allows us to determine the ideology of the Cyril and Methodius Society as national liberation and democratic; Kostomarov obviously took an active part in its formation. Let us note that Kostomarov was not, to use the modern popular term, either a Russophobe, or a Polonophobe, or a Ukrainian nationalist. He was a man who deeply believed in the need for fraternal unity of all Slavic peoples on democratic principles.

Woe to us when we say:
Our power is from God,
And without fear of yourself
Don't know anyone.
We will blame grief, which is angrier
Let's get drunk,
Tim, what is the holy truth?
Oh, I'm sorry!

...Love, praise children,
Love save us!
Glory and honor to you,
Our two-headed eagle!
Bo you with your veneers
Virvesh from captivity,
From an old friend to a friend
A yang share of words!

Naturally, during interrogations Kostomarov denied the existence of the society and his affiliation with it, explaining that the gold ring with the inscriptions “Kyrie eleison” (“Lord have mercy.” - B.L.) and “St. Cyril and Methodius” is not at all a sign of belonging to a society, but an ordinary ring that Christians wear on their finger in memory of saints, while referring to the widespread ring with an inscription in memory of St. Barbara. But all these explanations were not accepted by the investigators and, as can be seen from the determination of the III department of His Imperial Majesty’s own chancellery dated May 30-31, 1847, approved by the tsar, he was found guilty (especially “since he was the oldest in years, and by the rank of professor, he was obliged to turn young people away from bad directions") and was sentenced to imprisonment "in the Alekseevsky ravelin for one year" with subsequent sending "to service in Vyatka, but not in the academic department, with the strictest supervision being established over him; The works “Ukrainian Ballads” and “Vetka”, published by him under the pseudonym of Jeremiah Galka, are prohibited and withdrawn from sale.”

Nicholas I allowed Kostomarov's meetings with his mother only in the presence of the commandant of the fortress, and when the mother began to literally bombard the III department with petitions for the early release of her son and to send him to the Crimea for treatment in connection with his illness, not a single petition was granted, she always appeared at them a resolution “no” as short as a shot, written by the hand of the department manager L.V. Dubelt.

When Kostomarov served a year in the fortress, even then, instead of the replacement of exile in the city of Vyatka requested by his mother with exile in the city of Simferopol, he was, by order of Nicholas I, sent to the city of Saratov with the issuance of 300 rubles. silver one-time benefit. True, not at all out of a feeling of compassion, but only because, as the all-powerful chief of gendarmes and head of the III department, Adjutant General Orlov, reported, the broken Kostomarov “made it his first duty to express in writing the most lively, loyal gratitude to Your Imperial Majesty for the fact that Your Majesty, instead of severe punishment, out of their feelings of goodness, they gave him the opportunity to make amends for his previous error through diligent service.” This sending to Saratov did not yet mean complete release, since Kostomarov was accompanied by a gendarme, Lieutenant Alpen, who was supposed to ensure that his ward did not enter into “unnecessary conversations with strangers.” The lieutenant, so to speak, “surrendered” Kostomarov to the Saratov civil governor M. L. Kozhevnikov. True, Orlov wrote in his official attitude towards Kozhevnikov: “I ask you to be merciful to him, a man with merits, but he was mistaken and sincerely repents,” which, however, did not prevent him from turning to the Minister of Internal Affairs L. A. Perovsky with a proposal to establish over Kostomarov “the strictest supervision.” He sent a similar order to the head of the 7th district of the gendarme corps N.A. Akhverdov, so that he would establish secret surveillance of Kostomarov in Saratov under his jurisdiction and report every six months on his behavior.

The Saratov exile is an important stage in Kostomarov’s ideological development; here he became close to N.G. Chernyshevsky and the historian D.L. Mordovtsev, who had just begun to develop the history of popular movements and imposture in these years. While working in the provincial government, Kostomarov had the opportunity to familiarize himself with secret files, among which there were files on the history of the schism. In Saratov, he wrote a number of works, which, when published after exile and in the conditions of social upsurge of the 50-60s of the 19th century. became widely known, putting their author in the forefront among historians of that time. A special place in these studies is occupied by works on Ukrainian history.

During these same years, Kostomarov sought, in modern terms, rehabilitation. On May 31, 1855, he addressed Alexander II, who had recently ascended the throne, with a petition in which he writes: “At the present time, when Your Imperial Majesty has deigned to commemorate your accession to the throne with an act of immeasurable mercy, shedding a ray of consolation to the most serious criminals, I dare to pray Your sovereign goodness, sir, about mercy towards me. If the supervision over me was limited to the sole observation of my political convictions, then I would not dare to want to free myself from it, for I have no other convictions except those that the law and love for my monarch prescribes to me. But police surveillance, coupled with the need to stay exclusively in one place, constrains me in my work and home life and deprives me of the means to improve my vision disease, which I have been suffering from for several years. Sovereign Father! Honor with the eye of compassion one of the erring but truly repentant children of your great Russian family, deign to grant me the right to serve you, sir, and to live without restriction in all places of the Russian Empire of Your Imperial Majesty."

The Board of Petitions forwarded Kostomarov’s petition to the III Department. On June 27, 1855, A.F. Orlov, in his written report, supported Kostomarov’s request, incidentally reporting that “of the persons involved in the same society, the collegiate registrar Gulak, who was the main reason for the formation of the society, as well as the officials Belozersky and Kulish, those no less guilty than Kostomarov have already received the most merciful forgiveness.” On this document, Alexander II wrote a resolution “I agree” in pencil. But this relatively quick satisfaction of Kostomarov’s request still did not mean the provision of complete freedom of activity, since A. F. Orlov, informing the Minister of Internal Affairs D. G. Bibikov about the tsar’s decision, warned that Kostomarov was not allowed to serve “in an academic capacity” . So, freed from supervision, Kostomarov in December 1855 left for St. Petersburg. At the same time, he offered his work “The Age of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich” to the editor of Otechestvennye Zapiski, but the magazine’s censor demanded a certificate of lifting the ban on Kostomarov’s works imposed back in 1847. Kostomarov in January 1856 asked for permission to publish of this article to the III Department and received permission for publication with the resolution of L.V. Dubelt: “Only strictly censor.”
Of the major works, Kostomarov published in 1856 in “Domestic Notes” his work “The Struggle of the Ukrainian Cossacks with Poland in the first half of the 17th century before Bogdan Khmelnitsky”, and in 1857 - “Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the return of Southern Rus' to Russia”. These studies introduced a wide circle of the Russian reading public to the bright pages of the history of the fraternal people and affirmed the inseparability of the historical destinies of the two Slavic peoples. They were also an application for the further development of Ukrainian topics.

But also in the field of Russian history, Kostomarov continued to deal with previously unexplored problems. So, in 1857-1858. Sovremennik published his work “Essay on Trade of the Moscow State in the 16th and 17th Centuries”, and in 1858 his famous “The Revolt of Stenka Razin” appeared on the pages of “Domestic Notes” - a work of acute relevance in the conditions of the brewing first revolutionary situation in Russia.

But there remained one more obstacle to his scientific and pedagogical activity. On September 27, 1857, Kostomarov writes to the new head of the III department, V.A. Dolgorukov: “Not recognizing in myself either the desire or ability for civil service and, moreover, having been studying Russian history and antiquities for a long time, I would like to re-enter the academic service in department of the Ministry of Public Education... If the mercy of the Sovereign Emperor, which freed me from supervision, does not cancel the previous highest command in the gods of the late Sovereign Emperor to prevent me from entering the academic service, please, Your Excellency, to submit at the feet of the most merciful Sovereign Emperor my all-submissive request for the granting of the right to me join the academic service under the Ministry of Public Education.” Prince Vasily Andreevich already on October 8 ordered a conversation on this matter with the Minister of Public Education, but the latter considered it “inconvenient to allow Kostomarov to serve in the academic department, except as a librarian.”

Meanwhile, the council of Kazan University in 1858 elected Kostomarov as a professor; as expected. The Ministry of Public Education did not approve this election. However, in 1859, the trustee of the St. Petersburg educational district petitioned for the appointment of Kostomarov to the position of regular professor of Russian history at St. Petersburg University, as evidenced by the attitude of the comrade minister of public education V. A. Dolgorukov. The latter reported that this required the highest permission, which, obviously, was obtained, since in the certificate of the III department dated November 24, 1859 we read: “Kostomarov is known for his learning in history, and the first lecture he gave the other day in the local university, earned the general approval of the listeners, including many strangers.”

So, the attempt of the council of St. Petersburg University to elect Kostomarov as an extraordinary professor in the department of Russian history was crowned with success. Kostomarov “conquers” the capital thanks to a sensational discussion with the famous historian M.P. Pogodin about serfdom in Russia, and a year later - in connection with his reasoned speech against the so-called Norman theory of the origin of Rus', shared by Pogodin...

To characterize the degree of social activity and state of mind of Kostomarov from the moment he was released from supervision and exile, and until he was confirmed as a professor at St. Petersburg University, it would be useful to report that in 1857 he managed to visit Sweden and Germany for eight months. France, Italy and Austria, working in archives and libraries along the way (we especially note the work in Sweden, which provided material for a monograph on Mazepa), and after returning in 1858, he was directly involved in the work of preparing the peasant reform, becoming the clerk of the Saratov provincial committee for improvement life of landowner peasants. In 1859, when the provincial committees actually ceased their activities, he moved to St. Petersburg, replacing the retired professor N. G. Ustryalov.
By the early 1960s, Kostomarov was firmly established as an excellent lecturer and one of the leading historians. He published in Sovremennik in 1860 “Essay on the domestic life and morals of the Great Russian people in the 16th and 17th centuries”, in “Russian Word” - the work “Russian foreigners. The Lithuanian tribe and its relationship to Russian history,” and, finally, in 1863, one of Kostomarov’s most fundamental studies, “Northern Russian democracy in the times of the appanage-veche way of life,” was published as a separate book. Novgorod - Pskov - Vyatka."

By this time, Kostomarov, booed by dissatisfied students, was forced to leave the teaching department. The students were dissatisfied, as it seemed to them, with the unseemly act of the professor who did not join the protest against the expulsion of Professor P. V. Pavlov. This episode is described in sufficient detail by Kostomarov in his autobiography. Let's use his story. When St. Petersburg University was closed in 1861 due to student protests, and at the beginning of 1862 many arrested students were released from the fortress, the idea arose of giving public lectures for a very reasonable fee in order to make up for the losses caused by the closure of the university. Kostomarov at the beginning of February 1862 began teaching a course on Russian history from the 15th century. In his own words, he did not interfere in student affairs: “I did not take the slightest part in the then (1861 - B.L.) university issues, and although students often came to me to talk to me about what they should do , but I answered them that I did not know their affairs, that I only knew the science to which I devoted myself entirely, and everything that did not relate directly to my science did not interest me. The students were very dissatisfied with me for such an attitude towards their student affairs...” This was the background against which the events of the spring of 1862 played out, when a free university was already functioning, accessible to everyone who wanted to listen to lectures given in the spacious hall of the City Duma. On March 5, professor of this university P.V. Pavlov, not in the Duma building - the official place for giving lectures - but in a private house on the Moika, where a literary evening was held, read his article “The Millennium of Russia.” In the text that he showed Kostomarov the day before, he did not find anything that could “draw the unfavorable attention of the authorities.” This article, and especially the accompanying refrain taken from the “Gospel” - “those who have ears to hear, let them hear,” aroused wild delight among the students . The next day Pavlov was arrested.

In response to the arrest, some professors, influenced by student demands, stopped giving lectures. Kostomarov objected to this, arguing that “terminating lectures makes no sense.”
When Kostomarov came to give a lecture on March 9, some of the students, who demanded the termination of lectures in protest against Pavlov’s arrest, obstructed him; others, according to the historian, shouted “Bravo, Kostomarov!” Kostomarov wrote on behalf of a group of professors a petition to the Minister of Public Education for Pavlov’s release, but it did not produce results. Soon Pavlov was exiled to Kostroma, and Kostomarov himself, stung by the ingratitude of the students, submitted his resignation. Since then, he has not been involved in teaching, focusing entirely on scientific work.…

Until recently, it was possible to observe, albeit paradoxical, but touching unity in the assessment of Kostomarov’s ideological positions between Soviet historiographers and foreign nationalists. Thus, in 1967, the University of Michigan Press published a study with a characteristic title: “Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov: Russian historian, Ukrainian nationalist, Slavic federalist” (Popazian Dennis. “Nickolas Ivanovich Kostomarov: Russian historian, Ukrainian nationalist, slavic federalist”), and seven years earlier, the second volume of “Essays on the History of Historical Science” was published by the Nauka publishing house, in which, on p. 146 printed in black and white: “Kostomarov entered historiography primarily as an exponent of the views and interests of the emerging Ukrainian bourgeois-landowner nationalism.” Truly extremes meet.

B. Litvak. "Hetman-villain."

"Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov."

I saw the historian Kostomarov for the first time when he came to us shortly after his exile. (*In 1846 in Kiev, the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood was organized around N.I. Kostomarov, with the goal of spreading the idea of ​​a federal unification of Slavic peoples while maintaining autonomy in matters of internal governance. Shevchenko was also a member of this society. According to the denunciation of student N.I. Petrov Kostomarov was arrested in the spring of 1847 and, after a year's imprisonment in the fortress, he was exiled to Saratov, where he remained until 1855.) I knew in detail about his arrest and his expulsion from St. Petersburg.

It was clear from Kostomarov’s sickly appearance that this whole mess had cost him dearly; he dined with us and, apparently, was happy that he could live in St. Petersburg again.

Leaving the dacha by boat, he asked Panaev for the whole year's copy of The Bell, which he had not had the opportunity to read in exile. The package was quite voluminous. They brought a cab driver, and Kostomarov drove off, promising to come to the dacha again soon.

Less than half an hour had passed before I saw Kostomarov walking through an abandoned vegetable garden near our dacha, separated from it by a rather wide ditch.

Gentlemen, this is Kostomarov! How did he get into the garden? - I said to Panaev and Nekrasov.

They didn’t believe me at first, but after taking a good look, they were convinced that it was definitely him. We all went to the alley and called out to Kostomarov, who was walking quickly.

I'm looking for a way to get to your dacha! - he answered. They explained to him that he was in the wrong place - and that he needed to go back to the highway.

We went to meet him and noticed that he was very alarmed about something.

What happened to you? - we asked him.

“It’s a great misfortune,” he said quietly. - Let’s go to the dacha quickly, I’ll tell you everything there, it’s inconvenient to tell here!

We, too, were alarmed, wondering what kind of misfortune had happened to him.

Arriving at the dacha, Kostomarov, exhausted from walking, sat down on a bench, and we surrounded him and eagerly awaited an explanation. Kostomarov looked around in all directions and said quietly:

No one will overhear us?.. I lost the “Bell”.

Lord, we thought that God knows what happened to you! - Nekrasov said with annoyance.

Where did you drop it? - asked Panaev.

I don’t know myself; I wanted to put my overcoat in the sleeves, so I put the bundle next to me. I thought about it... grab it, but it’s gone! I quickly gave the money to the cab driver and walked back along the highway in the hope that I would find him, but I did not find him. So someone picked up the package.

It’s clear that he picked it up if you didn’t find it,” answered Panaev, “and if an educated person found it, he would mentally thank the one who gave him the opportunity to read “The Bell” for a whole year.

What if they take it to the police? There will be a search - and the driver will indicate where he got the rider from?

What's wrong with you, Kostomarov? - Panaev remarked to him.

And your lackey may say that I lost it!

Yes, the footman wasn’t even in the garden when you left,” Nekrasov reassured him.

Why did I take the “Bell” with me! - Kostomarov said in despair.

They began to calm him down, they even laughed at his fright, but he said:

Ah, gentlemen, the frightened crow is afraid of the bush. If you had to experience what I experienced, you wouldn’t be laughing now. I have seen from experience how a person can suffer a lot from a trifle. Returning to St. Petersburg, I swore to myself to be careful - and suddenly I acted like a boy!

Kostomarov was persuaded to stay overnight because he had developed a fever, and besides, he would have been late for the ship if he had gone. I made him some hot tea with cognac to warm him up.

At the dacha I usually got up early and went for a swim. It was not yet 7 o’clock when I entered the glass gallery to go out into the park, and Kostomarov was already sitting in it.

What's your fever? - I asked him. Kostomarov replied that he had not slept all night, asked what time the first ship left, and suddenly asked jokingly:

Look... what kind of person is coming?

I stood with my back to the glass door and turned around.

“This is our Peter, probably coming from a swim,” I said and ordered the footman to quickly put on the samovar in order to give Kostomarov some coffee.

I didn’t go swimming anymore, but stayed with Kostomarov. I advised him not to go on the ship, as he did not feel well, and in the meantime there could be a rocking situation.

“I’d better order a droshky,” I said, “they’ll take you to Peterhof, and there you’ll find yourself a semi-carriage and get there much more calmly.”

Kostomarov was very happy with my proposal and said that, given his mood, it would be unpleasant for him to be in a crowd of passengers. He waited impatiently for the coachman to lay the droshky.

I woke up Panaev and told him that Kostomarov was leaving.

Panaev, sleepy, went out to Kostomarov, who began to fuss when he saw that the droshky was ready.

Panaev, saying goodbye to him, said:

Come to us whenever you want, in the morning and spend the night with us.

Oh no! - Kostomarov answered. - Thank you: my trip to you made such an impression on me that I won’t show my nose to your Peterhof.

He had already left the steps of the gallery, but returned again, saying:

My God, where is my head, I forgot such an important thing. We need to come to an agreement so that there is no contradiction in the testimony.

Which ones? - asked Panaev.

Lord, well, if they ask about the lost package.

Come on, Kostomarov!

No! I'm an experienced person...

I'll tell you what I lost! - said Panaev. Kostomarov was taken aback.

What about the witness?

Cab! Panaev laughed.

Forget about “The Bell”, figure out for yourself how it’s possible to find out who lost the package on the highway! Did your driver not know about his loss?

I wish I had told him this! I gave the money, saying that I had changed my mind about going on the ship, and went back, and he went on.

Well, how can he point to you? Kostomarov thought for a moment, waved his hand and said: “Well, whatever happens, it cannot be avoided!” - and, shaking our hands, got into the droshky and drove away.

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

Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov - Russian historian, ethnographer, publicist, literary critic, poet, playwright, public figure, corresponding member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, author of the multi-volume publication “Russian History in the Lives of Its Figures”, researcher of the socio-political and economic history of Russia and the modern territory of Ukraine, called by Kostomarov “southern Russia” or “southern region”. Panslavist.

Biography of N.I. Kostomarova

Family and ancestors

Kostomarov Nikolai Ivanovich was born on May 4 (16), 1817 in the Yurasovka estate (Ostrogozhsky district, Voronezh province), died on April 7 (19), 1885 in St. Petersburg.

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

Ivan Kostomarov was born in 1769, served in military service and, after retiring, settled in Yurasovka. Having received a poor education, he tried to develop himself by reading, reading “with a dictionary” exclusively French books of the 18th century. I read to the point that I became a convinced “Voltairean,” i.e. supporter of education and social equality. Later, N.I. Kostomarov in his “Autobiography” wrote about his parent’s passions:

Everything that we know today about the childhood, family and early years of N.I. Kostomarov is gleaned exclusively from his “Autobiographies”, written by the historian in different versions in his declining years. These wonderful, largely artistic works, in some places resemble an adventure novel of the 19th century: very original types of heroes, an almost detective plot with a murder, the subsequent, absolutely fantastic repentance of the criminals, etc. Due to the lack of reliable sources, it is almost impossible to separate the truth here from childhood impressions, as well as from the author’s later fantasies. Therefore, we will follow what N.I. Kostomarov himself considered necessary to tell his descendants about himself.

According to the autobiographical notes of the historian, his father was a tough, capricious, and extremely hot-tempered man. Under the influence of French books, he did not value noble dignity at all and, on principle, did not want to become related to noble families. So, already in his old age, Kostomarov Sr. decided to get married and chose a girl from his serfs - Tatyana Petrovna Mylnikova (in some publications - Melnikova), whom he sent to study in Moscow, in a private boarding school. It was in 1812, and the Napoleonic invasion prevented Tatyana Petrovna from receiving an education. For a long time, among the Yurasov peasants there lived a romantic legend about how “old Kostomar” drove the best three horses, saving his former maid Tanyusha from burning Moscow. Tatyana Petrovna was clearly not indifferent to him. However, soon the courtyard people turned Kostomarov against his serf. The landowner was in no hurry to marry her, and his son Nikolai, being born before the official marriage between his parents, automatically became his father’s serf.

Until the age of ten, the boy was raised at home, according to the principles developed by Rousseau in his “Emile,” in the lap of nature, and from childhood he fell in love with nature. His father wanted to make him a freethinker, but his mother’s influence preserved his religiosity. He read a lot and, thanks to his outstanding abilities, easily absorbed what he read, and his ardent imagination made him experience what he learned from books.

In 1827, Kostomarov was sent to Moscow, to the boarding school of Mr. Ge, a lecturer of French at the University, but was soon taken home due to illness. In the summer of 1828, young Kostomarov was supposed to return to the boarding house, but on July 14, 1828, his father was killed and robbed by servants. For some reason, during the 11 years of his life, his father did not have time to adopt Nikolai, therefore, born out of wedlock, as a serf of his father, the boy was now inherited by his closest relatives - the Rovnevs. When the Rovnevs offered Tatyana Petrovna a widow's share of 50 thousand rubles in banknotes for 14 thousand dessiatines of fertile land, as well as freedom for her son, she agreed without delay.

Killers I.P. Kostomarov was presented with the whole case as if an accident had occurred: the horses were carried away, the landowner allegedly fell out of the carriage and died. The disappearance of a large sum of money from his box became known later, so a police investigation was not carried out. The true circumstances of the death of Kostomarov Sr. were revealed only in 1833, when one of the killers - the master's coachman - suddenly repented and pointed out to the police his accomplices and lackeys. N.I. Kostomarov wrote in his “Autobiography” that when the perpetrators began to be interrogated in court, the coachman said: “The master himself is to blame for tempting us; sometimes he would start telling everyone that there is no God, that there will be nothing in the next world, that only fools are afraid of punishment after death - we got it into our heads that if there is nothing in the next world, then everything can be done ... "

Later, the servants, stuffed with “Voltairian sermons,” led the robbers to the house of N.I. Kostomarov’s mother, which was also completely robbed.

Left with little money, T.P. Kostomarova sent her son to a Voronezh boarding school, a rather bad one, where he learned little in two and a half years. In 1831, Nikolai’s mother transferred Nikolai to the Voronezh gymnasium, but even here, according to Kostomarov’s recollections, the teachers were bad and unscrupulous and gave him little knowledge.

After graduating from the gymnasium in 1833, Kostomarov entered first the Moscow and then the Kharkov University at the Faculty of History and Philology. The professors in Kharkov at that time were not important. For example, Russian history was read by Gulak-Artemovsky, although a famous author of Little Russian poems, but distinguished, according to Kostomarov, in his lectures by empty rhetoric and pomposity. However, Kostomarov studied diligently even with such teachers, but, as often happens with young people, by nature he succumbed to one hobby or another. So, having settled with the professor of Latin P.I. Sokalsky, he began to study classical languages ​​and became especially interested in the Iliad. The writings of V. Hugo turned him to the French language; then he began to study the Italian language, music, began to write poetry, and led an extremely chaotic life. He constantly spent his holidays in his village, enjoying horse riding, boating, and hunting, although natural myopia and compassion for animals interfered with the latter activity. In 1835, young and talented professors appeared in Kharkov: on Greek literature A. O. Valitsky and on general history M. M. Lunin, who gave very interesting lectures. Under the influence of Lunin, Kostomarov began to study history, spending his days and nights reading all kinds of historical books. He settled with Artemovsky-Gulak and now led a very secluded life. Among his few friends at that time was A. L. Meshlinsky, a famous collector of Little Russian songs.

The beginning of the way

In 1836, Kostomarov completed a course at the university as a full student, lived for some time with Artemovsky, teaching his children history, then passed the candidate exam and then entered the Kinburn Dragoon Regiment as a cadet.

Kostomarov did not like serving in the regiment; Due to the different nature of their lives, he did not get close to his comrades. Carried away by the analysis of the rich archives located in Ostrogozhsk, where the regiment was stationed, Kostomarov often skimped on his service and, on the advice of the regimental commander, left it. Having worked in the archives throughout the summer of 1837, he compiled a historical description of the Ostrogozh Sloboda Regiment, attached many copies of interesting documents to it, and prepared it for publication. Kostomarov hoped to compile the history of the entire Sloboda Ukraine in the same way, but did not have time. His work disappeared during the arrest of Kostomarov and it is not known where it is located or even whether it has survived at all. In the autumn of the same year, Kostomarov returned to Kharkov, again began listening to Lunin’s lectures and studying history. Already at this time, he began to think about the question: why does history say so little about the masses? Wanting to understand folk psychology, Kostomarov began to study monuments of folk literature in the publications of Maksimovich and Sakharov, and became especially interested in Little Russian folk poetry.

It is interesting that until the age of 16, Kostomarov had no idea about Ukraine and, in fact, about the Ukrainian language. He learned that the Ukrainian (Little Russian) language existed only at Kharkov University. When in 1820-30 in Little Russia they began to be interested in the history and life of the Cossacks, this interest was most clearly manifested among representatives of the educated society of Kharkov, and especially in the university environment. Here, the young Kostomarov was simultaneously influenced by Artemovsky and Meshlinsky, and partly by Gogol’s Russian-language stories, in which the Ukrainian flavor was lovingly presented. “The love for the Little Russian word captivated me more and more,” wrote Kostomarov, “I was annoyed that such a beautiful language remains without any literary treatment and, moreover, is subjected to completely undeserved contempt.”

An important role in the “Ukrainization” of Kostomarov belongs to I. I. Sreznevsky, then a young teacher at Kharkov University. Sreznevsky, although a native of Ryazan by birth, also spent his youth in Kharkov. He was an expert and lover of Ukrainian history and literature, especially after he visited the places of the former Zaporozhye and listened to its legends. This gave him the opportunity to compose “Zaporozhye Antiquity”.

The rapprochement with Sreznevsky had a strong effect on the aspiring historian Kostomarov, strengthening his desire to study the nationalities of Ukraine, both in the monuments of the past and in present life. For this purpose, he constantly made ethnographic excursions in the vicinity of Kharkov, and then further. At the same time, Kostomarov began writing in the Little Russian language - first Ukrainian ballads, then the drama “Sava Chaly”. The drama was published in 1838, and the ballads a year later (both under the pseudonym "Jeremiah Jackdaw"). The drama evoked a flattering review from Belinsky. In 1838, Kostomarov was in Moscow and listened to Shevyrev’s lectures there, thinking of taking the exam for a master’s degree in Russian literature, but he fell ill and returned to Kharkov again, having managed during this time to study German, Polish and Czech and publish his Ukrainian-language works.

Dissertation by N.I. Kostomarov

In 1840 N.I. Kostomarov passed the exam for a master's degree in Russian history, and the following year he presented his dissertation “On the meaning of the union in the history of Western Russia.” In anticipation of the dispute, he went to Crimea for the summer, which he examined in detail. Upon returning to Kharkov, Kostomarov became close to Kvitka and also to a circle of Little Russian poets, among whom was Korsun, who published the collection “Snin”. In the collection, Kostomarov, under his previous pseudonym, published poems and a new tragedy, “Pereyaslavsk Draw.”

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

The dissertation story could have ended Kostomarov’s career as a historian forever. But there were generally good reviews about Kostomarov, including from Archbishop Innocent himself, who considered him a deeply religious person and knowledgeable in spiritual matters. Kostomarov was allowed to write a second dissertation. The historian chose the topic “On the historical significance of Russian folk poetry” and wrote this essay in 1842-1843, while being an assistant inspector of students at Kharkov University. He often visited the theater, especially the Little Russian theater, and published Little Russian poems and his first articles on the history of Little Russia in the collection “Molodik” by Betsky: “The first wars of the Little Russian Cossacks with the Poles,” etc.

Leaving his position at the university in 1843, Kostomarov became a history teacher at the Zimnitsky men's boarding school. Then he began to work on the story of Bogdan Khmelnitsky. On January 13, 1844, Kostomarov, not without incident, defended his dissertation at Kharkov University (it was also subsequently published in a heavily revised form). He became a master of Russian history and first lived in Kharkov, working on the history of Khmelnitsky, and then, not receiving a department here, asked to serve in the Kiev educational district in order to be closer to the place of activity of his hero.

N.I. Kostomarov as a teacher

In the fall of 1844, Kostomarov was appointed as a history teacher at a gymnasium in the city of Rovno, Volyn province. While passing through, he visited Kiev, where he met the Ukrainian language reformer and publicist P. Kulish, the assistant trustee of the educational district M. V. Yuzefovich and other progressive-minded people. Kostomarov taught in Rovno only until the summer of 1845, but he gained the common love of both students and comrades for his humanity and excellent presentation of the subject. As always, he took advantage of every free time to make excursions to numerous historical areas of Volyn, make historical and ethnographic observations and collect monuments of folk art; such were delivered to him by his disciples; All these materials he collected were published much later - in 1859.

Acquaintance with historical areas gave the historian the opportunity to subsequently vividly depict many episodes from the history of the first Pretender and Bogdan Khmelnitsky. In the summer of 1845, Kostomarov visited the Holy Mountains, in the fall he was transferred to Kyiv as a history teacher at the First Gymnasium, and at the same time he taught in various boarding schools, including women's - de Melyana (Robespierre's brother) and Zalesskaya (the widow of the famous poet), and later at the Institute of Noble Maidens. His students and students recalled his teaching with delight.

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

Kostomarov and the Cyril and Methodius Society

In Kyiv, Kostomarov became close to several young Little Russians, who formed a circle that was partly pan-Slavic and partly national. Imbued with the ideas of Pan-Slavism, which was then emerging under the influence of the works of Safarik and other famous Western Slavists, Kostomarov and his comrades dreamed of uniting all the Slavs in the form of a federation, with independent autonomy of the Slavic lands, into which the peoples inhabiting the empire were to be distributed. Moreover, in the projected federation a liberal state structure was to be established, as it was understood in the 1840s, with the mandatory abolition of serfdom. A very peaceful circle of thoughtful intellectuals, who intended to act only by correct means, and, moreover, in the person of Kostomarov, deeply religious, had a corresponding name - the Brotherhood of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. He seemed to indicate by this that the activities of the holy Brothers, religious and educational, dear to all Slavic tribes, can be considered the only possible banner for the Slavic unification. The very existence of such a circle at that time was already an illegal phenomenon. In addition, its members, wanting to “play” either conspirators or freemasons, deliberately gave their meetings and peaceful conversations the character of a secret society with special attributes: a special icon and iron rings with the inscription: “Cyril and Methodius.” The brotherhood also had a seal on which was carved: “Understand the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Af. became members of the organization. V. Markovich, later a famous South Russian ethnographer, writer N. I. Gulak, poet A. A. Navrotsky, teachers V. M. Belozersky and D. P. Pilchikov, several students, and later T. G. Shevchenko, whose work was so influenced by the ideas of the Pan-Slavist brotherhood. At the meetings of the society there were also random “brothers”, for example, the landowner N.I. Savin, who was familiar to Kostomarov from Kharkov. The notorious publicist P. A. Kulish also knew about the brotherhood. With his characteristic humor, he signed some of his messages to members of the brotherhood “Hetman Panka Kulish.” Subsequently, in the III department, this joke was estimated at three years of exile, although “Hetman” Kulish himself was not officially a member of the brotherhood. Just to be on the safe side...

June 4, 1846 N.I. Kostomarov was elected associate professor of Russian history at Kiev University; He has now left classes at the gymnasium and other boarding schools. His mother also settled with him in Kyiv, selling the part of Yurasovka that she had inherited.

Kostomarov was a professor at Kyiv University for less than a year, but the students, with whom he behaved simply, loved him very much and were carried away by his lectures. Kostomarov taught several courses, including Slavic mythology, which he printed in Church Slavonic script, which was partly the reason for its ban. Only in the 1870s were its copies printed 30 years ago put on sale. Kostomarov also worked on Khmelnitsky, using materials available in Kyiv and from the famous archaeologist Gr. Svidzinsky, and was also elected a member of the Kyiv Commission for the analysis of ancient acts and prepared the chronicle of S. Wieliczka for publication.

At the beginning of 1847, Kostomarov became engaged to Anna Leontyevna Kragelskaya, his student from the de Melyana boarding school. The wedding was scheduled for March 30. Kostomarov was actively preparing for family life: he looked for a house for himself and his bride on Bolshaya Vladimirskaya, closer to the university, and ordered a piano for Alina from Vienna itself. After all, the historian’s bride was an excellent performer - Franz Liszt himself admired her performance. But... the wedding did not take place.

According to the denunciation of student A. Petrov, who overheard Kostomarov’s conversation with several members of the Cyril and Methodius Society, Kostomarov was arrested, interrogated and sent under the guard of gendarmes to the Podolsk part. Then, two days later, he was brought to say goodbye to his mother’s apartment, where his bride, Alina Kragelskaya, was waiting in tears.

“The scene was tearing apart,” Kostomarov wrote in his “Autobiography.” “Then they put me on a transfer board and took me to St. Petersburg... My state of mind was so deadly that I had the idea of ​​starving myself during the journey. I refused all food and drink and had the determination to travel in this way for 5 days... My guide, the police officer, understood what was on my mind and began to advise me to abandon my intention. “You,” he said, “will not cause death to yourself, I will have time to get you there, but you will harm yourself: they will begin to interrogate you, and you will become delirious from exhaustion and you will say unnecessary things about yourself and others.” Kostomarov heeded the advice.

In St. Petersburg, the chief of gendarmes, Count Alexey Orlov, and his assistant, Lieutenant General Dubelt, talked with the arrested man. When the scientist asked permission to read books and newspapers, Dubelt said: “It’s impossible, my good friend, you read too much.”

Soon both generals found out that they were dealing not with a dangerous conspirator, but with a romantic dreamer. But the investigation dragged on all spring, since the case was slowed down by Taras Shevchenko (he received the most severe punishment) and Nikolai Gulak with their “intractability”. There was no trial. Kostomarov learned the tsar’s decision on May 30 from Dubelt: a year of imprisonment in the fortress and indefinite exile “to one of the remote provinces.” Kostomarov spent a year in the 7th cell of the Alekseevsky ravelin, where his already not very strong health suffered greatly. However, the prisoner’s mother was allowed to visit him, he was given books, and he, by the way, learned ancient Greek and Spanish there.

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

Kostomarov in exile

“For forming a secret society in which the unification of the Slavs into one state was discussed,” Kostomarov was sent to serve in Saratov, with a ban on publishing his works. Here he was appointed translator of the Provincial Board, but he had nothing to translate, and the governor (Kozhevnikov) entrusted him with managing first the criminal and then the secret desk, where mainly schismatic matters were carried out. This gave the historian the opportunity to become thoroughly acquainted with the schism and, although not without difficulty, to become close to its followers. Kostomarov published the results of his studies of local ethnography in the Saratov Provincial Gazette, which he temporarily edited. He also studied physics and astronomy, tried to make a balloon, and even practiced spiritualism, but did not stop studying the history of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, receiving books from Gr. Svidzinsky. In exile, Kostomarov began collecting materials to study the internal life of pre-Petrine Rus'.

In Saratov, near Kostomarov, a circle of educated people grouped together, partly from exiled Poles, partly from Russians. In addition, Archimandrite Nikanor, later Archbishop of Kherson, I. I. Palimpsestov, later professor at Novorossiysk University, E. A. Belov, Varentsov and others were close to him in Saratov; later N.G. Chernyshevsky, A.N. Pypin and especially D.L. Mordovtsev.

In general, Kostomarov’s life in Saratov was not bad at all. Soon his mother came here, the historian himself gave private lessons, made excursions, for example, to Crimea, where he participated in the excavation of one of the Kerch mounds. Later, the exile quite calmly went to Dubovka to get acquainted with the schism; to Tsaritsyn and Sarepta - to collect materials about the Pugachev region, etc.

In 1855, Kostomarov was appointed clerk of the Saratov Statistical Committee, and published many articles on Saratov statistics in local publications. The historian collected a lot of materials on the history of Razin and Pugachev, but did not process them himself, but handed them over to D.L. Mordovtsev, who then used them with his permission. Mordovtsev at this time became Kostomarov’s assistant on the Statistical Committee.

At the end of 1855, Kostomarov was allowed to travel on business to St. Petersburg, where he worked for four months in the Public Library on the era of Khmelnitsky, and on the internal life of ancient Rus'. At the beginning of 1856, when the ban on printing his works was lifted, the historian published in Otechestvennye Zapiski an article about the struggle of the Ukrainian Cossacks with Poland in the first half of the 17th century, which constituted the preface to his Khmelnytsky. In 1857, “Bogdan Khmelnitsky” finally appeared, although in an incomplete version. The book made a strong impression on contemporaries, especially with the artistry of its presentation. After all, before Kostomarov, none of the Russian historians seriously addressed the history of Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Despite the unprecedented success of the study and positive reviews about it in the capital, the author still had to return to Saratov, where he continued to work on studying the internal life of ancient Rus', especially on the history of trade in the 16th-17th centuries.

The coronation manifesto freed Kostomarov from supervision, but the order prohibiting him from serving in an academic capacity remained in force. In the spring of 1857, he arrived in St. Petersburg, published his research on the history of trade and went abroad, where he visited Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland and Italy. In the summer of 1858, Kostomarov again worked at the St. Petersburg Public Library on the history of Stenka Razin’s rebellion and at the same time wrote, on the advice of N.V. Kalachov, with whom he then became close, the story “Son” (published in 1859); He also saw Shevchenko, who had returned from exile. In the fall, Kostomarov accepted the position of clerk in the Saratov provincial committee for peasant affairs and thus associated his name with the liberation of the peasants.

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

At the end of 1858, N.I. Kostomarov’s monograph “The Revolt of Stenka Razin” was published, which finally made his name famous. Kostomarov’s works had, in a sense, the same meaning as, for example, Shchedrin’s “Provincial Sketches.” They were the first scientific works on Russian history, in which many issues were considered not according to the hitherto obligatory template of the official scientific direction; at the same time, they were written and presented in a remarkably artistic manner. In the spring of 1859, St. Petersburg University elected Kostomarov as extraordinary professor of Russian history. Having waited for the closure of the Committee on Peasant Affairs, Kostomarov, after a very cordial farewell in Saratov, came to St. Petersburg. But then it turned out that the case for his professorship was not settled, he was not approved, because the Emperor was informed that Kostomarov had written an unreliable essay about Stenka Razin. However, the Emperor himself read this monograph and spoke very approvingly of it. At the request of the brothers D. A. and N. A. Milyutin, Alexander II allowed the approval of N.I. Kostomarov as a professor, not at Kiev University, as previously planned, but at St. Petersburg University.

Kostomarov's inaugural lecture took place on November 22, 1859 and received a thunderous ovation from the students and the listening public. Kostomarov did not remain a professor at St. Petersburg University for long (until May 1862). But even during this short time, he became known as a most talented teacher and outstanding lecturer. Kostomarov’s students produced several very respectable figures in the field of science of Russian history, for example, Professor A. I. Nikitsky. The fact that Kostomarov was a great artist-lecturer is preserved in many memories of his students. One of Kostomarov’s listeners said this about his reading:

In general, Kostomarov’s lectures had a great effect on the imagination of the public, and the fascination with them can be partly explained by the strong emotionality of the lecturer, which constantly broke through, despite his outward calm. She literally “infected” the listeners. After each lecture, the professor received a standing ovation, was carried out in their arms, etc. At St. Petersburg University N.I. Kostomarov taught the following courses: History of Ancient Rus' (from which an article was published on the origin of Rus' with the Zhmud theory of this origin); ethnography of foreigners who lived in ancient times in Rus', starting with the Lithuanians; the history of ancient Russian regions (part of it was published under the title “Northern Russian People’s Rules”), and historiography, of which only the beginning was printed, devoted to the analysis of chronicles.

In addition to university lectures, Kostomarov also gave public lectures, which also enjoyed enormous success. In parallel with his professorship, Kostomarov was working with sources, for which he constantly visited both St. Petersburg and Moscow, as well as provincial libraries and archives, examined the ancient Russian cities of Novgorod and Pskov, and traveled abroad more than once. The public dispute between N.I. Kostomarov and M.P. Pogodin over the question of the origin of Rus' dates back to this time.

In 1860, Kostomarov became a member of the Archaeographic Commission, with instructions to edit acts of southern and western Russia, and was elected a full member of the Russian Geographical Society. The commission published 12 volumes of acts under his editorship (from 1861 to 1885), and the geographical society published three volumes of “Proceedings of an ethnographic expedition to the Western Russian region” (III, IV and V - in 1872-1878).

In St. Petersburg, a circle formed near Kostomarov, to which they belonged: Shevchenko, who, however, soon died, the Belozerskys, bookseller Kozhanchikov, A. A. Kotlyarevsky, ethnographer S. V. Maksimov, astronomer A. N. Savich, priest Opatovich and many others. In 1860, this circle began publishing the journal Osnova, in which Kostomarov was one of the most important employees. His articles are published here: “On the federal beginning of ancient Rus'”, “Two Russian nationalities”, “Features of South Russian history”, etc., as well as many polemical articles regarding attacks on him for “separatism”, “Ukrainophilism”, “ anti-Normanism,” etc. He also took part in the publication of popular books in the Little Russian language (“Metelikov”), and for the publication of the Holy Scriptures he collected a special fund, which was later used for the publication of the Little Russian dictionary.

"Duma" incident

At the end of 1861, due to student unrest, St. Petersburg University was temporarily closed. Five “instigators” of the riots were expelled from the capital, 32 students were expelled from the university with the right to take final exams.

On March 5, 1862, public figure, historian and professor at St. Petersburg University P.V. Pavlov was arrested and administratively exiled to Vetluga. He did not give a single lecture at the university, but at a public reading in favor of needy writers, he ended his speech on the millennium of Russia with the following words:

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

Kostomarov did not support the protest regarding Pavlov’s expulsion. In this case, he took the “middle path”: he offered to continue classes for all students who wanted to study and not hold a rally. To replace the closed university, due to the efforts of professors, including Kostomarov, a “free university” was opened, as they said then, in the hall of the City Duma. Kostomarov, despite all the persistent “requests” and even intimidation from radical student committees, began to give his lectures there.

The “advanced” students and some professors who followed their lead, in protest against Pavlov’s expulsion, demanded the immediate closure of all lectures in the City Duma. They decided to announce this action on March 8, 1862, immediately after a crowded lecture by Professor Kostomarov.

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

When this outrageous incident became known in wide public circles, it aroused deep disapproval among both university professors and students. The majority of teachers decided to continue giving lectures, now out of solidarity with Kostomarov. At the same time, outrage at the historian’s behavior increased among radical student youth. Adherents of Chernyshevsky’s ideas, future leaders of “Land and Freedom,” unequivocally excluded Kostomarov from the list of “guardians for the people,” labeling the professor a “reactionary.”

Of course, Kostomarov could well have returned to the university and continued teaching, but, most likely, he was deeply offended by the “Duma” incident. Perhaps the elderly professor simply did not want to argue with anyone and once again prove that he was right. In May 1862 N.I. Kostomarov resigned and left the walls of St. Petersburg University forever.

From this moment on, his break with N.G. Chernyshevsky and the circles close to him occurred. Kostomarov finally switches to liberal-nationalist positions, not accepting the ideas of radical populism. According to people who knew him at that time, after the events of 1862, Kostomarov seemed to “lose interest” in modernity, turning entirely to the subjects of the distant past.

In the 1860s, Kiev, Kharkov and Novorossiysk universities tried to invite the historian to be one of their professors, but, according to the new university charter of 1863, Kostomarov did not have formal rights to a professorship: he was only a master. Only in 1864, after he published the essay “Who was the first impostor?”, Kiev University gave him the degree of doctor honoris causa (without defending a doctoral dissertation). Later, in 1869, St. Petersburg University elected him an honorary member, but Kostomarov never returned to teaching. In order to financially provide for the outstanding scientist, he was assigned the corresponding salary of an ordinary professor for his service in the Archaeographic Commission. In addition, he was a corresponding member of the II Division of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and a member of many Russian and foreign scientific societies.

After leaving the university, Kostomarov did not give up his scientific activities. In the 1860s, he published “Northern Russian People's Rights”, “History of the Time of Troubles”, “Southern Rus' at the end of the 16th century.” (rework of the destroyed dissertation). For the study “The Last Years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth” (“Bulletin of Europe”, 1869. Book 2-12) N.I. Kostomarov was awarded the Prize of the Academy of Sciences (1872).

last years of life

In 1873, after traveling around Zaporozhye, N.I. Kostomarov visited Kyiv. Here he accidentally learned that his ex-fiancee, Alina Leontyevna Kragelskaya, who by that time was already widowed and bearing the surname of her late husband, Kisel, lived in the city with her three children. This news deeply worried the 56-year-old Kostomarov, already exhausted by life. Having received the address, he immediately wrote to Alina Leontyevna a short letter asking for a meeting. The answer was yes.

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

“Instead of the young girl I left her,” wrote N.I. Kostomarov, “I found an elderly lady, and a sick one at that, the mother of three half-grown children. Our date was as pleasant as it was sad: we both felt that the best time of our lives had irrevocably passed away.”

Kostomarov hasn’t gotten any younger over the years either: he’s already suffered a stroke, and his vision has deteriorated significantly. But the former bride and groom did not want to separate again after a long separation. Kostomarov accepted Alina Leontievna’s invitation to stay at her Dedovtsy estate, and when he left for St. Petersburg, he took Alina’s eldest daughter, Sophia, with him in order to place her in the Smolny Institute.

Only difficult everyday circumstances helped the old friends finally get closer. At the beginning of 1875, Kostomarov became seriously ill. It was believed that it was typhus, but some doctors suggested, in addition to typhus, a second stroke. When the patient lay delirious, his mother Tatyana Petrovna died of typhus. Doctors hid her death from Kostomarov for a long time - her mother was the only close and dear person throughout Nikolai Ivanovich’s life. Completely helpless in everyday life, the historian could not do without his mother even in trifles: finding a handkerchief in the chest of drawers or lighting a pipe...

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

Alina Leontyevna did not just replace Kostomarov’s mother, taking upon herself the organization of the life of the famous historian. She became a work assistant, secretary, reader, and even an adviser in academic matters. Kostomarov wrote and published his most famous works while already a married man. And his wife has a share in this.

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

Among his latest works, he can be called “The Beginning of Autocracy in Ancient Rus'” and “On the Historical Significance of Russian Folk Song Art” (revision of his master’s thesis). The beginning of the second was published in the magazine “Conversation” for 1872, and the continuation was partly in “Russian Thought” for 1880 and 1881 under the title “History of the Cossacks in the monuments of South Russian folk songwriting.” Part of this work was included in the book “Literary Heritage” (St. Petersburg, 1890) under the title “Family Life in the Works of Southern Russian Folk Song Art”; some were simply lost (see “Kiev Antiquity”, 1891, No. 2, Documents, etc., Art. 316). The end of this large-scale work was not written by a historian.

At the same time, Kostomarov wrote “Russian History in the biographies of its most important figures,” also unfinished (ends with the biography of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna) and major works on the history of Little Russia, as a continuation of previous works: “Ruin”, “Mazeppa and the Mazepians”, “Paul” Half-bottom." Finally, he wrote a number of autobiographies that have more than just personal significance.

Constantly ill since 1875, Kostomarov was especially harmed by the fact that on January 25, 1884, he was knocked down by the crew under the arch of the General Staff. Similar incidents had happened to him before, because the half-blind historian, who was also carried away by his thoughts, often did not notice what was happening around him. But before, Kostomarov was lucky: he escaped with minor injuries and recovered quickly. The incident on January 25 completely destroyed him. At the beginning of 1885, the historian fell ill and died on April 7. He was buried at the Volkov cemetery on the so-called “literary bridges”; a monument was erected on his grave.

Personality assessment of N.I. Kostomarov

In appearance, N.I. Kostomarov was of average height and far from handsome. The students in the boarding schools where he taught in his youth called him “the scarecrow of the sea.” The historian had a surprisingly awkward figure, loved to wear excessively loose clothes that hung on him like on a hanger, was extremely absent-minded and very short-sighted.

Spoiled from childhood by his mother’s excessive attention, Nikolai Ivanovich was distinguished by complete helplessness (his mother, all her life, tied her son’s tie and handed him a handkerchief), but at the same time, he was unusually capricious in everyday life. This was especially evident in my mature years. For example, one of Kostomarov’s frequent dinner companions recalled that the elderly historian did not hesitate to be capricious at the table, even in the presence of guests: “He found fault with every dish - either he did not see how the chicken was cut after the market, and therefore suspected that the chicken was not alive, then I didn’t see how they killed whitefish or ruffs or pike perch, and therefore proved that the fish was bought dead. Most of all I found fault with the butter, saying that it was bitter, although I bought it from the best store.”

Fortunately, his wife Alina Leontyevna had the talent to turn the prose of life into a game. As a joke, she often called her husband “my old man” and “my spoiled old man.” Kostomarov, in turn, also jokingly called her “lady”.

Kostomarov had an extraordinary mind, very extensive knowledge, not only in those areas that served as the subject of his special studies (Russian history, ethnography), but also in such areas, for example, as theology. Archbishop Nikanor, a well-known theologian, used to say that he did not dare to compare his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures with the knowledge of Kostomarov. Kostomarov's memory was phenomenal. He was a passionate esthetician: he was fond of everything artistic, paintings of nature most of all, music, painting, theater.

Kostomarov also loved animals very much. They say that while he was working, he constantly kept his beloved cat next to him on the table. The scientist’s creative inspiration seemed to depend on the furry companion: as soon as the cat jumped onto the floor and went about his feline business, the pen in Nikolai Ivanovich’s hand froze powerlessly...

Contemporaries condemned Kostomarov for the fact that he always knew how to find some negative quality in a person who was praised in front of him; but, on the one hand, there was always truth in his words; on the other hand, if under Kostomarov they began to talk badly about someone, he almost always knew how to find good qualities in him. His behavior often showed a spirit of contradiction, but in reality he was extremely gentle and quickly forgave those people who were guilty before him. Kostomarov was a loving family man, a devoted friend. His sincere feeling for his failed bride, which he managed to carry through the years and all the trials, cannot but arouse respect. In addition, Kostomarov also possessed extraordinary civic courage, did not renounce his views and beliefs, and never followed the lead of either the authorities (the story of the Cyril and Methodius Society) or the radical part of the student body (the “Duma” incident).

Kostomarov’s religiosity is remarkable, stemming not from general philosophical views, but warm, so to speak, spontaneous, close to the religiosity of the people. Kostomarov, who knew well the dogmatics of Orthodoxy and its morality, also valued every feature of church ritual. Attending divine services was not just a duty for him, from which he did not shy away even during severe illness, but also a great aesthetic pleasure.

Historical concept of N.I. Kostomarov

Historical concepts of N.I. Kostomarov has been the subject of incessant controversy for more than a century and a half. The works of researchers have not yet developed any unambiguous assessment of its multifaceted, sometimes contradictory historical heritage. In the extensive historiography of both the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods, he appears as a peasant, noble, noble-bourgeois, liberal-bourgeois, bourgeois-nationalist and revolutionary-democratic historian at the same time. In addition, Kostomarov is often described as a democrat, a socialist and even a communist (!), a pan-Slavist, a Ukrainophile, a federalist, a historian of people’s life, a people’s spirit, a populist historian, a truth-seeking historian. Contemporaries often wrote about him as a romantic historian, lyricist, artist, philosopher and sociologist. Descendants, grounded in Marxist-Leninist theory, found that Kostomarov is a historian, weak as a dialectician, but a very serious historian-analyst.

Today's Ukrainian nationalists willingly raised Kostomarov's theories, finding in them historical justification for modern political insinuations. Meanwhile, the general historical concept of the long-deceased historian is quite simple and looking for manifestations of nationalist extremism in it, and even more so, attempts to exalt the traditions of one Slavic people and belittle the importance of another, is completely pointless.

His concept is based on historian N.I. Kostomarov put a contrast between state and popular principles in the general historical process of development of Russia. Thus, the innovation of his constructions lay only in the fact that he acted as one of the opponents of the “state school” of S.M. Solovyov and her followers. Kostomarov associated the state principle with the centralizing policy of the great princes and kings, the people's principle - with the communal principle, the political form of expression of which was the people's assembly or veche. It was the veche (and not the communal, like the “populists”) principle that N.I. embodied. Kostomarov, the system of federal structure that best suited the conditions of Russia. Such a system made it possible to make maximum use of the potential of popular initiative - the true driving force of history. The state-centralization principle, according to Kostomarov, acted as a regressive force that weakened the active creative potential of the people.

According to Kostomarov's concept, the main driving forces that influenced the formation of Muscovite Rus' were two principles - autocratic and appanage. Their struggle ended in the 17th century with the victory of the great power. The appanage-veche beginning, according to Kostomarov, “has taken on a new image,” i.e. image of the Cossacks. And the uprising of Stepan Razin became the last battle of people's democracy with the victorious autocracy.

Kostomarov’s personification of the autocratic principle is precisely the Great Russian people, i.e. a set of Slavic peoples who inhabited the northeastern lands of Rus' before the Tatar invasion. The southern Russian lands experienced foreign influence to a lesser extent, and therefore managed to preserve the traditions of popular self-government and federal preferences. In this regard, Kostomarov’s article “Two Russian Nationalities” is very characteristic, which states that the Southern Russian nationality has always been more democratic, while the Great Russian nationality has other qualities, namely, a creative principle. The Great Russian nationality created a autocracy (i.e., a monarchical system), which gave it primacy in the historical life of Russia.

The contrast between the “folk spirit” of the “South Russian nature” (in which “there was nothing coercive or leveling; there was no politics, there was no cold calculation, no firmness towards the designated goal”) and the “Great Russians” (who are characterized by a slavish readiness to submit to autocratic power, the desire to “give strength and formality to the unity of their land”) determined, according to N.I. Kostomarov, various directions of development of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples. Even the fact of the flourishing of the veche system in the “northern Russian nationalities” (Novgorod, Pskov, Vyatka) and the establishment of the autocratic system in the southern regions of N.I. Kostomarov explained by the influence of the “South Russians”, who allegedly founded the North Russian centers with their veche freemen, while similar freemen in the south were suppressed by the northern autocracy, breaking through only in the lifestyle and love of freedom of the Ukrainian Cossacks.

During his lifetime, “statists” hotly accused the historian of subjectivism, the desire to absolutize the “people’s” factor in the historical process of statehood formation, as well as deliberate opposition to the contemporary scientific tradition.

Opponents of “Ukrainization,” in turn, even then attributed to Kostomarov nationalism, a justification of separatist tendencies, and in his passion for the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainian language they saw only a tribute to the pan-Slavic fashion that had captured the best minds of Europe.

It would not be amiss to note that in the works of N.I. Kostomarov there are absolutely no clear indications of what should be perceived as a “plus” and what should be taken as a “minus”. Nowhere does he unequivocally condemn autocracy, recognizing its historical expediency. Moreover, the historian does not say that appanage democracy is clearly good and acceptable for the entire population of the Russian Empire. It all depends on the specific historical conditions and character traits of each people.

Kostomarov was called a “national romantic”, close to Slavophiles. Indeed, his views on the historical process largely coincide with the main provisions of Slavophil theories. This is a belief in the future historical role of the Slavs, and, above all, those Slavic peoples who inhabited the territory of the Russian Empire. In this respect, Kostomarov went even further than the Slavophiles. Like them, Kostomarov believed in the unification of all Slavs into one state, but into a federal state, preserving the national and religious characteristics of individual nationalities. He hoped that with long-term communication, the differences between the Slavs would be smoothed out in a natural, peaceful way. Like the Slavophiles, Kostomarov sought an ideal in the national past. This ideal past could only be for him a time when the Russian people lived according to their own original principles of life and were free from the historically noticeable influence of the Varangians, Byzantines, Tatars, Poles, etc. To guess these fundamental principles of people's life, to guess the very spirit of the Russian people - this is the eternal goal of Kostomarov’s work.

To this end, Kostomarov was constantly engaged in ethnography, as a science that could acquaint the researcher with the psychology and true past of each people. He was interested not only in Russian, but also in pan-Slavic ethnography, especially the ethnography of Southern Rus'.

Throughout the 19th century, Kostomarov was celebrated as the forerunner of “populist” historiography, an oppositionist to the autocratic system, and a fighter for the rights of small nationalities of the Russian Empire. In the 20th century, his views were considered largely “backward.” With his national-federal theories, he did not fit either into the Marxist scheme of social formations and class struggle, or into the great power politics of the Soviet empire reassembled by Stalin. The difficult relations between Russia and Ukraine in recent decades have again left the stamp of some “false prophecies” on his works, giving rise to today’s particularly zealous “independents” to create new historical myths and actively use them in dubious political games.

Today, everyone who wants to rewrite the history of Russia, Ukraine and other former territories of the Russian Empire should pay attention to the fact that N.I. Kostomarov tried to explain the historical past of his country, meaning by this past, first of all, the past of all the peoples inhabiting it. The scientific work of a historian never involves calls for nationalism or separatism, and even more so - the desire to put the history of one people above the history of another. Anyone who has similar goals, as a rule, chooses a different path for himself. N.I. Kostomarov remained in the consciousness of his contemporaries and descendants as an artist of words, a poet, a romantic, a scientist, who until the end of his life worked to understand the new and promising problem for the 19th century of the influence of ethnicity on history. It makes no sense to interpret the scientific heritage of the great Russian historian in any other way, a century and a half after the writing of his main works.