Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman, writer, translator, publicist, critic, art critic

Anatoly Lunacharsky

short biography

Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky(November 23, 1875, Poltava, Russian empire- December 26, 1933, Menton, France) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman, writer, translator, publicist, critic, art critic.

From October 1917 to September 1929 - the first People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR, an active participant in the revolution of 1905-1907 and October revolution 1917. Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (02/01/1930).

Anatoly Lunacharsky was born in 1875 in Poltava, from an extramarital relationship between the actual state councilor Alexander Ivanovich Antonov (1829-1885) and Alexandra Yakovlevna Rostovtseva (1842-1914), daughter of Ya. P. Rostovtsev. The patronymic, surname and noble title were received by Lunacharsky from his stepfather, Vasily Fedorovich Lunacharsky, whose surname, in turn, is the result of rearranging the syllables in the surname “Charnolusky” (derived from the noble family of Charnolusky). Since Lunacharsky's stepfather was illegitimate son a nobleman and a serf peasant woman, he did not receive nobility at birth and rose to the nobility at public service. Complex family relationships mother and stepfather, unsuccessful attempts at divorce had a dramatic impact on little Anatoly: due to living in two families and quarrels between his mother and stepfather, he even had to stay a second year at the gymnasium.

I became acquainted with Marxism while studying at the First Men's Gymnasium in Kyiv; one of Lunacharsky’s gymnasium comrades was N.A. Berdyaev, with whom Lunacharsky subsequently polemicized. In 1892, as a representative of the gymnasium, he was included in the illegal general student Marxist center, the representative from the Kyiv real school in which was V. A. Vsevolozhsky. Conducted propaganda among workers. In 1895, after graduating from high school, he went to Switzerland, where he entered the University of Zurich.

At the university he took a course in philosophy and natural science under the guidance of Richard Avenarius; studied the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as well as the works of French materialist philosophers; Lunacharsky was also greatly influenced by the idealistic views of Avenarius, which conflicted with Marxist ideas. The result of the study of empirio-criticism was the two-volume study “Religion and Socialism”, one of the main ideas of which is the connection between the philosophy of materialism and the “religious dreams” of the past. The Swiss period of Lunacharsky’s life also included a rapprochement with Plekhanov’s socialist group “Emancipation of Labor”.

In 1896-1898, young Lunacharsky traveled through France and Italy, and in 1898 he came to Moscow, where he began to engage in revolutionary work. A year later he was arrested and deported to Poltava. In 1900, he was arrested in Kyiv, spent a month in Lukyanovskaya prison, and sent into exile - first to Kaluga, and then to Vologda and Totma. In 1903, after the split of the party, Lunacharsky became a Bolshevik (he had been a member of the RSDLP since 1895). In 1904, at the end of his exile, Lunacharsky moved to Kyiv and then to Geneva, where he became a member of the editorial board of the Bolshevik newspapers Proletary and Forward. Soon Lunacharsky was already one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks. He became close to A. A. Bogdanov and V. I. Lenin; under the leadership of the latter, he participated in the fight against the Mensheviks - Martov, Dan and others. Participated in work III(1905, made a report on the armed uprising) and the IV Congress of the RSDLP (1906). In October 1905 he went to Russia to campaign. Started working for the newspaper “New Life”; was soon arrested and put on trial for revolutionary agitation, but fled abroad. In 1906-1908 led the art department of the Education magazine.

By the end of the 1900s. philosophical disagreements between Lunacharsky and Lenin intensified; they soon grew into political struggle. In 1909, Lunacharsky took an active part in organizing the far-left group “Forward” (after the name of the magazine “Forward” published by this group), which included “ultimatists” and “otzovists”, who believed that Social Democrats had no place in the Stolypin Duma , and demanding the recall of the Social Democratic faction. Since the Bolshevik faction excluded this group from its ranks, subsequently, until 1917, he remained outside the factions. “Lunacharsky will return to the party,” Lenin told Gorky, “he is less an individualist than those two (Bogdanov and Bazarov). An extremely richly gifted nature.” Lunacharsky himself noted about his relationship with Lenin (dating back to 1910): “We personally did not break off relations and did not aggravate them.”

Together with other Vperyod members, he participated in the creation of party schools for Russian workers in Capri and Bologna; Representatives of all factions of the RSDLP were invited to give lectures at this school. During this period he was influenced by empirio-critical philosophers; was subjected to harsh criticism by Lenin (in his work “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism”, 1908). He developed the ideas of god-building.

Back in 1907, he participated in the Stuttgart Congress of the International, then in Copenhagen. Worked as a reviewer of Western European literature in many Russian newspapers and magazines, spoke out against chauvinism in art.

From the very beginning of the First World War, Lunacharsky took an internationalist position, which was strengthened under the influence of Lenin; was one of the founders of the pacifist newspaper “Our Word”, about which I. Deutscher wrote: ““Our Word” brought together a wonderful circle of authors, almost each of whom wrote his name in the annals of the revolution.”

At the end of 1915 he moved with his family from Paris to Switzerland.

In 1917

How I would like there to be a Lunacharsky in France, with the same understanding, the same sincerity and clarity regarding politics, art and everything that is alive!

Romain Rolland, 1917

News about February Revolution 1917 stunned Lunacharsky. On May 9, leaving his family in Switzerland, he arrived in Petrograd and joined the “Mezhrayontsy” organization. From them he was elected as a delegate to the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the RSD (June 3-24, 1917). He spoke to justify the idea of ​​dissolution State Duma and the State Council, the transfer of power to the “working classes of the people.” On June 11, he defended internationalist positions when discussing the military issue. In July, he joined the editorial staff of the newspaper “New Life” created by Maxim Gorky, with which he collaborated from the moment of his return. But soon after the July Days he was accused by the Provisional Government of treason and arrested. From July 23 to August 8 he was in Kresty prison; At this time, he was elected in absentia as one of the honorary chairmen of the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b), at which the Mezhrayontsy united with the Bolsheviks.

On August 8, at the Petrograd conference of factory committees, he made a speech against the arrests of the Bolsheviks. On August 20, he became the leader of the Bolshevik faction in the Petrograd City Duma. During Kornilov's speech, he insisted on transferring power to the Soviets. From August 1917, Lunacharsky worked for the newspaper Proletary (published instead of Pravda, which was closed by the government) and for the magazine Prosveshchenie; conducted active cultural and educational activities among the proletariat; stood for the convening of a conference of proletarian educational societies.

In the early autumn of 1917, he was elected chairman of the cultural and educational section and deputy mayor of Petrograd; became a member of the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic. On October 25, at an emergency meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, the RSD supported the Bolshevik line; made a heated speech directed against the right-wing Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who left the meeting.

After the October Revolution, he entered the government formed by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies as People's Commissar of Education. In response to the Bolsheviks' bombing of Moscow's historical monuments during the armed uprising in the second capital of Russia, he left the post of People's Commissar of Education on November 2, 1917, accompanying his resignation with an official statement to the Council of People's Commissars:

I just heard from eyewitnesses what happened in Moscow. St. Basil's Cathedral and the Assumption Cathedral are being destroyed. The Kremlin, where all the most important treasures of Petrograd and Moscow are now collected, is being bombarded. There are thousands of victims. The struggle becomes fierce to the point of bestial anger. What else will happen. Where to go next? I can't stand this. My gauge is full. I am powerless to stop this horror. It is impossible to work under the yoke of these thoughts that drive you crazy. I understand the gravity of this decision. But I can't take it anymore.

The next day people's commissars recognized the resignation as “inappropriate”, and Lunacharsky recalled it. He was a supporter of a “homogeneous socialist government,” but, unlike V. Nogin, A. Rykov and others, he did not leave the Council of People’s Commissars on this basis. He remained People's Commissar of Education until 1929.

After the October Revolution

A. V. Lunacharsky and sculptor Karl Zale at the opening of the Garibaldi monument in Petrograd, 1919

According to L. D. Trotsky, Lunacharsky, as People's Commissar of Education, played an important role in attracting the old intelligentsia to the side of the Bolsheviks:

With V.I. Lenin at the opening of the monument to Liberated Labor, Moscow, Prechistenskaya Embankment, May 1, 1920. Photo by A. Savelyev

Lunacharsky was indispensable in relations with the old university and pedagogical circles in general, who confidently expected the “ignorant usurpers” to completely eliminate the sciences and arts. Lunacharsky enthusiastically and easily showed this closed world that the Bolsheviks not only respected culture, but were also not a stranger to getting to know it. More than one priest of the department in those days had to look with his mouth wide open at this vandal, who read half a dozen new languages ​​and two ancient ones and, in passing, unexpectedly discovered such versatile erudition that it could easily be enough for a good dozen professors.

In 1918-1922, Lunacharsky, as a representative of the Revolutionary Military Council, worked in the front-line regions. In 1919-1921 he was a member of the Central Audit Commission of the RCP (b). He was one of the state prosecutors at the trial of the Social Revolutionaries in 1922. In the first post-revolutionary months, Lunacharsky actively defended the preservation of historical and cultural heritage.

Lunacharsky was a supporter of translating the Russian language into Latin. In 1929, the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR formed a commission to develop the issue of romanization of the Russian alphabet. From the minutes of the meeting of this commission dated January 14, 1930:

The transition of Russians to a single international alphabet on a Latin basis in the near future is inevitable.

They decided to start Latinization with the languages ​​of national minorities.

Without participating in the internal party struggle, Lunacharsky eventually joined the victors; but, according to Trotsky, “to the end he remained a foreign figure in their ranks.” In the fall of 1929, he was removed from the post of People's Commissar of Education and appointed chairman of the Academic Committee of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1930).

In the early 1930s, Lunacharsky was director of the Institute of Literature and Language of the Coma Academy, director of the Institute of Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and one of the editors of the Literary Encyclopedia. Lunacharsky was personally acquainted with such famous foreign writers as Romain Rolland, Henri Barbusse, Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, Karl Spitteler, Herbert Wells and others.

In September 1933, he was appointed plenipotentiary representative of the USSR to Spain, where he was unable to arrive due to health reasons. He was deputy head of the Soviet delegation during the disarmament conference at the League of Nations. Lunacharsky died in December 1933 on his way to Spain from angina pectoris in the French resort of Menton. The body was cremated, the urn with ashes was placed in Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.

Family

• The first wife (1902-1922) - Anna Aleksandrovna Malinovskaya (1883-1959) - writer, sister of the philosopher and politician A. A. Bogdanov-Malinovsky.
  • Son - Anatoly Anatolyevich (1911-1943) - writer, volunteered to go to the front, died during the landing in Novorossiysk.
• Second wife (1922-1933) - Natalya Aleksandrovna Rosenel (1902-1962) - actress, translator, author of the book of memoirs “Memory of the Heart”.
  • Adopted daughter - Irina Lunacharskaya (1918-1991) - military chemical engineer, journalist.
• Nadezhda Sergeevna Nadezhdina (1908-1979), ballerina. The daughter from this extramarital union is Galina Lunacharskaya (1924-?).

Brothers

• Mikhail Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1862-1929) - cadet, collector of books on art.
• Platon Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1867-1904) - physician, doctor of medicine, participant in the revolutionary movement of 1904-1905
• Yakov Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1869-1929) - lawyer.
• Nikolai Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1879-1919) - until October 1917 he was a commissioner from the Union of Cities for the Kyiv region, later he was engaged in social activities. Died of typhus in Tuapse.

Creation

Lunacharsky made a huge contribution to the formation and development of socialist culture - in particular, Soviet system education, publishing, theater and film. According to Lunacharsky, cultural heritage of the past belongs to the proletariat and only to it.

Lunacharsky acted as an art theorist. His first work on the theory of art was the article “Fundamentals of Positive Aesthetics.” In it, Lunacharsky gives the concept of the ideal of life - a free, harmonious, open to creativity and pleasant existence for a person. The ideal of personality is aesthetic; it is also associated with beauty and harmony. In this article, Lunacharsky defines aesthetics as a science. Undoubtedly a strong influence on aesthetic views Lunacharsky was produced by the works of the German philosopher Feuerbach and - in particular - N. G. Chernyshevsky. Lunacharsky is trying to build his theory on the basis of idealistic humanism and anti-dialecticalism. Phenomena public life Lunacharsky's are biological factors(this philosophical view formed on the basis of the empirio-criticism of Avenarius). However, years later, Lunacharsky renounced many of his views set out in the first article. Lunacharsky's views regarding the role of materialism in the theory of knowledge underwent a major revision.

As a literary historian, Lunacharsky reviewed the literary heritage with the aim of cultural education of the proletariat, assessed the works of the greatest Russian writers, their significance in the struggle of the working class (collection of articles “Literary Silhouettes”, 1923). Lunacharsky wrote articles about many writers Western Europe; He considered the work of the latter from the point of view of the struggle of classes and artistic movements. The articles were included in the book “History of Western European Literature in its the most important moments"(1924). Almost all of Lunacharsky's articles are emotional; Lunacharsky did not always choose a scientific approach when studying a subject.

Cartoon of Anatoly Lunacharsky, Albert Engström, 1923

Lunacharsky is one of the founders of proletarian literature. In his views on proletarian literature, the writer relied on Lenin’s article “Party Organization and Party Literature” (1905). The principles of proletarian literature are put forward in the articles “Tasks of Social Democratic artistic creativity"(1907), "Letters on proletarian literature" (1914). According to Lunacharsky, proletarian literature, first of all, is of a class nature, and its main purpose is to develop a class worldview; the writer expressed hope for the emergence of “major talents” among the proletarians. Lunacharsky participated in the organization of circles of proletarian writers outside Soviet Russia, took an active part in the work of Proletkult.

From works of art Most of all written by Lunacharsky drams; the first of them - “The Royal Barber” - was written in January 1906 in prison; in 1907 the drama “Five Farces for Amateurs” was created, in 1912 - “The Stick of Babel”. Lunacharsky's plays are very philosophical and are based mostly on empiriocritical views. Of Lunacharsky’s post-October dramas, the most significant are the dramas “Faust and the City” (1918), “Oliver Cromwell” (1920; Cromwell in the play is presented as a historically progressive person; at the same time, Lunacharsky rejects the requirement of dialectical materialism to defend the point of view of a certain social group), “Thomas Campanella” (1922), “Don Quixote Unbound” (1923), in which famous historical and literary images receive a new interpretation. Some of Lunacharsky's plays have been translated into foreign languages and were shown in foreign theaters.

Lunacharsky also acted as a translator (translation of “Faust” by Lenau and others) and memoirist (memories of Lenin, the events of 1917 in Russia).

Essays

Lifetime publications are posted in chronological order. Reissues are not included in the list.

• The sketches are critical and polemical. - Moscow: Pravda, 1905.
• Royal barber. - St. Petersburg: “Delo”, 1906.
• Responses of life. - St. Petersburg: ed. O. N. Popova, 1906.
• Five farces for fans. - St. Petersburg: “Rosehip”, 1907.
• Ideas in masks. - M.: “Zarya”, 1912.
• Cultural tasks of the working class. - Petrograd: “Socialist”, 1917.
• A. N. Radishchev, the first prophet and martyr of the revolution. - Petrograd: publication of the Petrograd Council, 1918.
• Dialogue about art. - M.: All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 1918.
• Faust and the city. - Petrograd: ed. Literary and publishing department of Narkompros, 1918.
• Magi. - Yaroslavl: ed. Theo Narkompros, 1919.
• Vasilisa the wise. - Petrograd: Giza, 1920.
• Ivan is in heaven. - M.: “Palace of Art”, 1920.
• Oliver Cromwell. East. melodrama in 10 scenes. - M.: Giza, 1920.
• Chancellor and locksmith. - M.: Giza, 1921.
• Faust and the city. - M.: Giza, 1921.
• Temptation. - M.: Vkhutemas, 1922.
• Don Quixote Freed. - Guise, 1922.
• Thomas Campanella. - M.: Giza, 1922.
• Etudes are critical. - Guise, 1922.
• Dramatic works, vols. I-II. - M.: Giza, 1923.
• Fundamentals of positive aesthetics. - M.: Giza, 1923.
• Art and revolution. - M.: “New Moscow”, 1924.
• History of Western European literature in its most important moments, part. 1-2. - Guise, 1924.
• Lenin. - L.: Gosizdat, 1924.
• Bear wedding. - M.: Giza, 1924.
• Arsonist. - M.: “Krasnaya Nov”, 1924.
• Theater and revolution. - M.: Giza, 1924.
• Tolstoy and Marx. - Leningrad: “Academia”, 1924.
• Critical studies. - L.: ed. Lengubono Book Sector, 1925.
• Literary silhouettes. - L.: Giza, 1925.
• Morality from a Marxist point of view. - Sevastopol: “Proletary”, 1925
• The fate of Russian literature. - L.: “Academia”, 1925.
• Critical studies (Western European literature). - M.: “ZIF”, 1925.
• I. - M.: ed. MODPiK, 1926.
• In the West. - M.-L.: Giza, 1927.
• In the West (Literature and Art). - M.-L.: Giza, 1927.
• N. G. Chernyshevsky, Articles. - M.-L.: Giza, 1928.
• About Tolstoy, Collection of articles. - M.-L.: Giza, 1928.
• Person of Christ in modern science and literature (about “Jesus” by Henri Barbusse)
• Transcript of the dispute between A.V. Lunacharsky and Alexander Vvedensky. - M.: ed. "Atheist", 1928.
• Maksim Gorky. - M.-L.: Giza, 1929.
• Pushkin and modernity. - “Red Niva”, 1929, No. 46.
• Spinoza and the bourgeoisie 1933
• "Religion and Enlightenment" (rar)
• About everyday life: youth and the theory of a glass of water

Books by Lunacharsky removed from libraries in 1961

• Lunacharsky A. Former people. Essay on the history of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. M., State ed., 1922. 82 p. 10,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. The Great Revolution (October Revolution). Part 1. Ed. Publishing house Z.I. Grzhebin. Pg., 1919. 99 p. 13,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. Memoirs. From the revolutionary past. [Kharkov], “Proletary”, 1925. 79 p. 10,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A. V. Gr. Hyacinth Serrati or revolutionary opportunistic amphibian. Pg., Ed. Comintern, 1922. 75 p.
• Lunacharsky A.V. Ten years of cultural construction in the country of workers and peasants. M.-L., State. ed., 1927. 134 + p. 35,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. Problems of education in the system of Soviet construction. Report at the First All-Union Teachers' Congress. M., “Education Worker”, 1925. 47 p. 5,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A. V. I. Idealism and materialism. II Bourgeois and proletarian culture. Prepared for publication by V. D. Zeldovich. Pg., “The Path to Knowledge”, 1923. 141 p. 5,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A. V. I. Idealism and materialism. II Bourgeois, transitional and socialist culture. M.-L" "Krasnaya Nov", 1924. 209 pp. 7,000 copies.
• Lunacharsky A.V. Art and revolution. Digest of articles. [M.], “New Moscow”, 1924. 230 p. 5,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. Results of the decisions of the XV Congress of the CPSU (b) and tasks cultural revolution. (Report at the university party event on January 18, 1928) M.-L., “Moscow. worker", . 72 p. 5,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A. V. Culture in the capitalist era. (Report made at the Central Club of the Moscow Proletcult named after Kalinin.) M., Vseros. Proletkult, 1923. 54 p. 5,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. Literary silhouettes. M-L., State. ed., 1925. 198 p. 7,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. Our tasks on the fronts of labor and defense. Speech at a meeting of the Council of Workers, Peasants, Red Army and Cossack Deputies on August 18, 1920 in Rostov-on-Don. Rostov-on-Don, State ed., 1920. 16 p.
• Lunacharsky A.V. Immediate tasks and prospects for public education in the republic. Sverdlovsk, 1928. 32 p. 7,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A. V. Essays on the Marxist theory of art. M., AHRR 1926 106 with 4,000 copies.
• Lunacharsky A.V. Party and revolution. Collection of articles and speeches. GM.1, “New Moscow”, 1924. 131 p. 5,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. Enlightenment and revolution. Digest of articles. M., “Education Worker”, 1926. 431 p. 5,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. Five years of revolution. M., “Krasnaya Nov”, 1923. 24 p. 5,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. Revolutionary silhouettes. All publications up to and including 1938.
• Lunacharsky A.V. Social Basics art. Speech delivered before a meeting of communists of the Moscow Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). M., “New Moscow”, 1925. 56 p. 6,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. Third Front. Digest of articles. M., “Education Worker”, 1925. 152 p. 5,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A. and Lelevich G. Anatole France. M., “Ogonyok”, 1925. 32 p. 50,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. and Pokrovsky M.N. Seven years of the proletarian dictatorship. [M.], “Moscow. worker", 1925. 78 p. Mosk com. RKP(b). 5,000 copies
• Lunacharsky A.V. and Skrypnik N.A. Public education in the USSR in connection with the reconstruction National economy. Reports at the VII Congress of the Union of Education Workers. M., “Education Worker”, 1929. 168 p. 5,000 copies

Collected works

• Collected works in 8 volumes. - M., 1963-1967.

Memory

• In 2013, Lunacharsky’s name was borne by 565 geographical objects (avenues, streets, squares, alleys, passages, etc.) in Russia; there are also a number of toponyms in Belarus; they were also in Ukraine, but were renamed in 2016.
• Theater Library named after. A. V. Lunacharsky (St. Petersburg)
• Anatoly Lunacharsky Award for employees of cultural institutions, awarded by the Ministry of Culture
• Leningrad Factory musical instruments named after A.V. Lunacharsky (1922-1993).
• There is a Memorial Office of A.V. Lunacharsky at the address Moscow, Denezhny Lane, 9/6. Opened in 1965, as of 2017 - under reconstruction.

Theaters, cinemas

• Drama Theater named after Lunacharsky (Vladimir)
• Sevastopol Academic Russian Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
• Kaluga Regional Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
• Penza Regional Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
• Armavir Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
• Vladimir Regional Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
• Kemerovo Drama Theater named after. A. V. Lunacharsky
• Tambov Regional Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
• Sverdlovsk Opera and Ballet Theater (1924-1991)
• Rostov Drama Theater (1920-1935)
• Cinema "Lunacharsky" (Chernogorsk)

Educational institutions

• State Institute of Theater Arts named after A.V. Lunacharsky
• Cherepovets State pedagogical institute named after A.V. Lunacharsky
• Astrakhan State Medical Institute named after A.V. Lunacharsky
• School named after A. V. Lunacharsky (Buinsk)
• Order of the Badge of Honor, gymnasium No. 5 named after. A. V. Lunacharsky (Vladikavkaz)
• Belarusian State Conservatory named after A.V. Lunacharsky
• School named after A. V. Lunacharsky (Medvedovskaya station)

Lunacharsky. The life of wonderful people. - M.: “Young Guard”, 2010.

Bugaenko P. A. A. V. Lunacharsky and Soviet literary criticism. - Saratov, 1972.

Yolkin A. S. Lunacharsky. The life of wonderful people. - M.: Publishing house of the Central Committee of the Komsomol “Young Guard”, 1967.

Kairov I. A. A.V. Lunacharsky is an outstanding figure in socialist education. - M.: Education, 1966.

Lyubutin K. N., Franz S. V. Russian versions Marxism: Anatoly Lunacharsky. - Ekaterinburg: Publishing house Ural University, 2002.

Mandelstam R. Books by A.V. Lunacharsky. - L.-M.: GAKHN, 1926.

About Lunacharsky. Research. Memories. - M., 1976.

Pavlovsky O. A. Lunacharsky. - M., 1980.

Lunacharskaya-Rosenel N. A. Memory of the heart. Memories. M.: Art, 1977.

Trifonov N. A. A. V. Lunacharsky and modern literature. - M., 1974.

Two volumes of “Literary Heritage” are dedicated to Lunacharsky - the 80th (“V.I. Lenin and A.V. Lunacharsky.” - M., 1971) and the 82nd (“Unpublished Materials.” - M., 1970).

Bibliographic indexes

• A. V. Lunacharsky about literature and art. Bibliographic index, 1902-1963, compiled by Muratova K. D., L., 1964
• Bibliography of A. V. Lunacharsky’s works on music. Bibliographic index, 1910-1933, compiled by Muratova K.D. - In the world of music. M., 1971.
• A. V. Lunacharsky. Index of works, letters and literature about life and work, vols. 1 - 2, M., 1975 - 79.
• Archival funds of A.V. Lunacharsky. Guide to funds and collections of personal origin. (RGASPI), M., 1996

A man of exceptional and versatile talent - politician, diplomat, speaker, critic, publicist, researcher, playwright and poet, to whom not only friends, but even enemies paid tribute - he possessed rare knowledge in a wide variety of fields humanities, was knowledgeable in certain areas natural sciences, biology, physics, chemistry and was a major and exceptional scholar in the field of literature and art.

The son of a major official. Studied at the University of Zurich. He was close to the Liberation of Labor group. In 1897 he returned to Russia, a member of the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP. He was arrested and exiled several times.

Since 1904 in exile. In Geneva, he was a member of the editorial board of the newspapers "Forward" and "Proletary". In 1907 he abandoned Bolshevism and was a supporter of the “Forward” group and “God-building.” In 1912 he left the Vperyodists and in 1913 joined the editorial board of the newspaper Pravda.

One of the organizers and theorist of the Soviet education system, higher and vocational education. During Civil War He constantly went to the fronts, conducted agitation and propaganda among the troops. He tried to attract the old intelligentsia to cooperate with the Soviet government, tried to protect scientists from persecution by the Cheka.

From the beginning of the October Revolution, for twelve years, he was the first people's commissar of education. A man of exceptional and versatile talent - a politician, diplomat, speaker, critic, publicist, researcher, playwright and poet, to whom not only friends, but even enemies paid tribute - he had rare knowledge in the most diverse areas of the humanities, was versed in certain fields of natural science, biology, physics, chemistry and was a major and exceptional scholar in the field of literature and art. A keen connoisseur of all types of art, he equally deeply studied the sculpture of classical antiquity and Renaissance painting, Gothic architecture and medieval primitives, classical music and the history of theater, engraving and ballet. But his competence in the field of history was absolutely amazing. the latest art and literature. Not a single more or less noticeable phenomenon in the field of Western European and Russian art, theater, music, cinema, painting, sculpture, or architecture passed him by. His numerous books and essays on these issues represent a documentary encyclopedia of culture, art and literature of the 20th century.

However, A. V. Lunacharsky worked most of all in the field of theory and history of literature, world and Russian. His “Literary Silhouettes”, a course on the history of Western European literature, “Critical Etudes”, the collection “Philistinism and Individualism”, which were repeatedly published and sold in huge editions, as well as a huge mass of his uncollected works, scattered across magazines, collections, encyclopedias (their number exceeds thousand), contain broadly generalized, deep, passionate, exciting original characteristics the most important phenomena Russian literature of the XVIII-XX centuries. and world literature from the Greco-Roman era to the present day.

The Literary Encyclopedia, the founder and editor-in-chief of which was A.V. Lunacharsky, suffered an irreplaceable loss with his death. It was as if he was created to lead this complex and difficult matter. Enormous knowledge and political tact helped him avoid the extremes into which literary criticism has more than once fallen over the years. And as a person and comrade of exceptional sensitivity, attentiveness, simplicity and charm, he knew how to group around him the people needed for the cause.

Since 1927 he was involved in diplomatic work, deputy. head of the Soviet delegation at the disarmament conference. In 1929 he left the post of People's Commissar and was appointed chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.

In 1933, Lunacharsky was appointed plenipotentiary envoy to Spain, but on the way he became seriously ill and soon died.

The first People's Commissar of Education in the Soviet government. Not the worst option. He created theaters, opened museums and monuments, and stood up for cultural figures before Lenin himself. However, there is a version that he is the prototype of the image of Woland in Bulgakov’s novel. There was blackness in Anatoly Vasilyevich, there was...

Biography of Anatoly Lunacharsky

He was born in 1875 in Poltava. From childhood, the boy had an undisguised antipathy towards religion. It happened that I split icons on the table. My stepfather drank heavily, and my mother was an eccentric lady with a difficult character. So Anatoly’s childhood could not be called happy. The boy studied poorly, and once even stayed for the second year. He looked eccentric and was the subject of everyone's ridicule. But in his soul he always wanted to become the first, the best. And he decided to definitely achieve this.

In 1892, the young man was captured by the ideas of Social Democracy, and he joined a secret school society. He quickly learned to manage his peers; it turned out to be not difficult at all. After graduating from high school, Anatoly decided to continue his studies in Switzerland, where he became interested in the works of French materialist philosophers. There he met and became close to the Liberation of Labor group.

Studying was combined with a stormy personal life. He was intelligent, witty and outwardly impressive. That is why he enjoyed success with the weaker sex. In Switzerland he became a member. The idea of ​​remaking the world completely captivated him. Returning to Russia, he began the active life of an underground revolutionary. In 1900, after another arrest, he was exiled to provincial Vologda. Here he met a psychiatrist and comrade-in-arms, A. Bogdanov, who dreamed of giving people immortality. Lunacharsky marries Bogdanov’s sister, strengthening his friendly ties with family.

In 1904, Lunacharsky was again in Switzerland, editing Bolshevik newspapers. The RSDLP split. He joined the Bolsheviks. This happened to a large extent thanks to my acquaintance with Lenin. Lunacharsky is in love with Lenin, actively participates in the work of congresses and the fight against the Mensheviks. He writes articles, speaks to workers and tries in every possible way to prove his loyalty to Lenin. but he accurately grasped that, despite all his erudition, Lunacharsky is prone to superficial generalizations and is politically unstable.

From the future leader of the revolution, Lunacharsky received the nickname “destroyer Frivolous.” Indeed, this man was a brilliant amateur, which allowed him to rise so high. He knew a little about everything and nothing exactly. It didn't cost him anything to change his views. After the Bolsheviks seized power, it was Lunacharsky who began to build bridges between the new government and the intelligentsia. He succeeded in something. He knew how to make a favorable impression on intellectuals. They believed him and followed him. It was to Lunacharsky from Poltava that the writer Korolenko appealed, asking him to stop.

Lunacharsky did his best to prevent the destruction of cultural monuments. In 1920, the People's Commissar headed Proletkult. Wide masses began to be introduced to culture. Learned to read and write in short term about 7 million people. Lunacharsky's star began to decline after Lenin's death. In 1933, he was appointed ambassador to Spain. However, on the way to his new duty station, he became seriously ill and died (12/26/1933) in the French town of Menton. Perhaps, having avoided the fate of being repressed in his homeland.

• One of the examples of Lunacharsky’s oratory was preserved in a phonographic recording. He makes a speech in memory of K. Liebknecht and R. Luxemburg.

Domestic politician (Bolshevik); after the October Revolution - statesman: from 1917 to 1929 - People's Commissar (that is, minister) of education. Later - Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.

“was the illegitimate son of a major official. Thanks to his mother’s successful marriage, he ended up as a stepson on a large estate near Poltava, learned a lot from the life of high society, which allowed him, after the revolution, to campaign among the “former” in order to attract the old intelligentsia to the service of the Soviet government: the talented dreamer Lunacharsky stood out among his peers from childhood.
He wrote poetry, dabbled in philosophy, spoke and admired the prowess of the terrorists of that time. While still a high school student, Lunacharsky joined a Marxist circle. After spending several years in Europe (Switzerland, France, Italy), he returned to Russia: for underground work. Together with my sister Lenin Anna recreated the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP, which was destroyed by the authorities. He was arrested and exiled, but in 1904 he escaped from exile abroad, where he communicated with the Bolsheviks. Having flooded European publications with his articles over the course of a year and given a lot of lectures, he went to St. Petersburg to put theory into practice, taking advantage of the unrest of 1905.
The threat of arrest forced him to return abroad. There Lunacharsky spent time in party schools in Capri and Bologna. In his work “Religion and Socialism” (1908), he proclaimed that “socialist teaching is the true religion of humanity,” and became interested in inventing the ritual of this religion (sarcastically Plekhanov called him “blessed Anatoly”). At the same time he invented the theory of a special proletarian culture , embodying the ideas of the party in art (“Tasks of Social Democratic artistic creativity”; “Letters on proletarian literature”).
Lunacharsky himself composed plays that corresponded to this theory - schematic and pompous, full of “proletarian pathos.” After February 1917, like all Bolshevik emigrants, Lynacharsky returned to Russia. In St. Petersburg, having seen enough of drunken deserters and boorish sailors, he decided to promote “proletarian culture.” He formally joined the Bolshevik Party, Lenin supported him..."

The black book of names that have no place on the map of Russia. / Comp. S.V. Volkov, M., “Posev”, 2008, p. 121-122.

In 1908 A.V. Lunacharsky published a book: “Religion and Socialism”, where he developed the ideas of “God-building” - theological rethinking of ideas Karl Marx in the form of a new proletarian religion without God, where the collective and social progress were deified...

“The twenties were the time of orators. Perhaps the most favorite speaker was Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky. I heard his speeches thirty times - on a wide variety of occasions and issues - always brilliant, complete, always oratorically perfect. Often Lunacharsky went off topic, telling along the way a lot of interesting, useful, and important things. It seemed that there was so much accumulated knowledge that it was trying to break out against the will of the speaker. Yes, that's how it was. His speeches - reports on trips - to Geneva, for example. I still remember the story of Briand’s speech when Germany was admitted to the League of Nations. “Brian spoke: “Silence, guns, silence, machine guns. You have no say here. The world speaks here! And everyone began to cry, the hardened diplomats began to cry, and I myself felt a tear run down my cheek.” Lunacharsky's reports for the October anniversaries were each time enlivened with new details. Often these were improvisations.
In 1928, he came to the Plekhanov Institute to read a report on the international situation. He was asked, while he was taking off his fur coat, to say something about the decade of workers' faculties. Lunacharsky gave a two-hour speech on this topic. What a speech! After each of his speeches we felt enriched. The joy of giving knowledge was in him.
If Lomonosov was the “first Russian university”, then Lunacharsky was the first Soviet university. I had to talk to him about business issues and about some trifles - in those days it was easy to get to the People's Commissars. Any weaver from Trekhgorka could go to the podium and say to the cell secretary: “You’re explaining something poorly about the chervonets. Call the government, let the People’s Commissar come.”
And the People's Commissar came and said: this is so and so. And the weaver said: “That’s it.” Now I understand everything. When the door to Lunacharsky’s office was closed, the People’s Commissariat for Education joked: “The People’s Commissar writes poetry.” We liked to ask him for the tenth time about the Capri school, about Bogdanov, who was still alive, taught at the university..."

Shalamov V.T., Memoirs, M., “Ast”, 2003, p. 24-25.

“... more and more people kept entering the room. One asked Anatoly Vasilyevich for a safe conduct for his collection of postcards. Another announced that he would donate a herbarium he had compiled to a future ballet school if the Commissariat of Education would give him shoes. The third sculpted the bust Robespierre and demanded that the bust be immediately cast in bronze and placed in the square in front of the Winter Palace, almost on top of the Alexandria Column. When he was told that this was in no way possible, he instantly resigned himself and asked for a balalaika string.

Especially many projectors, maniacs, and scoundrels came to Anatoly Vasilyevich, proposing fantastic plans for the fastest, instant transformation of impoverished Russia into a country of inexhaustible happiness. One eminent old man urgently demanded that Lunacharsky issue a decree introducing polygamy in Russia. - Based on a long history personal experience“, - asserted the eminent old man, - I can assure you that polygamy is the best form of marriage, most adapted to the conditions of Russian life. Introduce polygamy and you will make millions of people happy.

That crazy project was developed to the smallest detail, and although Anatoly Vasilyevich laughed heartily when reading it (he always keenly felt the humor of things and events), he answered the author of the project with deep seriousness, scientifically proving to him the inappropriateness of such utopias in the country, embarking on the path of socialism.
In general, he listened attentively to everyone, and if he thought there was at least something useful in the words of a visitor, the typist each time had to take out an unfinished article about Whitman from the typewriter and, at lightning speed, write under the dictation of Anatoly Vasilyevich administrative orders, instructions, orders and requests that he signed the same minute without further hesitation. But as soon as these people left, the typist again inserted a page of the article, and Anatoly Vasilyevich continued dictating from the very word at which he was interrupted - in the same rhythm with the same intonation ... "

On aesthetic ideas A.V. Lunacharsky influenced by works

Lunacharsky Anatoly Vasilievich
Born: November 11 (November 23), 1875.
Died: December 26, 1933 (58 years old).

Biography

Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (November 11, 1875, Poltava, Russian Empire - December 26, 1933, Menton, France) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman, writer, translator, publicist, critic, art critic.

From October 1917 to September 1929 - the first People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR, an active participant in the revolution of 1905-1907 and the October Revolution of 1917. Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (02/01/1930).

Anatoly Lunacharsky was born in 1875 in Poltava, from an extramarital relationship between the actual state councilor Alexander Ivanovich Antonov (1829-1885) and Alexandra Yakovlevna Rostovtseva (1842-1914) who belonged to the Rostovtsev family. Lunacharsky received his patronymic, surname and noble title from his stepfather, Vasily Fedorovich Lunacharsky, who adopted him, whose surname, in turn, is the result of rearranging the syllables in the surname “Charnalusky”. Since Lunacharsky's stepfather was the illegitimate son of a nobleman and a serf peasant woman, he did not receive nobility at birth and rose to the rank of nobility in the public service. Difficult family relationships between mother and stepfather, unsuccessful attempts at divorce had a dramatic impact on little Anatoly: due to living in two families and quarrels between mother and stepfather, he even had to stay a second year at the gymnasium.

I became acquainted with Marxism while studying at the First Men's Gymnasium in Kyiv; in 1892 he joined an illegal student Marxist organization. Conducted propaganda among workers. One of Lunacharsky’s gymnasium comrades was N.A. Berdyaev, with whom Lunacharsky later polemicized. In 1895, after graduating from high school, he went to Switzerland, where he entered the University of Zurich.

At the university he took a course in philosophy and natural science under the guidance of Richard Avenarius; studied the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as well as the works of French materialist philosophers; Lunacharsky was also greatly influenced by the idealistic views of Avenarius, which conflicted with Marxist ideas. The result of the study of empirio-criticism was the two-volume study “Religion and Socialism”, one of the main ideas of which is the connection between the philosophy of materialism and the “religious dreams” of the past. The Swiss period of Lunacharsky’s life also included a rapprochement with Plekhanov’s socialist group “Emancipation of Labor”.

In 1896-1898, young Lunacharsky traveled through France and Italy, and in 1898 he came to Moscow, where he began to engage in revolutionary work. A year later he was arrested and deported to Poltava. In 1900, he was arrested in Kyiv, spent a month in Lukyanovskaya prison, and sent into exile - first to Kaluga, and then to Vologda and Totma. In 1903, after the split of the party, Lunacharsky became a Bolshevik (he had been a member of the RSDLP since 1895). In 1904, at the end of his exile, Lunacharsky moved to Kyiv and then to Geneva, where he became a member of the editorial board of the Bolshevik newspapers Proletary and Forward. Soon Lunacharsky was already one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks.

He became close to A. A. Bogdanov and V. I. Lenin; under the leadership of the latter, he participated in the fight against the Mensheviks - Martov, Dan and others. He took part in the work of the III (1905, made a report on the armed uprising) and IV congresses of the RSDLP (1906). In October 1905 he went to Russia to campaign; started working for the newspaper “New Life”; was soon arrested and put on trial for revolutionary agitation, but fled abroad. In 1906-08, he led the art department of the Education magazine. By the end of the 1900s, philosophical disagreements between Lunacharsky and Lenin intensified; they soon developed into a political struggle. In 1909, Lunacharsky took an active part in organizing the extreme left group of “otzovists”, or “Vperyodists” (after the name of the magazine “Forward”, published by this group), who believed that Social Democrats had no place in the Stolypin Duma and demanded the recall of the Social Democratic faction . Since the Bolshevik faction excluded the group from its ranks, subsequently, until 1917, he remained outside the factions. “Lunacharsky will return to the party,” Lenin told Gorky, “he is less an individualist than those two (Bogdanov and Bazarov). An extremely richly gifted nature.” Lunacharsky himself noted about his relationship with Lenin (dating back to 1910): “We personally did not break off relations and did not aggravate them.”

Together with other “Vperyodists” (ultimatumists), he participated in the creation of party schools for Russian workers in Capri and Bologna; Representatives of all factions of the RSDLP were invited to give lectures at this school. During this period he was influenced by empirio-critical philosophers; was subjected to harsh criticism by Lenin (in his work “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism”, 1908). He developed the ideas of god-building.

Back in 1907, he participated in the Stuttgart Congress of the International, then in Copenhagen. He worked as a columnist of Western European literature in many Russian newspapers and magazines, and spoke out against chauvinism in art.

From the very beginning of the First World War, Lunacharsky took an internationalist position, which was strengthened under the influence of Lenin; was one of the founders of the pacifist newspaper “Our Word”, about which I. Deutscher wrote: ““Our Word” brought together a wonderful circle of authors, almost each of whom wrote his name in the annals of the revolution.”

At the end of 1915 he moved with his family from Paris to Switzerland.

In 1917

How I wish there was some Lunacharsky in France, with the same understanding, the same sincerity and clarity regarding politics, art and everything that is alive
! - Romain Rolland, 1917

The news of the February Revolution of 1917 stunned Lunacharsky; On May 9, leaving his family in Switzerland, he arrived in Petrograd and joined the “Mezhrayontsy” organization. From them he was elected as a delegate to the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the RSD (June 3-24, 1917). He advocated the idea of ​​dissolving the State Duma and the State Council and transferring power to the “working classes of the people.” On June 11, he defended internationalist positions when discussing the military issue. In July, he joined the editorial staff of the newspaper created by Maxim Gorky. New life", with whom he has collaborated since his return. But soon after the July Days he was accused by the Provisional Government of treason and arrested. From July 23 to August 8 he was in Kresty prison; At this time, he was elected in absentia as one of the honorary chairmen of the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b), at which the Mezhrayontsy united with the Bolsheviks.

On August 8, at the Petrograd conference of factory committees, he made a speech against the arrests of the Bolsheviks. On August 20, he became the leader of the Bolshevik faction in the Petrograd City Duma. During Kornilov's speech, he insisted on transferring power to the Soviets. From August 1917, Lunacharsky worked for the newspaper Proletary (published instead of Pravda, which was closed by the government) and for the magazine Prosveshchenie; conducted active cultural and educational activities among the proletariat; stood for the convening of a conference of proletarian educational societies.

In the early autumn of 1917, he was elected chairman of the cultural and educational section and deputy mayor of Petrograd; became a member of the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic. On October 25, at an emergency meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, the RSD supported the Bolshevik line; made a heated speech directed against the right-wing Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who left the meeting.

After the October Revolution, he entered the government formed by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies as People's Commissar of Education. In response to the Bolsheviks' bombing of Moscow's historical monuments during the armed uprising in the second capital of Russia, he left the post of People's Commissar of Education on November 2, 1917, accompanying his resignation with an official statement to the Council of People's Commissars:

I just heard from eyewitnesses what happened in Moscow. St. Basil's Cathedral and the Assumption Cathedral are being destroyed. The Kremlin, where all the most important treasures of Petrograd and Moscow are now collected, is being bombarded. There are thousands of victims. The struggle becomes fierce to the point of bestial anger. What else will happen. Where to go next? I can't stand this. My gauge is full. I am powerless to stop this horror. It is impossible to work under the yoke of these thoughts that drive you crazy. I understand the gravity of this decision. But I can't take it anymore. The next day, the people's commissars recognized the resignation as “inappropriate”, and Lunacharsky recalled it. He was a supporter of a “homogeneous socialist government,” but, unlike V. Nogin, A. Rykov and others, he did not leave the Council of People’s Commissars on this basis. He remained People's Commissar of Education until 1929.

After the October Revolution

According to L. D. Trotsky, Lunacharsky y as People's Commissar of Education played an important role in attracting the old intelligentsia to the side of the Bolsheviks:

Lunacharsky was indispensable in relations with the old university and pedagogical circles in general, who confidently expected the “ignorant usurpers” to completely eliminate the sciences and arts. Lunacharsky enthusiastically and easily showed this closed world that the Bolsheviks not only respected culture, but were also not a stranger to getting to know it. More than one priest of the department in those days had to look with his mouth wide open at this vandal, who read half a dozen new languages ​​and two ancient ones and, in passing, unexpectedly discovered such versatile erudition that it could easily be enough for a good dozen professors. In 1918-1922, Lunacharsky, as a representative of the Revolutionary Military Council, worked in the front-line regions. In 1919-1921 he was a member of the Central Audit Commission of the RCP (b). He was one of the state prosecutors at the trial of the Social Revolutionaries in 1922. In the first post-revolutionary months, Lunacharsky actively defended the preservation of historical and cultural heritage.

Lunacharsky was a supporter of translating the Russian language into Latin [source not specified 302 days]. In 1929, the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR formed a commission to develop the issue of romanization of the Russian alphabet. From the minutes of the meeting of this commission dated January 14, 1930:

The transition of Russians to a single international alphabet on a Latin basis in the near future is inevitable.

They decided to start Latinization with the languages ​​of national minorities.

Without participating in the internal party struggle, Lunacharsky eventually joined the victors; but, according to Trotsky, “to the end he remained a foreign figure in their ranks.” In the fall of 1929, he was removed from the post of People's Commissar of Education and appointed chairman of the Academic Committee of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1930).

In the early 1930s, Lunacharsky was director of the Institute of Literature and Language of the Comacademy, director of the Institute of Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and one of the editors of the Literary Encyclopedia. Lunacharsky was personally acquainted with such famous foreign writers as Romain Rolland, Henri Barbusse, Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, Karl Spitteler, Herbert Wells and others. In September 1933, he was appointed plenipotentiary representative of the USSR to Spain, where he was unable to arrive due to health reasons. He was deputy head of the Soviet delegation during the disarmament conference at the League of Nations. Lunacharsky died in December 1933 on his way to Spain from angina pectoris in the French resort of Menton. The body was cremated, the urn with the ashes was installed in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.

Family

First wife (1902-1922) - Anna Aleksandrovna Malinovskaya (1883-1959) - writer, sister of the philosopher and politician A. A. Bogdanov-Malinovsky
Son - Anatoly Anatolyevich (1911-1943) - writer, died during the landing in Novorossiysk
Second wife (1922-1933) - Natalya Alexandrovna Rosenel (1900-1962) - actress, translator, author of memoirs
Adopted daughter - Irina Lunacharskaya (1918-1991) - military chemical engineer, journalist
Brothers

Mikhail Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1862-1929) - cadet, collector of books on art.
Platon Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1867-1904) - physician, doctor of medicine, participant in the revolutionary movement of 1904-05.
Yakov Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1869-1929) - lawyer.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (1879-1919) - until October 1917 he was a commissioner from the Union of Cities for the Kyiv region, and later was engaged in public activities. Died of typhus in Tuapse.

Creation

Lunacharsky made a huge contribution to the formation and development of socialist culture - in particular, the Soviet education system, publishing, theater and cinema. According to Lunacharsky, the cultural heritage of the past belongs to the proletariat and only to it.

Lunacharsky acted as an art theorist. His first work on the theory of art was the article “Fundamentals of Positive Aesthetics.” In it, Lunacharsky gives the concept of the ideal of life - a free, harmonious, open to creativity and pleasant existence for a person. The ideal of personality is aesthetic; it is also associated with beauty and harmony. In this article, Lunacharsky defines aesthetics as a science. Undoubtedly, Lunacharsky’s works had a strong influence on the aesthetic views of German philosopher Feuerbach and - in particular - N. G. Chernyshevsky. Lunacharsky is trying to build his theory on the basis of idealistic humanism and anti-dialecticalism. For Lunacharsky, the phenomena of social life are biological factors (this philosophical view was formed on the basis of the empirio-criticism of Avenarius). However, years later, Lunacharsky renounced many of his views set out in the first article. Lunacharsky's views regarding the role of materialism in the theory of knowledge underwent a major revision.

As a literary historian, Lunacharsky reviewed the literary heritage with the aim of cultural education of the proletariat, assessed the works of the greatest Russian writers, their significance in the struggle of the working class (collection of articles “Literary Silhouettes”, 1923). Lunacharsky wrote articles about many Western European writers; He considered the work of the latter from the point of view of the struggle of classes and artistic movements. The articles were included in the book “The History of Western European Literature in its Most Important Moments” (1924). Almost all of Lunacharsky's articles are emotional; Lunacharsky did not always choose a scientific approach when studying a subject.

Lunacharsky is one of the founders of proletarian literature. In his views on proletarian literature, the writer relied on Lenin’s article “Party Organization and Party Literature” (1905). The principles of proletarian literature are put forward in the articles “Tasks of Social Democratic Artistic Creativity” (1907) and “Letters on Proletarian Literature” (1914). According to Lunacharsky, proletarian literature, first of all, is of a class nature, and its main purpose is to develop a class worldview; the writer expressed hope for the emergence of “major talents” among the proletarians. Lunacharsky participated in the organization of circles of proletarian writers outside Soviet Russia and took an active part in the work of Proletkult.

Of the works of art, the most written by Lunacharsky are dramas; the first of them - “The Royal Barber” - was written in January 1906 in prison; in 1907 the drama “Five Farces for Amateurs” was created, in 1912 - “The Stick of Babel”. Lunacharsky's plays are very philosophical and are based mostly on empiriocritical views. Of Lunacharsky’s post-October dramas, the most significant are “Faust and the City” (1918), “Oliver Cromwell” (1920; Cromwell in the play is presented as a historically progressive person; at the same time, Lunacharsky rejects the requirement of dialectical materialism to defend the point of view of a certain social group), “Thomas Campanella "(1922), "Don Quixote Unbound" (1923), in which well-known historical and literary images receive a new interpretation. Some of Lunacharsky's plays were translated into foreign languages ​​and performed in foreign theaters.

Lunacharsky also acted as a translator (translation of “Faust” by Lenau and others) and memoirist (memories of Lenin, the events of 1917 in Russia).

Essays

Lifetime publications are placed in chronological order. Reissues are not included in the list.

The sketches are critical and polemical. - Moscow: Pravda, 1905.
Royal barber. - St. Petersburg: “Delo”, 1906.
Responses of life. - St. Petersburg: ed. O. N. Popova, 1906.
Five farces for fans. - St. Petersburg: “Rosehip”, 1907.
Ideas in masks. - M.: “Zarya”, 1912.
Cultural tasks of the working class. - Petrograd: “Socialist”, 1917.
A. N. Radishchev, the first prophet and martyr of the revolution. - Petrograd: publication of the Petrograd Council, 1918.
Dialogue about art. - M.: All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 1918.
Faust and the city. - Petrograd: ed. Literary and publishing department of Narkompros, 1918.
Magi. - Yaroslavl: ed. Theo Narkompros, 1919.
Vasilisa the wise. - Petrograd: Giza, 1920.
Ivan is in heaven. - M.: “Palace of Art”, 1920.
Oliver Cromwell. East. melodrama in 10 scenes. - M.: Giza, 1920.
Chancellor and locksmith. - M.: Giza, 1921.
Faust and the city. - M.: Giza, 1921.
Temptation. - M.: Vkhutemas, 1922.
Don Quixote Freed. - Guise, 1922.
Thomas Campanella. - M.: Giza, 1922.
Etudes are critical. - Guise, 1922.
Dramatic works, vols. I-II. - M.: Giza, 1923.
Fundamentals of positive aesthetics. - M.: Giza, 1923.
Art and revolution. - M.: “New Moscow”, 1924.
History of Western European literature in its most important moments, part. 1-2. - Guise, 1924.
Lenin. - L.: Gosizdat, 1924.
Bear wedding. - M.: Giza, 1924.
Arsonist. - M.: “Krasnaya Nov”, 1924.
Theater and revolution. - M.: Giza, 1924.
Tolstoy and Marx. - Leningrad: “Academia”, 1924.
Literary silhouettes. - L.: Giza, 1925.
Critical studies. - L.: ed. Lengubono Book Sector, 1925.
The fate of Russian literature. - L.: “Academia”, 1925.
Critical studies (Western European literature). - M.: “ZIF”, 1925.
I. - M.: ed. MODPiK, 1926.
In the West. - M.-L.: Giza, 1927.
In the West (Literature and Art). - M.-L.: Giza, 1927.
N. G. Chernyshevsky, Articles. - M.-L.: Giza, 1928.
About Tolstoy, Collection of articles. - M.-L.: Giza, 1928.
The Personality of Christ in Modern Science and Literature (about “Jesus” by Henri Barbusse)
Transcript of the dispute between A.V. Lunacharsky and Alexander Vvedensky. - M.: ed. "Atheist", 1928.
Maksim Gorky. - M.-L.: Giza, 1929.
Spinoza and the bourgeoisie 1933
"Religion and Enlightenment" (rar)
About everyday life: youth and the theory of a glass of water
Books by Lunacharsky removed from libraries in 1961
Lunacharsky A. Former people. Essay on the history of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. M., State ed., 1922. 82 p. 10,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. The Great Revolution (October Revolution). Part 1. Ed. Publishing house Z.I. Grzhebin. Pg., 1919. 99 p. 13,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. Memoirs. From the revolutionary past. [Kharkov], “Proletary”, 1925. 79 p. 10,000 copies
Lunacharsky A. V. Gr. Hyacinth Serrati or revolutionary opportunistic amphibian. Pg., Ed. Comintern, 1922. 75 p.
Lunacharsky A.V. Ten years of cultural construction in the country of workers and peasants. M.-L., State. ed., 1927. 134 + p. 35,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. Problems of education in the system of Soviet construction. Report at the First All-Union Teachers' Congress. M., “Education Worker”, 1925. 47 p. 5,000 copies
Lunacharsky A. V. I. Idealism and materialism. II Bourgeois and proletarian culture. Prepared for publication by V. D. Zeldovich. Pg., “The Path to Knowledge”, 1923. 141 p. 5,000 copies
Lunacharsky A. V. I. Idealism and materialism. II Bourgeois, transitional and socialist culture. M.-L" "Krasnaya Nov", 1924. 209 pp. 7,000 copies.
Lunacharsky A.V. Art and revolution. Digest of articles. [M.], “New Moscow”, 1924. 230 p. 5,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. Results of the decisions of the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the tasks of the cultural revolution. (Report at the university party event on January 18, 1928) M.-L., “Moscow. worker", . 72 p. 5,000 copies
Lunacharsky A. V. Culture in the capitalist era. (Report made at the Central Club of the Moscow Proletcult named after Kalinin.) M., Vseros. Proletkult, 1923. 54 p. 5,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. Literary silhouettes. M-L., State. ed., 1925. 198 p. 7,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. Our tasks on the fronts of labor and defense. Speech at a meeting of the Council of Workers, Peasants, Red Army and Cossack Deputies on August 18, 1920 in Rostov-on-Don. Rostov-on-Don, State ed., 1920. 16 p.
Lunacharsky A.V. Immediate tasks and prospects for public education in the republic. Sverdlovsk, 1928. 32 p. 7,000 copies
Lunacharsky A. V. Essays on the Marxist theory of art. M., AHRR 1926 106 with 4,000 copies.
Lunacharsky A.V. Party and revolution. Collection of articles and speeches. GM.1, “New Moscow”, 1924. 131 p. 5,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. Enlightenment and revolution. Digest of articles. M., “Education Worker”, 1926. 431 p. 5,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. Five years of revolution. M., “Krasnaya Nov”, 1923. 24 p. 5,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. Revolutionary silhouettes. All publications up to and including 1938.
Lunacharsky A.V. Social foundations of art. Speech delivered before a meeting of communists of the Moscow Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). M., “New Moscow”, 1925. 56 p. 6,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. Third Front. Digest of articles. M., “Education Worker”, 1925. 152 p. 5,000 copies
Lunacharsky A. and Lelevich G. Anatole France. M., “Ogonyok”, 1925. 32 p. 50,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. and Pokrovsky M.N. Seven years of the proletarian dictatorship. [M.], “Moscow. worker", 1925. 78 p. Mosk com. RKP(b). 5,000 copies
Lunacharsky A.V. and Skrypnik N.A. Public education in the USSR in connection with the reconstruction of the national economy. Reports at the VII Congress of the Union of Education Workers. M., “Education Worker”, 1929. 168 p. 5,000 copies

Memory

In 2013, 565 geographical objects (streets, squares, alleys, etc.) in Russia were named after Lunacharsky.
Krasnodar Regional Art Museum named after A.V. Lunacharsky
Theater Library named after. A. V. Lunacharsky (St. Petersburg)
Anatoly Lunacharsky Award for employees of cultural institutions, awarded by the Ministry of Culture
Leningrad Factory of Musical Instruments named after A.V. Lunacharsky (1922-1993).
The Museum-Apartment of A.V. Lunacharsky operates.

Theaters, cinemas

Drama Theater named after Lunacharsky (Vladimir)
Sevastopol Academic Russian Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
Kaluga Regional Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
Penza Regional Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
Armavir Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
Vladimir Regional Drama Theater named after A.V. Lunacharsky
Kemerovo Drama Theater named after. A. V. Lunacharsky
Sverdlovsk Opera and Ballet Theater (1924-1991)
Rostov Drama Theater (1920-1935)
Cinema "Lunacharsky" (Chernogorsk)

Educational institutions

State Institute of Theater Arts named after A.V. Lunacharsky
Astrakhan State Medical Institute named after A.V. Lunacharsky
School named after A. V. Lunacharsky (Buinsk)
Order of the Badge of Honor, gymnasium No. 5 named after. A. V. Lunacharsky (Vladikavkaz)
Belarusian State Conservatory named after A.V. Lunacharsky
School named after A. V. Lunacharsky (Medvedovskaya station)