Johann herder biography. Johann gotfried herder biography

Johann Gottfried Herder - German writer, poet, thinker, philosopher, translator, cultural historian - was born in East Prussia, the city of Morungen on August 25, 1744. His father was a teacher primary grades and part-time ringer; the family lived in poverty, and young Herder had a chance to experience a lot of hardships. He wanted to enter a doctor, but a faint that happened in the anatomical theater, where a surgeon friend brought him, forced him to abandon this intention. As a result, in 1760 Herder became a student of the theological faculty at the University of Königsberg. He was jokingly called a walking bookstore - such an impressive store of knowledge was an 18-year-old boy. V student years I. Kant drew attention to him and contributed a lot to his intellectual development. In turn, in young man very early on, the philosophical views of J.-J. Russo.

After graduating from university in 1764, Herder could have been recruited, so through the efforts of friends he moved to Riga, where he was expected to be a teaching position in a church school, and then he became a pastor's assistant. As both a teacher and a preacher, the eloquent Herder, who knew his word skillfully, became quite famous person... In addition, it was in Riga that he began his work in the field of literature.

In 1769 he leaves for travel, visits Germany, Holland, France. Herder was the mentor of the Prince of Holstein-Eitensky and, as his companion, ended up in Hamburg in 1770, where he met Lessing. In the winter of the same year, fate brought him together with another bright personality - the young Goethe, who was then still a student. Herder said a huge influence on his formation as a poet.

In the period from 1771 to 1776 Johann Gottfried Herder lives in Bückeburg, is a member of the consistory, and the chief pastor. Goethe helped him to get the post of preacher at the Weimar court in 1776, and the whole further biography of Herder is connected with this city. He left Weimar only in 1788-1789 when he was traveling in Italy.

The works Fragments on German Literature (1766-1768) and Critical Groves (1769), written in the Riga period, had a significant impact on German literature of the period when a movement called "Storm and Onslaught" loudly declared itself. In these works, Herder spoke about the influence that spiritual and historical development people. In 1773 the work on which he worked together with Goethe - "On the German character and art", a collection that became the program document "Storms and Onslaught", was published.

The most famous works of Johann Gottfried Herder were written already in Weimar. Thus, the collection "Folk Songs", which was created during 1778-1779, included poems belonging to the pen of Herder, Goethe, Claudis, and songs of the most different nations the world. In Weimar, Herder began the most ambitious work of his life - "Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind", in which he covered the question of the relationship between the cultural development of mankind, traditions and natural conditions, universal principles and the peculiarities of the path of an individual nation.

This work remained unfinished, nevertheless, and without it, the legacy left by Herder was enough to place him among the greatest figures of the Storm and Onslaught period, which opposed the philosophical and literary views of the Enlightenment, putting forward loved ones as carriers of true art to nature, "natural" people. Thanks to Herder's translations, German readers learned about famous works of other national cultures, and he made a huge contribution to the history of literature.

In 1801 Herder became the head of the consistory, the Elector of Bavaria granted him a patent for the nobility, but two years later, on December 18, 1803, he died.

Herder, Johann Gottfried (1744-1803), German writer and thinker. Born August 25, 1744 in Morungen (East Prussia). A son school teacher... In 1762 he was enrolled in the theological faculty of the University of Königsberg.

From 1764 he was a teacher at a church school in Riga, in 1767 he became an assistant to the rector of two most important parishes in Riga. In May 1769 he set off on a journey and by November reached Paris. In June 1770, as a companion and mentor to the Crown Prince of Holstein-Eitensky, he went with his charge to Hamburg, where he met Lessing.

He who sees only shortcomings, not seeing their causes, sees only half; if he sees their reasons, then his anger can sometimes turn into the most tender compassion.

Herder Johann Gottfried

In Darmstadt he met Caroline Flaxland, who became his wife. Underwent unsuccessful eye surgery in Strasbourg. He became close friends with J.W. Goethe, then still a student, on whose formation as a poet Herder had a decisive influence. From 1771 to 1776 he was chief pastor and member of the consistory at Bückeburg; thanks to the mediation of Goethe in 1776 he was invited to Weimar, where he became a court preacher and a member of the consistory.

Here, apart from traveling to Italy in 1788-1789, he spent the rest of his life. In 1801 he headed the consistory and received a patent for the nobility from the Elector of Bavaria. Herder died on December 18, 1803.

His first works of the most important, Sketches on the latest German literature (Fragmente uber die neuere deutsche Literatur, 1767-1768) and Critical forests (Kritische Walder, 1769), Herder erected on the foundations laid by his great forerunner Lessing. The sketches arose in addition to Literary letters Lessing, and Forests begin with a criticism of his Laocoon.

In the articles Extracts from the Correspondence about Ossian and the Songs of the Ancients and Shakespeare in the collection On German Character and Art (Von deutscher Art und Kunst, 1773; published jointly with Goethe), the program document of the Storm and Onslaught movement, Herder tries to prove that all literature ultimately traces back to folk songs.

He became widely known for his collection of folk poetry Folk Songs (Volkslieder, 1778-1779), later renamed Voices of Nations in Songs (Stimmen der Volker in Lidern), composed of songs of different peoples that he perfectly translated and original poems of Herder, Goethe and M .Claudius.

Herder's greatest work, Ideas for the philosophy of the history of mankind (Ideen zur Geshichte der Menschheit, vols. 1-4., 1784-1791), remained unfinished. The idea behind it is broad sense consisted in the discovery of a close relationship between nature and the cultural development of the human race. For Herder, history is a scene of God's deeds, the fulfillment of God's plan and God's revelation in nature.

Johann Gottfried Herder- German writer, poet, thinker, philosopher, translator, cultural historian - was born in East Prussia, the city of Morungen on August 25, 1744. His father was a primary school teacher and part-time bell ringer; the family lived in poverty, and young Herder had a chance to experience a lot of hardships. He wanted to enter a doctor, but a faint that happened in the anatomical theater, where a surgeon friend brought him, forced him to abandon this intention. As a result, in 1760 Herder became a student of the theological faculty at the University of Königsberg. He was jokingly called a walking bookstore - such an impressive store of knowledge was an 18-year-old boy. In his student years, I. Kant drew attention to him and contributed a lot to his intellectual development. In turn, the philosophical views of J.-J. Russo.

After graduating from university in 1764, Herder could have been recruited, so through the efforts of friends he moved to Riga, where he was expected to be a teaching position in a church school, and then he became a pastor's assistant. As both a teacher and a preacher, the eloquent Herder, who skillfully owned the word, became a fairly famous person. In addition, it was in Riga that he began his work in the field of literature.

In 1769 he leaves for travel, visits Germany, Holland, France. Herder was the mentor of the Prince of Holstein-Eitensky and, as his companion, ended up in Hamburg in 1770, where he met Lessing. In the winter of the same year, fate brought him together with another bright personality - the young Goethe, who was then still a student. Herder said a huge influence on his formation as a poet.

In the period from 1771 to 1776 Johann Gottfried Herder lives in Bückeburg, is a member of the consistory, and the chief pastor. Goethe helped him get the post of preacher at the Weimar court in 1776, and the whole further biography of Herder is connected with this city. He left Weimar only in 1788-1789 when he was traveling in Italy.

The works Fragments on German Literature (1766-1768) and Critical Groves (1769), written in the Riga period, had a significant impact on German literature of the period when a movement called "Storm and Onslaught" loudly declared itself. In these works, Herder spoke about the influence that the spiritual and historical development of the people has on the national literary process. In 1773 the work on which he worked together with Goethe - "On German character and art", a collection that became the program document "Storms and Onslaught", was published.

The most famous works of Johann Gottfried Herder were written already in Weimar. Thus, the collection "Folk Songs", which was created during 1778-1779, also included poems belonging to the pen of Herder, Goethe, Claudis, and songs of various peoples of the world. In Weimar, Herder began the most ambitious work of his life - "Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind", in which he covered the question of the relationship between the cultural development of mankind, traditions and natural conditions, universal principles and the peculiarities of the path of an individual nation.

This work remained unfinished, nevertheless, and without it, the legacy left by Herder was enough to place him among the greatest figures of the Storm and Onslaught period, which opposed the philosophical and literary views of the Enlightenment, putting forward loved ones as carriers of true art to nature, "natural" people. Thanks to Herder's translations, German readers learned about famous works of other national cultures, and he made a huge contribution to the history of literature.

In 1801 Herder became the head of the consistory, the Elector of Bavaria granted him a patent for the nobility, but two years later, on December 18, 1803, he died.

Biography from Wikipedia

Johann Gottfried Gerder(German Johann Gottfried Herder; August 25, 1744, Morungen, East Prussia - December 18, 1803, Weimar) - German writer and theologian, cultural historian, creator of the historical understanding of art, who considered it his task “to consider everything from the point of view of the spirit of his time ”, Critic, poet of the second half of the 18th century. One of the leading figures of the late Enlightenment.

Born into a Protestant family of a poor school teacher. His mother came from a shoemaker's family and his father was also a church bell ringer. During the Seven Years' War 1756-1763. the territory of East Prussia was occupied by Russian troops. In 1762, at the suggestion of a Russian military doctor, Herder went to the University of Königsberg with the intention of studying medicine, but soon chose the theological faculty, from which he graduated in 1764. There he listened to I. Kant's lectures on logic, metaphysics, moral philosophy and physical geography, and also took language lessons from I. G. Hamann. Both of them had a significant influence on him, at the same time he was carried away by the ideas of Rousseau. In 1764, he left for Riga, where, with the assistance of Haman, he took a teaching position at the cathedral school, and after passing the theological exam the following year, he also served as a pastor's adjunct. In 1767 he received a lucrative offer in St. Petersburg, but did not accept it. His enthusiasm for educational ideals led to tensions with the Riga clergy, and in 1769 he resigned. For two years he traveled to France, Holland, Germany. In Paris he met Diderot and D'Alembert, in Hamburg he was more influenced by Lessing, and in 1770 he met young Goethe in Strasbourg, communication with whom contributed to his introduction to the circle of ideas of the literary movement "Storm and Onslaught". In 1771–76. Counselor of the Consistory in Bückeburg. In 1776 he moved to Weimar, where, thanks to the assistance of Goethe, he received the post of general superintendent, that is, the first clergyman of the country (he died there). In 1788-89. made a trip to Italy.

Philosophy and criticism

Works by Herder "Fragments on German Literature" ( Fragmente zur deutschen Literatur, Riga, 1766-1768), "Critical groves" ( Kritische wälder, 1769) played an important role in the development of German literature of the Storm and Onslaught period. Here we meet with a new, enthusiastic assessment of Shakespeare, with the idea (which has become the central position of his entire theory of culture) that every nation, every progressive period of world history has and should have a literature imbued with a national spirit.

Anton Graf. Portrait of I. G. Herder, 1785

His essay "Also the philosophy of history" (Riga, 1774) is devoted to a criticism of the rationalist philosophy of the history of the enlighteners. Since 1785, his monumental work "Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind" ( Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, Riga, 1784-1791). This is the first experience world history cultures, where Herder's thoughts about the cultural development of mankind, about religion, poetry, art, and science get their fullest expression. The East, antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the new time - he depicted with an erudition that amazed his contemporaries.

His last great works (with the exception of theological works) are "Letters for the Advancement of Humanity" ( Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität, Riga, 1793-1797) and "Adrasteia" (1801-1803), sharpened mainly against the romanticism of Goethe and Schiller.

Herder believed that animals are "lesser brothers" for man, and not just a "means", as Kant believes: "There is no virtue or attraction in the human heart, the likeness of which here and there would not be manifested in the animal world."

He sharply rejected the philosophy of late Kant, calling his research "a deep desert filled with empty creations of the mind and verbal fog with great pretensions."

Fiction and translations

His youthful literary debut was the anonymously published 1761 ode "Gesanges an Cyrus" (Song of Cyrus) to the accession to the throne of the Russian emp. Peter III.

Of the original works, Legends and Paramithias can be considered the best. Less successful are his dramas House of Admet, Prometheus Freed, Ariadne-Libera, Eon and Aeonia, Philoctet, and Brutus.

Herder's poetic and especially translation activities are very significant. He acquaints reading Germany with a number of interesting, previously unknown or little-known monuments of world literature. His famous anthology "Folk Songs" ( Völkslieder, 1778-1779), known under the title "Voices of Nations in Songs" ( Stimmen der Völker in Liedern), which opened the way for the newest collectors and researchers of folk poetry, since only since Herder's time the concept of folk song received a clear definition and became a genuine historical concept; he introduces into the world of Eastern and Greek poetry with his anthology "From Eastern Poems" ( Blumenlese aus morgenländischer Dichtung), translation of "Sakuntala" and "Greek Anthology" ( Griechische anthologie). Herder completed his translation career with the processing of romances about Side (1801), making the brightest monument of Old Spanish poetry the property of German culture.

Meaning

The highest ideal for Herder was the belief in the triumph of universal, cosmopolitan humanity (Humanität). He interpreted humanity as the realization of the harmonious unity of mankind in a multitude of autonomous individuals, each of whom has reached the maximum realization of his unique purpose. Herder valued invention most of all in the representatives of humanity.

The father of European Slavic studies.

Fighting the ideas of the Enlightenment

Herder is one of the most significant figures of the Storm and Onslaught era. He fights against the theory of literature and philosophy of the Enlightenment. The enlighteners believed in a person of culture. They argued that only such a person should be the subject and object of poetry, considered only periods of high culture worthy of attention and sympathy in world history, were convinced of the existence of absolute examples of art created by artists who developed their abilities to the maximum (such perfect creators were for enlighteners, antique artists). The enlighteners considered the task of their contemporary artist to approach, through imitation, these perfect models. In contrast to all these assertions, Herder believed that the bearer of genuine art is just not a cultivated, but a “natural” person close to nature, a person of great passions not restrained by reason, fiery and innate, not a cultivated genius, and it is precisely such a person who should be the object of an artistic image. Together with other irrationalists of the 70s. Herder was unusually enthusiastic about folk poetry, Homer, the Bible, Ossian and, finally, Shakespeare. According to them, he recommended to study genuine poetry, for here, as nowhere else, "natural" man is depicted and interpreted.

The idea of ​​human development

Heine said about Herder: “Herder did not sit, like the literary Grand Inquisitor, a judge over various nations, condemning or justifying them, depending on the degree of their religiosity. No, Herder viewed all of humanity as a great harp in the hands of a great master, each nation seemed to him in its own way tuned string of this gigantic harp, and he comprehended the universal harmony of its various sounds. "

According to Herder, humanity in its development is like a separate individual: it goes through periods of youth and decrepitude, - with death the ancient world it recognized its first old age; with the Age of Enlightenment, the arrow of history again made its circle. What the enlighteners take for genuine works of art is nothing more than counterfeits for artistic forms devoid of poetic life, which arose in their time on the basis of national identity and became unique with the death of the environment that gave rise to them. By imitating models, poets lose the opportunity to show the only important thing: their individual originality, and since Herder always considers a person as a part of the social whole (nation), then his national originality.

Therefore, Herder calls on contemporary German writers to begin a new rejuvenated circle of cultural development in Europe, to create, obeying free inspiration, under the sign of national identity. For this purpose, Herder recommends that they turn to earlier (younger) periods. national history, for there they can join the spirit of their nation in its most powerful and purest expression and gain the strength necessary to renew art and life.

However, Herder combines the theory of progressive development with the theory of cyclical development of world culture, agreeing in this with the enlighteners, who believed that the "golden age" should be sought not in the past, but in the future. And this is not an isolated case of Herder's contact with the views of representatives of the Enlightenment. Relying on Hamann, Herder at the same time shows solidarity with Lessing on a number of issues.

Constantly emphasizing unity human culture Herder explains it by the common goal of all mankind, which is to strive to find "true humanity." According to Herder's concept, the comprehensive spread of humanity in human society will allow:

• intelligent ability of people to make reason;
• to realize feelings given to a person by nature in art;
• to make personality's drives free and beautiful.

The idea of ​​a nation state

Herder was one of those who first put forward the idea of ​​a modern nation-state, but it arose in his teaching from a vitalized natural law and was quite pacifist. Every state that arose as a result of seizures terrified him. After all, such a state, as Herder believed, and in this his popular idea manifested itself, destroyed the established national cultures. In fact, only the family and the corresponding form of state appeared to him as a purely natural creation. It can be called the Herderian form of the nation-state.

“Nature brings up families and, therefore, the most natural state- that where one people with a single national character lives. "" The state of one people is a family, a comfortable house. It rests on its own foundation; founded by nature, it stands and dies only in the course of time. "

Herder called such a state structure the first degree of natural rule, which will remain the highest and last. This means that the ideal picture of the political state of an early and pure nationality drawn by him remained his ideal of the state in general.

However, for Herder, the state is a machine that will eventually need to be broken. And he reinterprets Kant's aphorism: "A man who needs a master is an animal: since he is a man, he does not need any master" (9, vol. X, p. 383).

The doctrine of the spirit of the people

These words also contain the quintessence of Herder's teaching about the spirit of the people. This teaching was primarily directed, as already at the preliminary stages of its development among the enlighteners, at the persisting essence of peoples, stable in change. It rested on a more universal sympathy for the diversity of the individualities of peoples than the somewhat later teaching of the historical school of law, which flowed from a passionate immersion in the originality and creative power of the German folk spirit. But it anticipated, albeit with less mysticism, the romantic sense of the irrational and mysterious in the spirit of the people. It, like romanticism, saw in the national spirit an invisible seal, expressed in the specific features of the people and their creations, unless this vision was freer, not so doctrinaire. Less harshly than later romanticism, it also considered the question of the indelibility of the people's spirit.

Love for the nationality that was preserved in the purity and intactness did not prevent him from recognizing the beneficialness of "inoculations timely given to the peoples" (as the Normans did with the English people). The idea of ​​a national spirit received a special meaning from Herder thanks to the addition of his favorite word “genetic” to its formulation. This means not only a living becoming instead of a frozen being, while not only the peculiar, unique in historical growth is felt, but also that creative soil from which all living things flow.

Herder was much more critical of the then emerging concept of race, considered shortly before by Kant (1775). His ideal of humanity opposed this concept, which, according to Herder, threatened to bring humanity back to the animal level, even talking about human races seemed ignoble to Herder. Their colors, he believed, are lost in each other, and all this, in the end, is only shades of the same great picture. The true bearer of the great collective genetic processes was and remained, according to Herder, the people, and even higher - humanity.

Sturm und Drang

Thus, Herder can be seen as a thinker standing on the periphery of "storm and onslaught." Nevertheless, Herder was very popular among the Sturmers; the latter supplemented Herder's theory with their artistic practice. Not without his assistance, works with national themes appeared in German bourgeois literature (Goetz von Berlichingen - Goethe, Otto - Klinger and others), works imbued with the spirit of individualism, the cult of innate genius developed.

Memory

A square in the Old Town and a school are named after Herder in Riga.

Literature

• Gerbel N. German poets in biographies and samples. - SPB., 1877.
• Thoughts related to the philosophical history of mankind, according to the mind and outline of Herder (book 1-5). - SPB., 1829.
• Sid. Prev and note. W. Sorgenfrey, ed. N. Gumilyova. - P .: "World Literature", 1922.
• Haym R. Herder, his life and writings. In 2 vols. - M., 1888. (reprinted by the publishing house "Science" in the series "The Word of Existence" in 2011).
• Pypin A. Herder // "Bulletin of Europe". - 1890 .-- III-IV.
• Mehring F. Herder. On philosophical and literary themes. - Mn., 1923.
• Gulyga A.V. Herder. Ed. 2nd, revision. (1st edition - 1963). - M .: Mysl, 1975 .-- 184 p. - 40,000 copies (Series: Thinkers of the Past).
• Zhirmunsky V. Life and work of Herder // Zhirmunsky V. Essays on the history of classical German literature. - L., 1972 .-- S. 209-276.

The article is based on materials from the Literary Encyclopedia 1929-1939.

Herder, the greatest thinker of the 18th century, had a great influence on the formation of the aesthetic views of the Sturmers. Its significance in the history of philosophical and aesthetic thought is determined primarily by the fact that he began to consider social and literary phenomena from a historical point of view. Herder studied literature and art in close connection with the entire life of mankind, emphasized their conditionality by language, mores, psychology, the way of thinking of one or another people at a certain stage of its historical development. From this, Herder made a conclusion about the national uniqueness of the creativity of each writer, introduced into science a new, historical method of studying literary phenomena. Herder was an ardent defender of humanism and friendship of peoples. In his positive program, he came close to the ideas of utopian socialism.

Herder was born in the small provincial town of Morungen (East Prussia) in the family of a poor schoolteacher, who simultaneously acts as a bell ringer and choir in the local church. Due to financial difficulties, Herder did not even have to receive a systematic elementary education. For ten years he was given into the service of the despotic deacon Tresho, where he does all kinds of housework, and also deals with the rewriting of theological writings of his master.

In 1762 Herder went to Königsberg to study surgery, but became a student at the theological faculty of Königsberg University. He was greatly impressed by I. Kant's lectures on natural spiders. From them, he drew the idea of ​​the changeability of the world, which will take so much great place in his future writings. But Herder gets especially a lot from independent studies. He studies the works of Leibniz, Voltaire, Baumgarten, Hume, Newton, Keppler and other philosophers and natural scientists, gets acquainted with the work of Rousseau, who had a great influence on him. In his student years, as well as later, Herder amazes with the breadth of his interests.

Herder's active literary activity began in Riga, where he lived in 1764-1769, as the pastor of the Dome Cathedral. At this time he published a number of articles - “On the latest German literature. Fragments "(Über die neuere deutsche Literatur. Fragmente)," Critical forests "(Die Kritische Wälder), in which his innovative approach to the study of literary phenomena was already quite definitely revealed. In 1770-1771, while in Strasbourg, Herder met and became close to Goethe, playing an important role in establishing the latter in the aesthetic positions of "Storm and Onslaught". The fruit of this acquaintance was the jointly compiled collection "On the German character in art" (Von Deutscher Art und Kunst, 1773), where Goethe published an essay on architecture, and Herder made articles about Shakespeare and folk song. The thoughts developed by Herder and Goethe in their joint presentation were perceived by German writers as a manifesto of a new Stürmer trend in literature.

In 1771-1775. Herder served as a preacher in Bückerburg, and then, with the assistance of Goethe, moved to Weimar, where he remained until the end of his days, acting as court counselor of the consistory. In the Weimar period, Herder wrote the most significant works in which his concept of world literature is developed with the greatest completeness and clarity: "Ideas for the philosophy of the history of mankind" (Ideen zur Philosophic der Gescliichtc derMcnschheil, 1784-1791), the collection "Voices of peoples in songs" ( Stimmen der Völker in Lieder, 1778-1791), “Letters to Encourage Humanity” (Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität, 1794-1797), “Calligone” (Kalligone, 1800), etc. Herder also wrote poetry, dramas (“Brutus” , "Philoctet", "Unchained Prometheus", etc.), but his artistic work, distinguished by a progressive ideological orientation, is not high in artistic terms. The images in his drama and poetry are marked with the stamp of illustrativeness and schematism. Herder is much more interesting as a translator. His greatest success in this area is the translation into German of Spanish romances about Side.

Herder's worldwide fame is based on his philosophical, historical and literary works, in which he declared himself as a true innovator. Enlighteners of the 18th century (Voltaire, Montesquieu, Lessing, etc.) viewed history as a struggle between enlightenment and ignorance, civilization against barbarism. They regarded their own views as the highest stage in the development of world theoretical thought. From the standpoint of the enlightened mind, they rejected the Middle Ages. For them, the Middle Ages is an era of sheer prejudice. For the same reasons, they did not pay due attention to folk art.

Herder considered the history of world culture as a process, all links of which are interconnected, necessary and, therefore, have a unique originality. Each historical epoch, each nation will create artistic values ​​marked with the seal of originality, increasing the spiritual and aesthetic wealth of mankind.

Herder talks about the folk origins of artistic creativity. In one of his early articles "Do we have a French theater?" he enters into a decisive polemic with those who linked the future of German theatrical art with the goodwill of titled patrons of art. Herder, on the contrary, notes the pernicious influence of the court-aristocratic environment on theatrical life.

In the essay “On the latest German literature. Fragments ”Herder drew attention to the enormous role of language as an“ instrument ”of artistic creativity, without which there can be no great poets or great prose writers. Of great scientific importance was his thesis that language is a product of millennial development of society, that it should not be given to people by God, but arose in the process of human communication, improving from one generation to another. Herder's position that language is the practical existence of thought (“We think with the help of language ..., thinking is almost the same as speech”) was very valuable, materialistic in its essence. Herder showed great interest in the development of the German national language, considering it as a means of promoting the rallying of the nation and the creation of national literature.

In "Critical Forests" Herder, arguing with the aesthetics of the XVIII century. Riedel, as well as indirectly with Winckelmann, disputes their thesis about the absolute ideal of beauty, proving the variability of the concept of beauty. “Are the Greek, Gothic and Moorish tastes in sculpture and architecture, in mythology and poetry the same,” he asks? And does not each of them draw their own explanation from the era, mores and character of their people? " Herder is a staunch opponent of normative aesthetics. Genuine art, in his opinion, is incompatible with normativity; it is the fruit of free inspiration, which is peculiar to every artist.

Herder's merits as a folklorist are great. He was the first in Germany who drew attention to oral folk poetry, energetically began collecting and popularizing his works. He, in particular, was amazed by the spiritual and cultural riches of Russia (to some extent he joined them while living in Riga). Herder called on scholars of Slavic countries to collect folk songs that reflected the peculiarities of the life of the Slavs, their morals and ideals. Herder predicted a great future for the Slavic peoples, who, in his opinion, would play a leading role in the spiritual life of Europe.

Language, religious beliefs, ethical ideas and other achievements of civilization are considered by Herder as a product of the collective life of the people. They arose as a result of a certain vital spiritual need. Herder, Goethe confesses in the X book of his autobiography, "taught us to understand poetry as a common gift of all mankind, and not as the private property of a few refined and educated natures." An individual artist, according to Herder, achieves great poetic expressiveness only when he is associated with the element of national national life.

The most striking work of Herder the folklorist is the anthology Voices of Peoples in Songs. It consists of six books. It presents works of folk poetry not only of the civilized peoples of the world, but also of those who did not yet have their own written language (Eskimos, Laplanders, residents of Madagascar, etc.). On the other hand, the collection includes samples of the poetry of Shakespeare, Goethe, which, according to Herder, were closely connected with the life of the people.

The greatest place in "Voices ..." is occupied by love songs, everyday songs, but some differ in their socio-political orientation. Such is, for example, "The Song of Freedom" (Lied der Freiheit, from Greek), in which the heroes of ancient history Gormodius and Aristogeiton are glorified, who threw the ruler-despot Hipparchus from the cliff. The poem "Complaint of a serf against tyrants" (Klage liber die Tyrannen des Leibeigenen, from Estonian) is permeated with a sharp protest against feudal-serf oppression. It expresses the despair and anger of a peasant who is forced to flee his home, fleeing the mockery of the dashing baron, who beats his serfs with whips.

Our life is more terrible than Gehenna.

We burn in hellish fire,

The bread burns our lips

We drink poisoned water.

Our bread is kneaded on the fire,

Sparks lurk in the crumb

Bogey under the bread crust.

(Per.L. Ginzburg)

Herder's most famous and most significant work is his Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind. Created in a stormy time, on the eve and during the French bourgeois revolution of the 18th century, which the thinker sympathized with, this work is imbued with the idea of ​​the continuous improvement of society, the doom of inhuman social institutions, the invincibility of progress and the victory of humanism. In Ideas, Herder's research method was most fully manifested - his desire to consider the phenomena of nature and social life in development, from a historical point of view.

The book is divided into four parts. It examines the natural and social conditions for the existence of the human race. Herder pursues completely earthly goals: he seeks to find natural, objective laws that govern the world. The materialist philosopher prevails in him over the theologian, although concessions to traditional theological views still make themselves felt strongly in many pages of his work.

Herder proceeds from the premise that man has a dual origin. On the one hand, he is a product of nature, and on the other, of social circumstances. This is reflected in the Ideas structure. They first consider the natural, and then the socio-historical conditions of human life. Herder begins his survey with the characteristics of the earth, with determining its place in space. He wants to prove that the originality of our planet, its rotation around the sun and its axis, the features of its atmospheric cover, etc. have significantly influenced the structure of the human body. Man, according to Herder, is organically woven into the life of nature, he is a part of it, but at the same time possesses a number of distinctive features. Its main difference from an animal is the ability to "walk with your head raised." This allowed a person to free his hands, which played a huge role in his struggle for existence and in spiritual improvement. People, Herder argues, in the process of communication created a language, developed a mind, which, in his opinion, unlike instinct, is not given from birth, but is a product of historical development. Ultimately, Herder sees the distinctive quality of man in the fact that he is a rational being, thinking. Humanity is the essence of human nature and the ultimate goal of humanity. However, along with the provisions based on the study of a huge amount of factual material, "Ideas" contain judgments of a mystical nature. Herder, for example, proves at length that humanism can be fully revealed only under conditions of unearthly existence. Hence his dreams of eternal life beyond the ultimate, etc.

Herder in his work gives a detailed description of the historical life of all the peoples of the world known at that time. His historical excursions testify to the author's enormous erudition, although he, naturally, admits inaccuracies caused by the state of historical science in the 18th century. Herder sets himself the task of tracing the reasons for the natural (geographic) and social order of a particular people in the historical arena for their spiritual achievements, the degree of development of literature and art. The most brilliant pages of the Ideas in this regard are devoted to Ancient Greece, which Herder describes as the cradle of human culture. The historical view in Herder's aesthetics is constantly being corrected by the educational ideology. Explaining the originality of the cultural life of a certain people, the thinker never forgets to evaluate it from the point of view of contemporary human interests, which gives his work an actual meaning.

The continuation of Ideas is Letters to Encourage Humanity, where Herder developed his concept on the material of living modernity. In his new work, he wanted to show the irresistible spirit of historical change, the doom of obsolete feudal-monarchical institutions. "Letters" were written in the midst of the revolutionary events in France, which the writer greeted with enthusiasm. True, embarrassed by the decisive actions of the Jacobins (the execution of the king, queen and other inspirers of reaction), Herder later, like many German writers, switched to more moderate socio-political positions, but still his sympathy for the French Revolution never faded, and it had the most direct impact on his assessment of the situation in Germany. In his sermons, Herder spoke sympathetically about the revolutionary French people, which aroused the fierce anger of Duke Karl-August; he directly and sharply condemned the intervention against revolutionary France, which was an act of great civic courage. In the first version of the Letters, Herder openly criticizes the despotism of the German princes, expresses his indignation at their shameful custom of trading in his subjects, advocates the abolition of noble privileges, admires the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, expresses his desire to introduce constitutional orders in his fatherland, etc. rejecting the conjectures of the reactionaries, Herder is firmly convinced that the revolution will lead not to decline, but to the flourishing of artistic creativity.

The musty atmosphere of the Weimar court, Herder's official position (he was the highest cleric in the duchy) did not allow the writer to publish the Letters in their original form. He was forced to significantly soften the radicalism of his judgments. As a result, the essay, while remaining a significant phenomenon in German literature, nevertheless lost its intended political acuteness.

In his last works (Calligona and others), Herder pays much attention to criticism of Kantianism. He does not share Kant's thoughts about the a priori nature of the concepts of time and space, he points to formalism in his aesthetic views. In the fight against weaknesses Kantian aesthetics Herder does not proceed from abstract theoretical motives: he sees what a negative influence it had on Schiller and some other German writers. Herder is worried about the fate of German literature. Hence his ardent desire to prove that the beauty of a work of art is determined not only by its form, as Kant believed, but depends on its content. Herder, as a true enlightener, does not think of beauty in isolation from the good and just. Until the end of his days, he remained a fighter for the art of great humanistic ideas and feelings.

Herder left a deep mark on the history of aesthetic thought. Romantics largely relied on him in their struggle for nationally distinctive creativity, he helped to awaken their interest in folklore. At the same time, studying a person concretely historically, Herder gave impetus to the development of realism. Goethe and other writers of the realistic trend in German literature in the last third of the 18th century trace their "genealogy" from him.

Johann Gottfried von Herder (25 August 1744 - 18 December 1803) is one of the most prominent and influential writers and thinkers in Germany. Herder was born in Morungen, East Prussia. In his early youth, his situation was gloomy and difficult, and he was obliged to get rid of him only to the intervention of one Russian regimental surgeon, who suggested that Herder's father take the young man with him to study surgery in Konigsberg, and from there to Petersburg. Johann Herder arrived in the capital of East Prussia at the end of the summer of 1762, and since he immediately realized that he did not fit the specialty chosen for him by his patron, he enrolled as a student at the theological faculty of the University of Konigsberg. Significant impact on spiritual development young men from university teachers were provided only by Kant, and outside university circles - the "northern magician". IG Hamann (philosopher and ideologist of the literary movement "Storms and Onslaught"). Of the influences exerted on him by extensive and varied reading, the most profound, determining his entire spiritual makeup was the influence of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

The first literary experiments of Johann Gottfried Herder were poems and reviews in the "Konigsberg newspaper"; at the same time, he also had various literary plans. In the fall of 1764, Herder was invited to Riga as a teacher at the cathedral school. Later he was appointed there as a pastor's adjunct at two churches, so he found an important field for activity in this old capital of Livonia, which at that time was still almost completely independent. In these favorable circumstances, Herder began his wide literary career with the articles "Fragments on New German Literature" (Riga, 1766 - 1767) and "Critical Forests" ("Critical Groves") (1769). Pointing out that literary works of all nationalities are determined by the special genius of the nationality and language, complementing the critical research method Lessing his own, genetic, Herder took an independent position in the great ideological struggle of that era. A strong desire for travel and the need to prepare for future major activities prompted Herder to retire in the spring of 1769. In June he embarked on a long journey and visited Paris, and at the end of April 1771 he took up the post of court preacher and councilor of the consistory in Bückeburg.

Johann Gottfried Herder. Portrait by A. Graf, 1785

The time spent in this city was for Johann Gottfried Herder a real period of "storm and onslaught." The talented discourse "On the Origin of Language" (1772), begun by Herder in Strasbourg and awarded by the Berlin Academy, opens a long series of varied works in which he paves and indicates new paths for young literature. Two articles in the flying sheets "From German Art" (Hamburg, 1773) - "On Ossians and songs of ancient peoples "and" About Shakespeare "- as well as the essay" The reasons for the decline of taste in different nations where he previously flourished, ”Herder became at the very center of a movement that sought to regain poetry, breathing true nature, emanating from life and influencing life. In Another Philosophy of History for the Education of Mankind (1774), he declares war on the boastful and fruitless education of the "Enlightenment" era. Even this work aroused the most resolute objections and vicious attacks on Herder. They intensified even more with regard to his theological and semi-theological works: "The most ancient testimony of the human race" (1774 - 76); Explanations to the New Testament from a Newly Discovered Oriental Source (1775) and Fifteen Provincial Letters to Preachers (1774).

Herder negotiated his invitation to the University of Göttingen, but thanks to the friendly efforts of Goethe, in the spring of 1776 he was drafted to Weimar, where his literary activity became even wider and stronger. The process of inner enlightenment, which turned the most prominent representatives of "storm and onslaught" into the main leaders of German classical literature, began in Herder by the end of the 1770s. A very important philosophical discourse “Cognition and sensation human soul... Comments and Dreams "(1778), the work" Plastics "(1778) and the long-time ready-to-print" Folk Songs "(which later Johannes von Müller gave the title" Voices of Peoples in Songs ", 1778 - 79) - were the first works published in light during Herder's stay in Weimar. The discourse "On the influence of poetry on the customs of peoples in old and new times" (1778), awarded by the Munich Academy, provides new evidence that true poetry is the language of feelings, the first powerful impressions, fantasy and passion, and that therefore the action of the language of feelings is universal and to the highest degree naturally - the truth, which at the same time was promoted in wide circles by his "Folk Songs", chosen with great skill and knowledge of literature, vividly felt and partly perfectly translated.

An extremely happy influence on the further spiritual development of Johann Gottfried Herder was the renewal of close relations with Goethe in the early 1780s. In the same period of the 1780s. Herder created almost everything that, with his inner maturity and outer perfection, gave a lasting meaning to his always brilliant work. If "Letters Concerning the Study of Theology" (1780 - 1781) and a number of excellent sermons relate to the office and immediate duties of Herder, then the large, unfinished work "On the Spirit of Jewish Poetry" (1782 - 1783) already represents a transition from theology to poetry and literature. Out of deep sympathy for natural strength, piety and the peculiar beauty of Jewish poetry, a work was created, about which Herder's biographer, R. Haym, says that it "did for the knowledge and understanding of the East what Winckelmann's works did for the study of art and archeology."

In 1785 Herder began publishing his major major work, Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784 - 1791, 4 volumes). It became the fulfillment of his long-standing plan, a broader development of thoughts that he had long expressed in small essays, and at the same time - an energetic collection of all his thoughts and dreams about the nature and life of man, about the cosmic significance of the earth, about the task of those living on it. people "for whom the only purpose of being is directed towards the formation of humanity, which should serve all base earthly needs"; about languages ​​and customs, about religion and poetry, about the essence and development of arts and sciences, about the education of nationalities and about historical events... At the same time, Herder published the collection Scattered Leaves (1785 - 1797), a number of the finest articles and poetic translations. His respect for Spinoza, he expressed in conversations, which he published in 1787 under the title "God".

An important period in the life of Johann Gottfried Herder was the trip to Italy (1788 - 1789). But his state of health improved only temporarily; physical suffering robbed him of his cheerfulness and workforce. The fifth part of the Ideas remained unfinished, and already Letters in Support of Humanity (Riga, 1793 - 1797, 10 collections) bear the color of his darkened spirit. But even during this period he still gives excellent works. The old spirit of Herder is preserved in his Terpsichore (1795), in the Christian Writings (1796 - 1799, 5 collections). On the other hand, in Reason and Experience: Metacritics of the Critique of Pure Reason (1799) and in Calligon (1800), Herder attacks Kant's philosophy and aesthetics with bitterness and without proof. "Adrastea" (1801 - 1803) is full of hidden antics against the beauty and cheerfulness of the poetry of Goethe and Schiller, which he does not recognize, unworthily praising the obsolete and limited. Only a painful physical condition can justify this latest ill-fated turn in his literary career. Herder's physical strength was weakening more and more. The last joy was given to him by the poetic treatment of the Legend, the translation of the cycle of Spanish romances "Sid" and the dramatic works: "The Liberated Prometheus" and "The House of Admet". In 1802 and 1803 Herder went to the waters in Aachen and Egerbrunnen for treatment in the summer. In the fall of 1803, another strong seizure followed. incurable disease liver, and in the winter Johann Gottfried Herder died. On his gravestone in the Weimar city church, the inscription: "Licht, Liebe, Leben" ("light, love, life"). A bronze statue of Herder was erected in front of the church in 1850.

In German literature, Herder is often the author, full of mysteries and contradictions, less even in works than his great contemporaries, but rich, versatile, gifted with the highest inspiration and the deepest power of criticism, abounding in spiritual life and awakening it around him. In transforming German life into late XVIII century he took a more powerful and decisive part than anyone else, and traces of his activities can be found in literature in the narrow sense, and in the special sciences, and in those branches of them that arose on his initiative. Almost all the works of Johann Gottfried Herder reveal an enormous wealth of thoughts, the genius of views and the amazing sensitivity of everything truly poetic. His services are very high as a translator who assimilated and interpreted the spirit of poetry of foreign peoples. Along with "Folk Songs", "Sid", epigrams from the Greek anthology, teachings from the "Garden of Roses" Saadi and a large number of other poems and poetic images, which Herder's receptive spirit carried into German literature, are those oriental stories, paramythia and fables that he uses to put his own moral views and teachings about humanity into retelling. But even higher than the poetic gift of Herder is his prosaic talent: he is at one time a great historian of culture, a philosopher of religion, an esthetician with a keen instinct, a productive critic, a brilliant essayist, and finally, a preacher and orator with rich content in an attractive form.